Something New

 

Yuletide Dream

 Last night, I dreamed I was working at school and there was a big gathering of administrators. My paintings were up on the walls. When I looked again, they were gone, and no one could tell me where they went. A little later, I found out they had been moved so the gathering could show a film. I think it means that I need to stop watching so many movies and get back to my studio. If only it had heat 😰,

    In another part, I talked to a very tall man who looked a lot like Beto O'Rourke. He had stars inside his irises. When I looked more closely, I saw that it was his glasses, projecting images that the person he was talking to would like. The man he was with saw galloping horses. 

  Still, he seemed very kind, and asked me if I would come to dinner with him. I said no, but, looking back, I wish I had said yes. Because how often does a woman get attention from a kind man with stars in his eyes?

Grocery List

I know I just said that I was uninterested in figures, and then this happened. 

 

It's starting to be a habit

It could be because I spend so much time helping students develop formal skills, or maybe it is just a natural step in the progression of images for an artist, but this is another one that started out as a figurative design and ended up getting changed almost completely into something else.  Part of that was because it was so fun to play with the Tombows. I love how they feel on the paper, but, I will admit to ending up with a good old Ticonderoga, because of it's handy dandy eraser. I wish manufacturers would install erasers on art pencils. 

    Right now, just after turning in grades, it feels good to play with the lines and forms, making use of the rules I teach, but with total freedom instead of being restricted to reality. I wonder what this would look like with a color overlay? Maybe I should ink it and then give it a try.

 

The Next New Thing

This is not my hand, nor is it my artwork, but boy, is the technology used to print this model tempting. The level of detail is amazing, and the printers and materials used in this type of printing are not that expensive. That, combined with department money that is burning a hole in my pocket, is tempting me to take the plunge into 3D resin printing. 

     The one thing that is holding me back are the environmental and safety issues that come along with the resin and curing process. I'm just starting to learn about the printers and materials, but my understanding is that the resins are quite toxic in their liquid state. In a school setting where things you'd rather not have happen will happen, I'll have to figure out how to make it safe in our shop and also how to dispose of waste safely. 

    The good news is that after the resin is cured, it is harmless. Also, there are some brands of resin that are made from plant matter, so it should be compostable. (In our nice new Mantis Composter!)

     I still have a lot of questions and logistical issues to solve before I commit, but I have a feeling this Pandora's box has already been opened. 

     

 

Improvisation

Sometimes, it is comforting to not pursue an objective image. This one started out with a couple of recognizable elements, and turned into an exercise in obliterating them with layered forms. While I was drawing this, I was watching a documentary about a Muslim man on his Hajj, who happened to be gay. I don't know if the chaotic nature of this image is a result of that, or of some quality of my own life. It's probably both.

 

Tombows

I decided to use the Tombows to develop this little image a bit. They seem to be softer than the Generals, as in they feel really silky on the paper. I only used a 4B, but it was plenty dark enough. I haven't done any nudes in a long time. It seemed to fit with these ladies.

Japanese pencils made in Vietnam :)
 

Monday Magic

 

Well, I got my colors out today. It was a start.

The nice thing was I got these two beauties in the mail. Hayao Miyazaki says that Japanese pencils are better than my Generals, so I figured I'd better give them a try. 

On the bottom is a portrait of Elihu Vedder, the fellow who illustrated the Rubaiyat. This photo is on the back cover of a book about his work. I would love to have a copy of his Rubaiyat, but I haven't yet found an affordable version. Until I find one, this will have to do. There is a whole section on the work, at least.

There are two more Mondays left in the semester. Maybe the magic will happen after that.

Three Fates

A lovely friend brought this beautiful book for me to look at tonight. It's full of drawings and verse, and is a garden of ideas in itself. It is an illustrated and interpreted version of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat. The drawings are by Elihu Vedder and the verse by Edward FitzGerald. One of the pieces that I like very much is this one of the Fates, who have decided to yank their tapestry down from the sky.

    Maybe I'll give the three girls floating above the bench a needle and thread, a ruler and a pair of scissors. Then they can make something nice for me.

 

From my sketchbook

I found this in my sketchbook today. I can just hear these three, cackling in the background of my life. They are levitating off the bench. Maybe that is the secret to their happiness, to detach a bit.

