the latest ideas

this one will be brief, especially since i haven't actually made anything that relates to any of these ideas yet. they're brewing though and there will soon be an explosion of creative merry making that will completely take over every square inch of workable space in our house. poor cj - he desires so badly to live in a modern, pristine environment. i'm packrat and becoming worse at my house keeping skills as my time to make far exceeds my desire to clean up the house or clear off the dining room table.....

so first, i've been really wanting to incorporate letterpress into my drawings. the idea of combining multiple processes in each drawing is alluring to me to no end. every drawing starts with a hand-drawn image, then digitally comes to life with color, and finally are printed digitally.....but something is lost in the digital "outputting"....i'm a texture girl. sculptor by trade and way too many years of education and student loans repayment ahead of me to throw it all away for flatness. so letterpress seems like an interesting solution.

i met a most helpful and patient letterpressman (?) who runs dependable letterpress here in the city. he guided me through the process involved with non-text printing and suggested that i just take a class. of course, i had entertained the idea prior to meeting with him, but i wanted to know more about it before i signed up for a workshop that in the end, wasn't what i was looking for. on the contrary, i think it's exactly what i need to do and what i love about it is the incorporation of digital technology with a most exquisite and archaic craft. anyway, it's called photopolymer letterpress and it really lends itself to drawings. i'm ecstatic and counting down the days til the class which i'll be taking at the center for the book .

so preceeding that workshop, our little mom's group teh motherloded, is doing our own little workshop on gocco printing. another woman in our group is struggling with the digital aesthetic as well. i've been thinking about eliminating digital printing all together, but screen-printing doesn't entice my sensibilities. gocco - a notoriously simple and space-efficient screenprinting process has quite a different effect. so i'm thinking about multi-layered/colored prints, topped off with a layer of letterpress - probably the thicker black line drawing or the more finite lines that accentuate the edges.

i'm also entertaining ideas of sewing and textile printing. gocco-ing on fabric and finishing with an outline of thread, done with a machine, and lots of loose strings. i'm not certain about how to frame them or mount them yet, but just busting out the sewing machine would be a miracle and i'm sure i'll have lots of time to think about framing and mounting while i'm wracking my brain as to how to use the machine. surprising (to me) i made a lot of my clothes in jr high and highschool. i kind of suck at sewing by hand and my level of finish was never something to brag about. if i could combine my stylistic sewing abilities with the overall aesthetic of the drawing, then that could be interesting.

ahhh, what else. i feel like i'm missing something. ...oh, my newest friend kathryn clark. her work is exquisite and inspiring. she's an amalgam of eva hesse, ann hamilton and robin seloover (an old friend with the same delicate approach to her work). ironically, kathryn and i met through our motherlode group, her daughter is the same age as my oldest and we definitely hit it off. seeing her work and her studio kept up 2 nights in a row with dreams of an organized workspace, and a forgotten yearning to get back into knitting. she's invited me to take part in another group of artist/moms who's objective is based on drawing projects. i just received the 1st assignment which is to sketch from the refrigerator/freezer everyday until we meet in late september. all drawings are to be 4"x4" and dated. i'm excited and am hoping that i will find a new appreciation for my fridge/freezer..... i'll post the drawings in the days to come.

enough for now.

repeat, repeat, repeat

months back i read a totally inspiring post on design sponge (which, btw has the coolest diy projects). julia rothman gave a great detailed guide to creating repeat patterns, which of course i delved into immediately. follow this link to julia's awesome guide through the process.

since getting back into the studio, i've been almost obsessed with using the same drawing in as many applications as possible. i guess i just like to re-work things a million times until i'm either sick of it or have taken it to a point that i'm actually afraid i'll really destroy it if i touch it again.

when i began to work on the repeat project, i opted to use the originals, which meant cutting them apart and reassembling them. i then, digitally scanned each one and reassembled them as a repeat using photoshop. i've done some touching up, but for the most part the final repeat still needs some fine tuning.

here it goes:



one





two






three


that'll probably do for now. hopefully i won't walk into target and see these on a set of sheets...

