Yousif is a student I’ve worked with two times now to help him realize sculptures of the poet Mahmoud Darwish and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. I love helping people realize their creative dreams.
Rittenhouse Square Fine Art Show's 5 O'clock Club
The Making of Encounter
A little about the process and story of making my sculpture: Encounter, which is currently for sale and on view at the Wolf Conservation Center.
Bighorn Sheep modeling process
Modeling a BigHorn Sheep
Studio Tour with Venture Cafe June 18, 2020
I was excited for the opportunity to share some of my work and studio with the Venture Cafe community. If you missed it, enjoy the recording above. Feel free to ask me questions or make comments.
Constructing a Head
Video of the process of making a head with no model, 1st session.
Updated version of Process video for Chimpanzee sculpture
Thank you Polytek Development Corp for their generous donation of the rubber and to Save the Chimps for their inspiring work to provide permanent sanctuary for the lifelong care of chimpanzees rescued from research laboratories and retired from the entertainment industry and the pet trade
Photography Freelance Website
I spent some time going through hard drives and assembling a website to display my photo freelance work. I love doing this work, so please contact me with any questions or needs for photography.
for more, check out: https://colleenrudolf.mypixieset.com/
Process of making my chimpanzee sculpture/Reciprocity
Not quite complete, but getting there.
What you Need to Know When Buying Prints
It’s the holiday season, a time to celebrate those you love and potentially give them tangible gifts. Obviously I’m biased, but I believe giving an original art piece is a great way to brighten someone’s day. As an artist, I know a lot of love goes into the making of my work, and somehow the idea of that love getting passed along makes it all the better. *A great book on this subject is The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde.
A couple of years back, I worked for Silicon Fine Art Printing where we would make prints for artists all the time. Coupling that with my experience in other printmaking techniques like woodcut, lithography, intaglio, and silkscreen, I am familiar with the specifics of the printmaking world, so it was only natural that I’d offer prints of my work. I myself have purchased prints from artists when prices of originals are just a little above what I can afford.
So with that in mind, I thought it could be helpful to share some information when it comes to purchasing prints from artists.
Editions: This refers to the total number of identical prints created. Editions can be limited and range in number from 5-100 or they can be open, or unlimited. Each print in an edition is signed and numbered by the artist and is the guarantee that only a certain number will exist, ever (if the edition is limited). This explains why editions that are smaller are often more expensive as there will be fewer that exist in the world. Also good to note here that different sized prints of the same imagery will be considered separate editions.
There is also the Artist’s Proof, or AP which is the first print that’s “fit to pull” and serves as the point of reference for which all other prints have to match to be included in the edition.
Processes: There are many methods of printmaking. Woodcut, or relief, is when wood, or sometimes linoleum, is carved into, creating depressions so that when you roll ink onto the surface, where you’ve removed material remains “uninked” and therefore doesn’t transfer when you press paper onto the surface. Intaglio is a process, usually on zinc or copper plates, where similarly, you are carving with tools to scratch the surface or using a variety of acid washes to etch the surface of the plate. Lithography I always thought was the most magical of the processes. Now they have plates, but when I learned we used limestone blocks which we had to sand down by hand after each print and use a special cart to lift and move around. Using grease crayons and tusche washes you made your drawing on the stone. Once complete, you etched the surface using acid suspended in gum arabic. Different strengths were used depending on the tonality of the drawing. Once that process was complete, you washed away your drawing!!!!! Then, when you inked the stone up, your drawing would magically reappear. Ok, it’s not actually magic, but it definitely was exciting. Silkscreen was the method I was exposed to most recently where you can use a combination of stencils and photo sensitive screens to expose drawings or photographs.
So there you have it, a very brief intro to printmaking. Here’s to a wonderful holiday season. Peace and Love :)
My ode to Autumn
We are getting some fall colors down in the Philadelphia region now. It definitely makes driving better, as along the route there are moments where the otherwise monotonous road landscape is punctuated by beauty. And today as I was driving, I thought about how this last burst of vibrant color is happening before the tree goes dormant for the winter, that the colors are an indicator of a future rebirth. And in some ways it feels like permission to go inward with the hope of beginning again.
PSPCA Bark & Wine Event
This year, I was asked to make drawings for the PSPCA’s annual benefit. There were 12 drawings in total, representing dogs, cats, horses and a bunny.
It was a request that I took very seriously, considering that my work as a volunteer at the PSPCA several years ago was the experience that inspired me to make animal portraits, and subsequently create Portraits by Colleen. Encouraging understanding and compassion of and for these creatures will forever remain a mission. Creating their portraits is one way to highlight each of their individual lives and personalities.
A process video of drawing one of the 2019 drawings.
Images from Portraits By Colleen from over the years.
Process: Texture
Most of the time, I prefer the surfaces of my sculptures to be raw, rough, energized…..wild. I consider smoothing things out, but in general, I’m more interested, excited by and curious about chaotic surfaces.
With the Chimpanzee sculpture, I hadn’t decided how to treat the surface. They are hairy creatures, so how can I allude to that without describing each hair in a regimented and organized way? Today I played with markmaking. We will see if it sticks. So far, I am liking it.
Sculpture Walk
Exciting things happening at Rowan College at Burlington County, where I teach a Sculpture class.
Matador and Bull continues
Drawing continued
The drawing continues….adding more tones, beginning to shape the forms.
Drawing process
The beginning of a new drawing.
Skin of the Sole
Solo show at the Fairmount House November 2018
The Making of Encounter
Red River Gorge, Kentucky
For my birthday this year, I took a fall climbing trip. October is recognized for its ideal temperatures and being that a year had gone by since I last climbed outside, it was time. I have only been down to the Red River Gorge on two other occasions and its appeal lingered in my memory. Located in Kentucky, the gorge provides an enormous amount of climbing surrounded by rolling fields, woods and farmland. There are around 38 people who live in Slade and approximately 13,237 who live in surrounding Powell County. The rock of the Red River Gorge draws both a national and international climbing crowd. I’m interested in how a place as random and seemingly isolated as Slade, KY can provide opportunity for these disparate populations to intersect. At a gas station stop on the drive down, I apologized to a man for my truck door that was open and blocking his way, and his response was “I a’int in no hurry.”
Beyond the embrace of a slower pace, I felt nourished by spending 8+ hours a day outside, surrounded by trees and rock. My 14 year old dog Dooey got to join us this time and cheered us on as we all took turns getting exhilarated on juggy, thuggy climbing as well as scared on tiny and thin delicate slab. When it was quiet, you could hear the faint sound of the oil drills among the brushing leaves and bird calls.
For some reason, perhaps because there isn’t much industry nearby, the development at the RRG has been slow, especially in contrast to the speed I witness here in Philadelphia. The wild and seemingly untouched land is not without its human influence, but there is the sense that the natural part still outweighs the human part, that the rock has been the quiet bystander while all these climbers have come and gone, while different geologic periods have come and gone. Thank you Kentucky, for sharing your bounty with me, a northern, impatient city slicker.