 

Paper Issue

This is the replacement panel for Mrs. Swift, in its proper place. The values don't match yet, and the paper is a better fit, but I still don't think it is going to work. 

    I am starting to remember why I settled for a piece of paper that was short on one side in the first place. It is because I was on my last bit of an old batch, and the new paper I had didn't match the color of the old.  That's what I'm running into here. I have two options to fix it, so far: one is to try to tint the paper with tea or watercolor, just slightly. This paper is very tough, so it just might stand up to it. The other is to go back to the wonky-sized panel and find a small piece on one edge and hope nobody notices. I've also considered coloring each square in a quilt pattern. But what I'd really like is to have a cohesive graphite drawing in the end. I guess we'll have to see.

 

Practice

   I'm practicing printing with PolyTerra and also loading and unloading filament. Maybe you recognize this mask from Squid Game. I can take no credit for it, because I simply downloaded the file from one of the many sites that offer files of every type. And our printer is so smart that its default settings have, so far, worked every time. 

    So today, in between seeing students one-on one for thumbnail day, I loaded up this file and the PolyTerra, hit start and went back to work. This is the result. This is about 1.5" long and is quite thin. One of the things I like about PolyTerra is that the supports are much easier to remove than regular PLA. I was in a hurry to leave after being at school all day, so I did a bit of a careless job removing them. In my short time of 3D printing, I've already had a fair number of struggles removing supports and bases. With PolyTerra, they almost unfold themselves off of the piece. It is kind of satisfying, really.

    I guess I'm going to have to come up with a more convenient system of keeping the filament dry. I was pumping air out of the storage bags at 6:30 tonight. I think that's a sign something has to change.
 

Missing a pencil

This was pretty good progress, considering I spent a good part of the getting ready for the week. The snag was that I couldn't find a 2B pencil to provide some of the values, so I had to stop short of finishing the job. Still, one step forward is better than no steps at all.

 

Today's Job

    My students are doing value lessons right now, and one of my guilty secrets is that this large composite drawing (Mrs.Swift Learns to Speak Boy) is on my mind, because I think  this piece falls short in that regard. 

    In the process of adding values to the panels and increasing contrast, I'm finding that a couple of the panels don't quite fit together properly. The original finished work was translated into etchings and there was a compositional mechanism that covered up all of the joining edges. I was busy being a full time teacher, grad student and mom at the time, so I welcomed the shortcut. But now that I want the drawings themselves to shine, I have to make sure all of the pieces fit. This is the first re-do of the project. It is turning out to be a bit of an engineering project to get it right.

    This is a link to the printed version: Mrs. Swift Learns to Speak Boy

 

The Maid

There is no heat in my studio right now (it's a long story involving a ruptured gas line and a near miss with disaster) so, of course, when I passed by my easel to get things to work on upstairs, I could see things to do to this long-dormant project, and I stayed too long in the cold. 

    Most of my viewing time has been spent on old movies lately, but a few friends encouraged me to take a look at a tv series called The Maid. Today when I sat down in front of this one again, it occurred to me that that tile would work well for this painting, which was called The Scaffold the first time around.

    As always, posting here helps me to see what needs to be done before I can call it finished. It's getting there, though.

 

It came!

I couldn't have asked for a better surprise in my mailbox; The Ox-Bow Cookbook. It's a lovely book, complete with many of my favorite dishes (except, alas, the Lemon Cookies). It also contains information about foraging for mushrooms, making beer and Bloody Mary's, stories about the famous Toast Bar and lots of pictures that took me right back to camp. It also came with a packet of Forget-Me Not seeds and an Ox-Bow postcard to send to someone. Just in time for the shift to fall cooking.

 

Life Anew

Life Anew by Robert Oetomo 

I first heard about Robert Oetomo through Adam Tan's video blog The Studio, where he shared Oetomo's stunning arrangement of Harold Arlen's Over the Rainbow, which makes me cry every time I hear it. Alas, I do not have access to a 5 octave marimba, so for now, I can't learn to play this beautiful thing.

Ever since, I've been looking out for a composition by Oetomo that could be played on a 4.3 marimba. This piece came out a little while ago, and my copy of the sheet music arrived yesterday in excellent condition, all the way from Edition Svizter, based in Denmark.

