Work 1: in Progress

Beginning with this image:



I traced the image in Photoshop Elements and began to manipulate it, rotating and repeating it to create this design:



After several more repetitions of the pattern above, I repeated the process with the original photograph to include color and additional detail:



My next step is going to be a drawing of the bird in the original photo. I will also probably include another layer of designs from another photograph, and alter the width and possibly color of the lines.

The symbols within the work are:
Bird: messengers of heaven, fertility, fulfillment of wishes, good harvest
Green: renewal, freshness, hope, victory of life over death
Brown: earth
Tree: strength, renewal, creation, unity, growth, eternal life
Leaves: immortality, eternal/pure love, strength, persistence
Nets: containing of knowledge, motherhood, giving life

Doodles

Here are a couple "doodles" I did in photoshop. Sketches for modular designs, if you will.





They aren't as refined as I'd like, being done with a mouse rather than a tablet, but the gist can be seen. These took about 15-20 minutes and are from the same photograph (my personal image). By hand, they probably would take at least a few hours to get the same number of squares (4). I'm beginning to think more and more that I'll need to invest in a cheap desktop, large monitor, photoshop CS5 and Illustrator CS5, if only to help preserve my sanity.

quasi update

Sketchbook: 78-88% complete! Huzzah!

I'm working on the artists research as Word and Excel documents, so I'll get around to uploading that information either this week or this weekend.

Pieces: two modular designs 50% finished, sketches for elements of other modular designs, sketches of potential applications of the finished modulars, and a mock-up of a 3D modular work 20% finished. Photos to be added when the internet is less flaky.

To Dos

Where has the summer gone? I've finished the required museum visits, but I'm far from satisfied. I'll probably have to go to DC again this weekend or next week and get some more research in. Find some more artists to research, etc. Between the 50 artists and the full sketchbook, to say I'm having troubles would be a massive understatement. At least I figured out early on that my concept- or at least my medium- wouldn't work out. I'll probably have to set up my old computer and CS2 and fiddle around a bit, but I've been putting it off because my room gets unbearable during the day. I'd really love to be able to get into the studios at NVCC, since I tend to have 2-3 hours to kill between my morning and afternoon classes Monday and Wednesday, and I've been itching to do some printmaking. Cest la vie.

Museum Visits: Check
Works: ~1/3-5

Doubts and Musing on Concept

I suppose it's better to be having doubts now than later. I haven't been satisfied with the few pysanky I've actually produced so far, and I'm becoming daunted by the level of skill this would actually require- that I don't yet have. And then, a frightening thought occurred to me: If I don't do the pysanky, what will I do? I've been thinking about this for about a week now, and I'm starting to form some possible alternate ideas.

- modular designs (pysanky inspired- modernizing traditional designs)
- modulars and batiks (ibid)
- printed modulars (etchings + watercolor? litho? woodcut?)
- print + drawn modulars + batik
- modulars + batik + costume design*
- wax as a medium/link between mediums: ie. pysanky, batik, wax-resist painting/ceramic, lost-wax sculpture/jewelry, encaustic*
- batik + costume + ink/paint sketches*
- re-purposing materials (glass dress, etc)*

* (requires more thought on actual production and/or additional theme)

I want to work with something I feel comfortable enough in my skills to experiment without loss of quality. I've always felt strength in design, and in sewing, and I want to incorporate things I learned last semester in Costuming if possible. Batik is something I feel comfortable working with; the dying process is similar to pysanky, and I found it a fair bit easier than working with eggs. I also think that woodcuts are a potential double-tool: I can use them to produce variations of the modular designs relatively easily, and I can use woodcut blocks as stamps to create batik patterns in addition to free-hand designs. (Heck, maybe I could even try literally printing on fabric, rather than paper.)

I went to the Freer Gallery in DC today, and stumbled upon a show in the walkway between it and the Sackler Gallery. It was a collection of prints by Whistler, mainly architectural "sketches" of Amsterdam and Venice. One of the signs talked about how Whistler experimented with different types of papers, methods, etc until he was satisfied. And at this moment, I find myself thinking more and more that a little experimentation might help. I've been so focused on techniques and designs, and I've honestly wanted to chuck my sketchbook across the room in frustration. I think the pysanky concept, while potentially interesting, is not the best choice for such a relatively short period of time. It's something I'll have to work on over several years.

For now, I'm going to keep sketching, taking photos, and thinking.

Update

I've been working mostly on designs and concepts this week. I have one pattern for a modular design down, and I've been doing a fair bit of research on symbols. This particular design is comprised of a stylized grain pattern, crosses and stars, with meanders. It's just black and white for now as a design. I might do it on a brown egg, however, for more of an earthy feel- if I use it for the egg and the painting, that is. Maybe substitute dark green for the black. I'm not quite sure.

I've also been trying to think of how exactly I'm going to go about my concept. Whether it will be an egg and a painting with different designs to represent the same idea (ex. harvest vs mass-production-processed-food?), eggs and modular designs abstracted from the egg design, traditional eggs and modern designs or modern eggs and traditional designs in paintings. I'm thinking I'll probably just experiment with it, but I'm liking the first two ideas rather a lot.

I've been doing a fair bit of work for my internship in art, which is nice. I made a coloring page of a mural with permission from the copyright holder, and which took me about a week-and-a-half. [You should probably know that I loathe taking such a long time on projects. It's one of the things that's been driving me consistently crazy this summer, planning for next year.] I also learned the joys of trying to get exactly what you want from a printing service. Augh. They had to reprint twice; the first time, the image was about 8x4 (or possibly smaller- I didn't actually get to see the first printing as someone else picked it up) on 11x17 inch paper and the second time, it didn't have the title of the mural, the artist's name, or the museum's name. @_@ But I'm also working on other artsy things for the museum. Namely thaumatropes and other optical-illusion toys. Those I probably will be able to post pictures of, since they'd be my own designs rather than a derived work.

Artists 41-50

41] Brian Jungen
42] Alma Thomas
43] Pete Starkey
44] Sol Lewitt*
45] Tejo Remy
46] Charles Maurin
47] Van Gogh
48] Charles Garnier
49] Vigee LeBrun
50] Charles LeBrun

*These artists will be discussed in depth separately.