Image by lisa anchin

I just started working with the Forward on a new, bimonthly column called InsideOut. Penned by Judy Brown, the essays are wonderfully written pieces about life as a Hasidic woman and about Judy’s very personal process of leaving the community. My work will appear alongside her pieces every two weeks — each month, one article in print and a second online.

The first piece appears in print this week, and I wanted to share a bit about my process. As with the last piece I did with the Forward, the medium and process are different from my children’s work.

My favorite part of the process is the initial brainstorming. After reading the article, I sat down and worked my way through a stack of computer paper trying out ideas. Here are a handful that I sent in:

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Each sketch dealt with similar ideas – being/looking/feeling different from or at odds with the surrounding crowd – but each had a slightly different emphasis. And, yes, I did send in that last “sketch” (I do use the term veeery loosely), but rest assured, I also sent in notes with those indecipherable chicken-scratch pencil lines.

After some discussion with the folks at the Forward, we agreed that the image that worked best was the woman in front of the pantyhose display.

Once we settled on an image, I blew the rough sketch up to about 11×17, firmed up the sketch directly onto my good paper, and taped it to my board.

And then it was time to start adding ink, until I had something that I was satisfied with.

Once I was happy with the ink, I pulled the image off the board and scanned it into the computer. For this piece, I cheated a little bit. Rather than hand letter the packaging, writing “Beige” 64 times, I did it once and then copy and pasted it.

Thank you Photoshop!

Next step, color! The most important color for this piece was clearly the beige of the stockings. It took me a while to find a tone that I liked, but after that, the rest was easy. Ta da!

To see Lisa Anchin’s entire post, go to her blog

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