The composition is meant to describe the bushfires in Australia in 2019-20 and the renewal of the land that followed.

I'm looking forward to learning this beautiful piece. 

PolyTerra Benchy

   After a false start yesterday, (I'm not sure what was wrong, but a model I downloaded did not print well), today's effort was a success. I used the test file for the mirror Benchy boats and printed one with regular white PLA and the other with grey PolyTerra PLA. The only difference between them that I can see is that the PolyTerra is not quite as shiny as the regular PLA. I think this is going to work. The next step is getting the composting system going.

     The plastic around the spools is the poor woman's solution to providing a controlled environment for the filament. It is hygroscopic, so they are in plastic (reusable) vacuum bags to keep the filament from absorbing water from the air when it it not in use. It takes a little time to hand pump out the air, but this system will do for now.
 

Look What I Found!

Well, I can't get an image of it to show up, but you can see it if you click on the link below;  it's The Ox-Bow Cookbook, and I can't believe I didn't know about this until now. Here is my confession: I've been to Ox-Bow a couple of times and have learned tons from excellent teachers and made good friends, all of which make Ox-Box a wonderful place to learn. But, every time I sign up to go, a little corner of my mind is thinking about the awesome food that they prepare on site and serve three times a day. In the midst of all the hard work, there is always the knowledge that the dinner bell will ring on time and a fine meal is not too far away. As a vegetarian, being someone who doesn't consume flesh can be a difficult thing when traveling (with the exception of India. There, it is common to be asked veg or no veg? I always thought it was lovely that they preferenced non-meat eaters). 

     At Ox-Bow, the chef takes care of everybody, no matter what their food requirements are. The last time I went, no cookbook existed, but now, lookee here! I can't wait to get my copy and make some of their  dishes for myself. Starting with their Lemon Cookies. I hope they are in the book!

The link below will take you right to the Ox-Store, where you can find the book:

Ox-Bow Cookbook

PolyTerra 3D Filament

 Shortly after I started the whole 3D printing project, the idea that I was going to be contributing to the plastic problem on the planet came home to roost. Since then, I've been working on the problem, and this beauty is the beginning of the answer.   

    PLA, or polylactic acid, is a resin made from corn starch. It is marketed as biodegradable, but for that to happen in a decent amount of time (less than years) it needs to be composted under factory conditions. The PLA I've been using to print is in that category. The filament in the picture is a compostable variety that contains a bio compound that makes it degrade much faster than regular PLA. It is made by PolyMaker and is called PolyTerra. PolyMaker plants one tree for each spool of filament sold, and the spool and box are compostable as well. The only flaw is the plastic bag the filament comes in, which is necessary because PLA is hydroscopic, meaning that it absorbs water from the air. I hope PolyMaker can eventually find a compostable solution for that storage issue as well some day.

     I'm currently shopping for a composter that will get warm enough (140F) for decomposition to take place. I'm also making friends with Food Services at Ferris. Scott, their manager, also has an interest in a composting program, so we are combining forces to get this project off the ground. He will provide food waste and cardboard, we are planning to contact the grounds department for yard waste, and in the mix will go the extra plastic that is created by mistakes and support material generated during printing. If this filament prints nicely, I'll try to get the Makerspace, the 3D printing lab at Ferris, to start using it, too. In the end, the compost will result in good soil, which we hope to turn into an herb garden for Food Services. 

    This, plus dumping the two classroom system and taking my vitamins has cheered me right up.

     

     

 

Dream

I dreamed this image all night last night. It was supposed to be an illustration for a poem. Now, all I need is the poem.

 

Three Classes, Three Improvisations

   Today was the first day I abandoned the split classroom format, and oh, my gosh, what a pleasure it was. I know I'm not keeping my people as safe as they were, but instead of taking time to fuss with technology and walk between classrooms, I had time to focus on my real job, which is teaching. My prayer is that they will all see reason and get vaccinated. My only struggle is getting them to keep their masks over their noses.

