School days :)

OK- so going back to school... FUN!
(But first let's start with a gratuitous puppy picture of my doggies snoozing on the passenger seat of my car.)
Really, this is great. At this age, I am not partying, not dating and not hooking up. I have a regular sleep schedule, a lovely bed, I eat real food regularly and enjoy all sorts of other things younger college students don't. It makes the work load so much easier! Easier might have something to do with the intense project load I kept up with in work too... but I am having fun. (Except for the random moaning and whinging about expository essays. Essays at 35 years old! Give me something to analyze or a design presentation any day. Ok, enough whining.)
My program is called Arts and Religious Practice. (Evergreen doesn't do many individual classes. We take one program all quarter and get credits in multiple disciplines.) The Arts bit is in both Printmaking and Fine Metals studios with two very organized and focused instructors.
Printmaking So far we have focused on relief printmaking from woodcuts and intaglio from copper engraving. Here is a picture of one of my burins (engraving tool) plus some scrap copper for practicing. The close up of the practice piece and tip of the burin shows you how much more practice I need! These things make itsy teensy little scratches, but they all show up in the printing. The bottom picture is a print of a sample plate about the same size as this plate. Circles are hard! (I may just be stealing hubby's magnifier Ott-lite for that, but don't tell him.) We are just getting to the hard line etching now and aquatint is soon. Somehow, we are already past mid-term! Lots of bits & pieces in the portfolio for that one.
Metals The fine metals studio is non-ferrous stuff, nothing with iron, no steel. We work with mostly copper and brass and silver solder and fun stuff like that. I don't have any pictures of my samples in there yet, but soon. My current project is a copper spindle whorl- I have high hopes for it turning out nice & shiny. And usable.
So I guess since I am making things I will have to start taking pictures of them for here, now that I am past the simple, sampled not very attractive stuff, that is. Maybe I will post a picture of my first project from metals, a nameplate. Or not. This program is lots of work, lots of fun!
There is not much quilt-y or weaver-y. But I have a plan for that too. Maybe I will post pictures of that too. (Hey- Anything can happen! I posted in less than 2 months this time!)