Art Process

Things I'm working on, thinking about, and processing in one way or another
Fri Sep 25
My "American Beauty" moment

Plastic bag in the wind ftw!

I’ve got a new phone with a proper camera in it and an Internet connection, so I’m going to start posting in here a lot more. However, the posts will often be a lot more inane. I’ll still have updates on my own work, but I’m also going to include anything I find visually or aesthetically interesting. This is a picture of my old phone, which one day decided it could not add or erase contacts. I’ve memorized a lot Of phone numbers and I know which of my friends’ numbers spell out funny phrases.

I’ve got a new phone with a proper camera in it and an Internet connection, so I’m going to start posting in here a lot more. However, the posts will often be a lot more inane. I’ll still have updates on my own work, but I’m also going to include anything I find visually or aesthetically interesting. This is a picture of my old phone, which one day decided it could not add or erase contacts. I’ve memorized a lot Of phone numbers and I know which of my friends’ numbers spell out funny phrases.

I’m not sure if Im going bald or not but I lose a lot of hair in the shower. Lately I’ve been pushing the hair around on the wall and trying to draw with it.

I’m not sure if Im going bald or not but I lose a lot of hair in the shower. Lately I’ve been pushing the hair around on the wall and trying to draw with it.

Wed Jun 10
I’ve been playing around with alternative materials for jewelry making. I recently started making rings out of rubber tubing. It’s funny how quickly they lent themselves to my “usual” aesthetics. The nice thing is that since they’re rubber, the spikes flex and you can wear them without hurting yourself. I’ll be selling some of these at the Downtown Crossing Art Fridays event on the 19th of June. They’re also going to be available at my etsy store.

I’ve been playing around with alternative materials for jewelry making. I recently started making rings out of rubber tubing. It’s funny how quickly they lent themselves to my “usual” aesthetics. The nice thing is that since they’re rubber, the spikes flex and you can wear them without hurting yourself.

I’ll be selling some of these at the Downtown Crossing Art Fridays event on the 19th of June. They’re also going to be available at my etsy store.

Here you can see the progress of the tracing. You can also see a mistake I made, which was to tape up two panels at the same time. They overlapped at the corners, and so instead of transferring the design onto the box, it was transferred onto the tape being used to hold up the other design. My girlfriend here is trying to use the design as a drawing template by cutting the lines out of the tape with an X-Acto, and then redrawing the lines, one section at a time. Very frustrating.

Here you can see the progress of the tracing.

You can also see a mistake I made, which was to tape up two panels at the same time. They overlapped at the corners, and so instead of transferring the design onto the box, it was transferred onto the tape being used to hold up the other design. My girlfriend here is trying to use the design as a drawing template by cutting the lines out of the tape with an X-Acto, and then redrawing the lines, one section at a time. Very frustrating.

Once the design is traced and transferred, the paper is removed. Now the design is visible on the box, but it’s only graphite, which will wash off in the rain and fade in the sun. So the next task is to trace over all of those lines with paint markers. I tried two kinds of paint markers - Sharpie and DecoColor brands. The DecoColors have been much better for this project, as the Sharpies are only good for about 30 lines or so before they start to clog up. DecoColors last at least three times as long. The only trouble is that Sharpies draw a slightly finer line, so I have to use them for some of the more dense and intricate areas.

Once the design is traced and transferred, the paper is removed. Now the design is visible on the box, but it’s only graphite, which will wash off in the rain and fade in the sun. So the next task is to trace over all of those lines with paint markers.

I tried two kinds of paint markers - Sharpie and DecoColor brands. The DecoColors have been much better for this project, as the Sharpies are only good for about 30 lines or so before they start to clog up. DecoColors last at least three times as long. The only trouble is that Sharpies draw a slightly finer line, so I have to use them for some of the more dense and intricate areas.

Once the transfer paper is mounted, the next task is to trace over all of the lines with a pen or pencil so that the lines are in turn transferred onto the surface of the box. This is a rather labor intensive process and took longer than I would’ve expected, partially because it’s difficult to see where you have already traced. In future projects, this problem could be avoided by printing the lines in light grey rather than black. For those who don’t know - carbon transfer paper is the stuff that’s in your checkbooks and receipt books, which allow you to sign things in triplicate. In this case, rather than having a signature transferred onto a pink slip of paper, we’re transferring a drawing onto a metal box. An alternative method of transferring the images, which I considered, might have been to use oil of wintergreen, which can be used to make printer toner detatch from paper and come off on whatever surface it’s touching. The problem is that wintergreen oil is toxic and the process requires a lot of burnishing, which I imagine might have turned into a bit of a nightmare when done on a large scale like this.

Once the transfer paper is mounted, the next task is to trace over all of the lines with a pen or pencil so that the lines are in turn transferred onto the surface of the box. This is a rather labor intensive process and took longer than I would’ve expected, partially because it’s difficult to see where you have already traced. In future projects, this problem could be avoided by printing the lines in light grey rather than black.

For those who don’t know - carbon transfer paper is the stuff that’s in your checkbooks and receipt books, which allow you to sign things in triplicate. In this case, rather than having a signature transferred onto a pink slip of paper, we’re transferring a drawing onto a metal box.

An alternative method of transferring the images, which I considered, might have been to use oil of wintergreen, which can be used to make printer toner detatch from paper and come off on whatever surface it’s touching. The problem is that wintergreen oil is toxic and the process requires a lot of burnishing, which I imagine might have turned into a bit of a nightmare when done on a large scale like this.

The title is “So Much We Ignore”, and it is based on a small watercolor drawing I made about a year ago. The final painting will have several layers, but the basic emphasis of the design is on an interplay between an expanding, angular, geometric structure, and an enveloping, undulating, biomorphic structure. In the original drawing, the geometric structure is almost entirely subsumed by the organic, yet continues to penetrate and expand into any available openings. It is this geometric structure which has taken up all of my time so far. In order to faithfully translate the design onto the surface of this metal utility box, I first created some full-scale computer printouts of the design; one for each side of the box. I then spray-mounted carbon transfer paper to the underside, and taped the whole design up onto the box.

The title is “So Much We Ignore”, and it is based on a small watercolor drawing I made about a year ago. The final painting will have several layers, but the basic emphasis of the design is on an interplay between an expanding, angular, geometric structure, and an enveloping, undulating, biomorphic structure. In the original drawing, the geometric structure is almost entirely subsumed by the organic, yet continues to penetrate and expand into any available openings.

It is this geometric structure which has taken up all of my time so far. In order to faithfully translate the design onto the surface of this metal utility box, I first created some full-scale computer printouts of the design; one for each side of the box. I then spray-mounted carbon transfer paper to the underside, and taped the whole design up onto the box.