    I usually run a pretty tight ship, because I think that this may be their only real art instruction in their lives, and if I give them enough fundamentals, they will be better equipped to carry on by themselves later in life. But, we just finished the first assignment, and it felt like I needed to loosen them up a bit. So, I introduced them to the idea of making a non-objective image and set them loose with some charcoal and an eraser. They struggled a bit, because they have been conditioned to think that art has to represent something. After a bit of prodding and more than a few excuses, they were able to make some interesting images. When we do things like this, I try to stay out of their way until they are at the point of needing a push. In the meantime, I usually make an image of my own. So, here are the pieces I did as examples to get them started, and how they ended up while I waited to talk to them. These took about 10-15 minutes each. I think I love my job again.

 

Tossing the dice

       Today was another hard day of technical triage in the classroom, and it may well be the day that made me call the two classroom solution quits. 

        

        I'm realizing that the situation is sucking the joy out of a job I (used to) love. And I have a suspicion that nobody but me is very concerned about anyone's safety. Plus, I think the stress will probably kill me before the virus does (I am fully vaccinated and am religious about mask wearing). 

     So tomorrow, I am bringing them all back into one classroom. Because the stress just isn't worth it. I really hope they are all vaccinated. We'll see how it goes. If they want to keep the two classrooms, I will agree. With the understanding that everything is hard and takes longer.

        On the bright side, in the process of the day and the technical frustration, I asked for a student assistant and got one! Initially, I meant for him to be boots on the ground to keep me informed about the classroom connectivity. Since I might not need him for that, now he will be free to help me with the other things I never seem to get to, like organizing store rooms and the sculpture shop. And he could also operate the 3D scanner and printer. So, even though going back to one classroom is technically a fail, I still ended up with a win :)

    And now, maybe I can get back to teaching normally. Carefully, behind a mask. 

Monotypes

A few months ago, a tall, charming friend suggested that I might like Marcel Proust's Swann's Way. Even though I'm terribly slow at reading it, I think my friend might be right. I just passed the point in the novel where Marcel, the narrator of the story, experiences doubt about his ability to be an artist, but then is inspired by the spires in his town and is overtaken by the need to write about it, proving that he is an artist after all.

    I was reminded of it today, because recently, as a result of pouring all of my energy into keeping my classes on an even keel, I haven't felt like much of an artist. But, because I have a student who wants to try mono printing on Monday, I thought I should do a few, just to refresh my memory. 

     For lack of a better idea, I did a series of four images, all based on how my hair is showing signs of distress from all the pool swimming I did this summer. I intended to only formalize a few steps for my student, but I ended up being in the zone for a couple of hours. It felt really good, "as though I myself were a hen and had just laid an egg" as Marcel describes it.

    The images are pretty rough, as it is a fairly new technique for me. But I can see the potential. I think I will do this again. Now that I see them here, they look like they could be illustrations for a horror film. It is a good time of year for it.
 

On My Window

 

Yesterday's scans

Well, here are two examples of how my week went:

     I'm trying to get Roxy's fingers scanned and printed (amidst all the madness in the Creative Arts Center). The first image probably happened because the black drape over the scanner was letting light in, so the scanner accidentally thought the scanning bed was part of the object and went with that.

   On the second, my best guess is that the finger is symmetrical, and so the scanner was fine with meshing the first two scans, but it sensed the third as a different thing altogether and it couldn't mesh it  properly. Live and learn.

    I didn't take a photo of the mess the third effort made, but trust me, it was just as bad.

    On the fourth try, I got a decent image of the pinky finger. That time, I made sure the clay finger was in a totally different position on the bed for the second pass, so the scanner could tell the difference. I called it good after the 2nd. There didn't seem to be any reason to tempt fate.

    Will see how it does in the slicer :)

 

News from the Teaching During Covid Front

I just finished my third week of teaching in two classrooms and online, all at the same time. A few days ago, I was so worn out from having to shout over the air cleaners through a mask, and from hiking between two classrooms, often just to ask if anyone had any questions, that I asked for some things to make it easier, namely a microphone, which was approved through Covid funding, and this little darling, which is changing my life for the better. It is a Kandao camera, which allows me to see and hear the students in the 2nd classroom. I still have to run down to check work and answer questions, but it is saving me a lot of trips. I am very grateful to the guy who I consider to be my personal  tech guy, Zach K. (he isn't; he helps everybody, but he always seems to be there when I need him) and to my department chair Scott C., for the same reason. Teaching is hard during a pandemic, but these guys are doing their best to help. I appreciate both of them.