anyway, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. i've got a lot of ideas regarding color and other such options for finishing them. i'll save that for another post. it only took me 2 months to get this one up :)

daisyjanie - a seller on etsy, co-writer/founder of scoutiegirl and amazing textile designer has essentially captured my dream of printing my drawings on fabric and then creating a more utilitarian object with the fabric - such as handbags, which she does - and they are gorgeous. i have taken the month off from etsy as far as updating my store and re-listing items - just to see what happens. so far, i've had hardly any traffic through the store, however have actually had a few people "heart" me (which aside from the term, is actually a very cool way to find other artists of like mind and such). ironically, daisyjanie "hearted me" most recently and my heart skipped a beat with excitement. woo hoo.

grizzled construct

so i'm not sure why i chose to use the colors i did for this drawing, and though i made a few different versions in other color ranges, nothing really appealed to me. frankly, i don't really like this drawing, i do like what became of it. my eye in constantly focusing on the 3 lines that run off the edge on the upper right side and then the bottom areas and their small, narrow spaces.

i cropped it and flipped and reproduced it with taking away most of the color and continued repeating those things until i came up with a variety of layers that include or exclude color. transparency plays a huge role in giving the piece depth and filling in the gaps, so to speak.

i don't really have a story fro this piece, however, the image on the right side is reminescent of a boy or a soldier. having 2 boys and the imminent possibility that one day they may decide to become soldiers is a thought that chills me to the bone.

or maybe, and most likely, it's simply the incessant argument-conversation with z about the necessity of his wearing a helmet when he skateboards....i doubt he'll become a soldier, he's way too argumentative and stubborn - even for a 3 yr old (i mean "almost 4 yr old"). d will do whatever his brother does so, hence the ongoing argument-conversation.

caterpillar crash

butterflitic retrospect:

so i think this piece was inspired by the butterfly habitat i ordered for one of the many birthday parties z was invited to back in may. i never imagined having to come up with 6 gifts for 5 yr olds - but thankfully, amazon.com came through and i ended up ordering a plethora of paper airplane kits and 1 butterfly habitat - which we kept. what a cool gift and not just for kids, i think cj and i have been more interested in it than the kids. anyway....a long story short, you order the habitat when you recieve it you send away for the caterpillars which come in a little jar and for the next week or so, you watch 5 little minis voraciously feed on the mysto-waxy food that lines the bottom of the jar. just like "the very hungry caterpillar" story by eric carle, the caterpillars quadruple in size in just like 5 days - it's crazy! cool, but crazy (this is why it's perfect for a child's 5 minute attn span). anyway, so after a week or so, they build their chrysalis' and hang from the lid of the jar for like another week or 10 days. you remove the lid and pin it and it's hanging bundles to the habitat wall and wait.....

unfortunately, our first batch died mysteriously...they all grew and then when it came time to build their coccoons, only one succeeded, but he fell off the lid and died, i guess. so to avoid difficult questions and unnerving disappointment, we ordered some more caterpillars and these were successful and are now sitting in their butterfly habitat, eating sugar-water on lisianthus flowers as we wait for the outside temps to exceeed 65 degrees (though it only needs to be 55, it's been dropping below that at night - so we're playing it safe). the butterflies are painted ladies and they are beautiful. they are quite friendly too and i much enjoy feeding them and letting them crawl on my arms as i do so.... what i didn't know about caterpillars as they're feeding and preparing for the next phase, they spin webs all around themselves and seem to use the webs to climb. they also are pretty comfortable with climbing on each other.

the inside of the jar becomes pretty webby and sort of messy as they molt and do what normal living things do when they eat a bunch of food, though it's difficult to differentiate food from other stuff as the food gets granulated.

the sides of the jar and the lid become covered with webs and once they molt into a butterfly are left with a piece of tissues paper and 5 empty coccoons, covered in webs....

here's a link to the store: http://www.insectlore.com/

incre-mental again

maybe i need to start thinking up other names just for blogging sake, to keep it all straight. the concept is this...incorporate a part of the original line drawing's title. be true, stick to it. it works...i think. and then i think the time of day that i work in my studio is also reflected, unintentionally.

the line drawing

ahhh, okay, so multiple versions of the same chunk. oooh. a light bulb just flashed. see below for note to self/another duh moment.

ok, i lied in the previous posting about not replicating the black and white thing. here it is, not so minimalistic, but then this is not that kind of piece.

simple, simple...

