Tuesday, June 22, 2010
I had to go see what I had already posted. My topo/puzzle idea came to life when I received Lynn's puzzle pieces. We had talked about keeping the individual images simple and I was pleased with her choice of imagery. Lynn will be pleased to know that the rat transplant went without a hitch (perhaps she can further explain that one!).
Just to refresh, we had gone with the theme urban/rural and how somehow we work things out with natural things when we live on the edge of a city (as Lynn does) or smack in the middle but with an acre of desert "elbow-room" as I do. On a bigger scale, of course, every city in Nevada deals with the issue of sprawling into the habitat of the few and hardy creatures with whom we share our beloved desert.
In any case, with Lynn's images in place, I started sketching in PhotoShop again. I wanted to keep the topo colors and somehow bring out the positive concept of sharing among urban/rural, rather than some of the more negative connotations that come to mind. I decided to add some urban elements since Lynn's critters pretty much took care of the rural part, and after some mulling and browsing, settled on semaphores (traffic lights for US folk :-). The "traffic lights" I picked had a hint of primitive symbols and, rendered in the topo colors, blend in quite nicely without losing meaning. Caution and courtesy, please, when urban and rural meet...
In any case, with Lynn's images in place, I started sketching in PhotoShop again. I wanted to keep the topo colors and somehow bring out the positive concept of sharing among urban/rural, rather than some of the more negative connotations that come to mind. I decided to add some urban elements since Lynn's critters pretty much took care of the rural part, and after some mulling and browsing, settled on semaphores (traffic lights for US folk :-). The "traffic lights" I picked had a hint of primitive symbols and, rendered in the topo colors, blend in quite nicely without losing meaning. Caution and courtesy, please, when urban and rural meet...
The computer is really a luxury when it comes to "sketching" and I don't use it often enough to develop my imagery. When I do, I find it most exciting to change imagery, save stages, tweak elements of design here and there, change color schemes...luxury!
I even changed the "paper" several times to see what the image would look like printed on various choices. Here is the almost-to-be-final image. I need to let it gel for a couple of days and then it should only be about another week or two for carving and printing. My Valley of Fire show concludes next week and I should be able to dedicate myself to this project fully and finish printing by the second week of July.
The sketch, reversed as it will be in print, a little messy in PhotoShop but will clean up and simplify nicely when printed because the woodcut process tends to do that. I think the colors will work well to represent both the topo features and the red/yellow/green of the traffic symbols. The "city grids" will probably also be finer and cleaner in line when cut on wood.
Comments welcomed!
Let's catch up on progress. I carved my half of Lynn's block for Lynn and sent back to her a little while back.
This is what it looks like, more or less. The top part was already carved and I (I think as usual) finished the bottom to complete the "narrative". It's a PhotoShop rendition of what I was going to carve but close enough to life.
Lynn is going to print using some color but I will let her tell you all about that. The picture of the block as carved below.
With that responsibility completed, I moved on to my block. Next post explains the process.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Hey Everyone,
Just some updates for everyone. Hope all is going well in print land and that eveyone is doing well in getting their 20 print edition done for August 1st. We had a change in plans for the writer of our project... Jim McCormick was unable to do the writing component of the Geo. project, so we asked Fred Sigman to step in for the job. For those of you who don't know Fred, he is an accomplished photographer, art historian and art critic. I had the pleasure of working with him at CSN while he was our Art Historian, specializing in Tribal and Asian art studies. He is a long-time Nevadan, with ties to artists throughout the state.
He has requested contact information for all participants and will probably be giving many of you a call to talk with you and discuss your work.
We are glad to welcome Fred and his voice in this exciting project.!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Things are quietly moving along with our happy creation. As you know, we chose to do something along the lines of the dichotomy between rural and urban, generally speaking.
Lynn lives on the outskirts of the city and enjoys rural views from her urban digs. Maria lives smack in the middle of the city (formerly the outskirts!) in an acre with plenty of "elbow room" between neighbors, neatly simulating a tiny rural environment.
