The handsome birds in this photo have been raised by my son and daughter-in-law on their 10-acre farm in Castle Rock. How convenient for my drawing group that I happened to have good reference material for a Thanksgiving-themed drawing project.
It was delightful to see how we each interpreted, with pencil on paper, the proudly displaying Tom. My two drawing partners prefer to "remain anonymous" so their names are not given.
An overall graphite coating on the paper provided a ground for the drawing of this tom. Erasing all the pale parts of the turkey reveal a softly toned bird. This is becoming a signature drawing style for this artist!
Pencil, gel pen, and watercolor pencils were used in this drawing. To my eye, there's a charming, early American quality to the finished image. This tom may appear with calligraphy on place cards for Thanksgiving dinner next week.
Here is my pencil sketch which I transferred to a Safety-Kut block, shown below. I'll post an image of the final print after I complete the carving and experiment with the printed images.
The drawing was reversed before being transferred to the block so that the final print will be oriented like the drawing.
Here's a finished print. I used Danie
l Smith black oil based relief printing ink so that I could tint the print with watercolor when the ink was dry. The image is 4"x4".
Jocelyn Curry 
Leave a comment