this is an example of one of those haphazard moments where it is what it is. i don't know what happened, but alone i hate it. not alone, don't hate it.

the 3rd layer repeated and twisted about

"nighttime infusion"

metamorphic recitation

this line drawing, once colorized became "sapphire in bloom". i wasn't happy with it, at all really and removed it from my shop but then i started to work on because i like the circles in the little circles and once i started fussing with it, i changed my mind about it completely.

here it is as "metamorphic recitation". i reminds me molting winged insects. there are 3 versions of it where the black lined-layer is closer or further from the surface:

incremental infusion

my husband prefers the the final "twilight infusion" to some of my more chaotic pieces. i'm partial to the busier stuff, i feel myself getting sucked into the chaos - which is sort of indicative of my personality and life. i love drama....

incremental infusion was started on our last road trip to grandma and grandpa's in orange county. usually i drive, but at about dusk, i give up the wheel and let cj take over. this time i gave in before my eyes started crossing and actually was able to start a nice group of drawings which kept me busy for about month following our return.

and then there was color....

i'm not sure how this part happened, but i've been trying to re-create it with each new drawing. it's never been the same.

this is taken from the top left side, twice and rotated.

"twilight infusion"

circumstantial oxidation

here is accumulated proposition in another series as it becomes circumstantial oxidation....

in this drawing i used more than one cropped area.

the original

this little chunk is taken from the lower middle right side and inverted. color fills in the spaces between the lines.

taken from the same area, but from the left side.the colors and transparency levels are manipulated.

the bluish-white parts are a combination of the previous 2 layers, and the color is muted and turned monochromatic . this part is taken from just below the previous 2 layers.

the final drawing.

drawings, panels, drawings

so the project that has been consuming all of my awake and quiet moments (which are rare, but they do exist) is the drawing series that i've been broadcasting across my store on etsy, my table on poppytalk and in my modish ad. when i started to draw again, early this year, i found myself filling my sketchbooks with my usual web-like drawings. pages upon pages....doodles upon doodles.

i started to play around with the drawings in illustrator and photoshop, to clean 'em up a bit and discovered a whole new world of toys with the new adobe suite. unbelievable tools, things that just make a girl giggle - and probably a boy too. now it is important to state, if i haven't already done so somewhere else, that i NEVER thought i would be working digitally. i am a dirty hands on kind of girl and that's the way i've always been. i also say NEVER all too frequently, as i almost ALWAYS end up doing just what i said i would NEVER do. ALWAYS. my husband laughs and secretly loves it, though his initial response is irritation. he loves it. so i never would have thought that i would use photoshop or illustrator for anything more than designing cards, fliers, etc. now, i'm hooked. i can actually create drawings similarly to the way i made drawings with ink, encaustic and pigments. the results are almost identical - minus the texture, and the need for a nice big open space to create such works. which brings me to my next minor point about my limited studio space right now.

since the birth of the z, who will be 4 in october, my studio has gradually gotten smaller and smaller, to the point of which it's at now. i've got a collapsible system in which i build tables pretty quickly when i need to work on the panels. i laminate and trim the drawings at the dining room table, and when they're ready for filing and sealing i return them downstairs and then prep them for finishing. it's a multi-step process, which works out well with the space i've got. one day i will again have a nice little private space . but for now, i'm doing the best with what i got and fortunately cj is keeping the computer technology working perfectly.

so back to the process: each final drawing includes anywhere between 3 and 7 layers of drawings. all of which are the same ink drawing - actually the drawing i use is cropped down a part of the original larger drawing - more abstracted. a tool i always loved to introduce my beginning drawing students to was to take a slide mount and use it to crop down what ever subject they were using to draw. i apply the same principal to my own drawings, though i use a digital marquee that is always proportionately the same throughout each replicated version.
Here's the Acumulated Propagation as it becomes Preciptous Retreat:

this is the original drawing

same drawing, but the black lines and white spaces are colorized

this is the cropped image from the top part of the original black and white

this is the first collage of the previous images. the colors and lines are tweaked, deleted and enhanced with adjustments to the opacity

and again, a variation

and finally...Precipitous Retreat.

so that sums it up. i am hoping to do a few more of these because i think it's good for my own reference - and of course i'm thinking about years from now, to look back and see what i was making and how.....