Anyhow, Lynn is in possession of my puzzle blocks and I am about done carving my part on my own block, plus the four pieces. I might do a color background on the...er, background, but that is to be decided.
In the meantime, I received Lynn's block, neatly carved with a variety of interesting images and shapes.
This is a proof of the block, with my "blank canvas" at the bottom. I really liked the roof shapes and the shape of the vegetation-divider in the middle of the image, so I decided to replicate them.Since I don't often sketch except right on the block, I had to revise the way I work. I took this very picture into Photoshop and proceeded to doodle on the bottom with my trusty graphic tablet pen.
I wanted those very interesting shapes to tie in my design and Lynn's so I simply copied and pasted some of her shapes with some stretching and replicating and mirror imaging and all that is possible with PS.
I find that looking at images very small on the computer screen helps balance compositions and blacks and whites. Also help in color schemes.
Lynn's rooftops became my mountains, the little house in the middle of the desert was "stolen" from Lynn's housing complex, the horses shrunk to fit the scale, and the bushes flipped and distorted to fill in the foreground and balance the blacks.
After a few days of looking at the thing, I came up with three very close versions of what I wanted to do. Since Lynn chose to depict the urban environment with a little "rurality" for contrast, I chose to do just the opposite. Here are my sketches, you can play "find the differences" if you like. We decided on No.3 and I'm carving today as soon as I get off this chair.
The carving begins!
Friday, April 23, 2010
North vs. South Nevada
Northern Nevada with its riches of gold, culture and history likes to think it is so far ahead of the Southern end of the state. Upon closer examination however, the bulk of Nevada’s population is in the South giving it ever increasing political and financial power.
Las Vegas and Clark County are represented here by a neon sign of a milkman, a symbol of life giving power. He is exiting stage right with the milk money, leaving the symbols of mining, culture, history and even wild horses in a cloud of dust.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Hi Lynn!
Here is the GRAND PLAN!!!
This is the BRAINSTORM
I wanted to do something with our idea of the dichotomy between rural and urban.
So I thought of maps and how our respective cities are representative of that concept. Cities in the desert are sort of like islands in the ocean, separated by a vast expanse of impassable terrain.
I dug up some topo maps and fell in love with that “spine” and decided to use as a separator, symbolic of the rugged desert ocean that lies between us.
Now, here’s the grand plan! ARE YOU READY??!
Today I am going to reinforce the design in permanent marker, this “sets” the concept on the block and gets me ready for carving. Then I will stain the block and let it dry to make it easy to see the carving.
NEXT! Comes the jig saw…
I am going to cut all those 8 “city” pieces out and scramble them so that our designs will either be in the north or south free to co-mingle with each other in a random way. You will get four and I will get four. They may end up together or separated, north or south.
Your MISSION, should you wish to accept it…is to design and carve four little scenes representative of our overall theme: rural/urban.
The pieces are about 4-5 inches wide or smaller and I will mark which way is UP on the back so you can orient your designs accordingly. Obviously working small will restrict detail and they really can be very simple, in fact preferably so. For example, one of mine I will carve a simple native American symbol representing a map/route, another will be a figure of a woman cross legged taking in the desert, another I may do a little skyline of the Strip merging into mountains, etc.
Once I receive your pieces and carve my pieces I will assemble the puzzle and print.
The background will be very light topo-like. The “spine” I will develop more in a three state reduction to resemble a topo map and its wonderful markings (I may have to carve a separate block). Our pieces will print over a very light background of yellowish/green. Once I get your pieces back I may carve some additional lines on them to integrate them with the background so they don’t look separated from the rest of the design.
Sounds crazy, I know, but these puzzle prints WORK! And they ROCK!
Any questions? Comments? I’m warming up the jigsaw…vrrrm vrrrm vrrrrrrrrm…
Maria
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