    That's poor, armless  Roxy in the background. I'll print another of her fingers on Wednesday. I think she needs a new outfit and a new 'do. Maybe in Spandex and bleached blonde?

 

The 3D News

This was my second effort, and it worked out! The first one looked the same, with comparable quality, but it was printed with a raft, a base that the real piece is built upon. Unfortunately, the raft stuck like glue to the piece, where it remains. After reading some of the forums on the subject, I ran across a sassy guy who said he never used rafts but used brims instead, So, I changed the setting to brim, which is supposed to be just a border around the piece, and lo and behold, it worked, because with medium effort, I was able to release the part from the brim. Except the "brim" extended all the way under the part, exactly like the raft, but thinner. So, I dunno. But, I'm not complaining. Next, I'll try either a photo or a drawing. We'll see. 

 

Lithophane

 Well, I would post a photo of the lithopone I printed, but the raft, the plastic platform that gets built underneath the part, is stuck like glue to the image. So, I have to figure out how to remove it. When I get around to ordering new supplies, dissolvable supports will be first on the list. Until I figure this out, this is the image I printed:

I can't take credit for it; my wonderful son took the photo of me at a restaurant before the apocalypse and applied an anime filter to it. I don't usually like to see pictures of myself, but I like this one very much. Thank you, Coltrane G.💗

Foxy Roxy's right hand pinky finger

This is the first of five fingers I'm printing for our mannequin Foxy Roxy's hands. The PLA filament I printed it with is paintable, so when I get them all printed, I'll paint them all up with acrylic paint to match her skin color, drill some wire holes on the fingers and Roxy's hands and attach them with Titebond, an excellent glue we have here in the shop.

    Later today, I'll post my first attempt at a lithopane, a 3D version of a 2D image.

 

Compostable filament for the 3D printer

I have high hopes that this filament is as compostable as Polymaker says it is. They include composting instructions on their website. I'm going to give it a try.

Polyterra PLA 

Maybe this one

Since the subway painting is just about done (I'm still tweaking, but it won't change a whole lot more except for highlights and a few refinements). That means I'm eyeing my next one. I was going to do another mother/son image, but since I just did two close-up figures, I don't think I want to dive into another one just yet. 

     I've been mulling over a new word, "mournal", as in mourning the past and getting used to the new normal. A friend challenged me to make it a title, and this is the image that seems to fit, as it is representative of my school life right now. Except there is only one of me.

 

And the spool credit goes to...

 ... Scott Rippetoe

aka MrRip: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:376

And, another shoutout to  The 3D Printing Professor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFbfOLvHYSM

  

The start of something interesting

I showed the top image, Rene Magritte's painting Collective Invention, to my class today. I am still scuttling between two classrooms to give my students safe distancing. After class, I found the second image on the whiteboard in the second classroom. The last time this happened, the white board ended up being filled with a whole mural of images with mice as the heroes. I can't wait to see what happens this time.

 

Today's small progress and a bonus shot

While I ran my classes, I let the 3D printer run off these new spools for the filaments of the FlashForge, so that I can use other kinds of filaments that the FF type. The one on the right still has the supports attached, and the left one has been detached and filed. Small progress in the midst of the chaos is still progress.

   Plus, a bonus shot of a fitful Michigan sky.

Tomorrow, when I can keep my eyes open, I will give credit to the kind soul who published the file for the spool :)

 

A few hours of peace

    It has been such a hectic couple of weeks that in spite of saying I was going to go to school and get my classrooms prepared for tomorrow, instead, I dived into my studio and stayed there for about five hours. The top two photos are where I left it today, and the bottom one is what I started with.

    Really, this was a mental health effort, to spend so much time at my easel today. In order to socially distance my students, I've been holding class in two classrooms, which means two setups and a whole lot of technology to manage. Plus, I have to run between the two classrooms, while wearing a mask. I'm hoping it will get easier. The peace of this day will help me this week, I think.

    I still have little way to go on this one. As always, it helps me to post here, so that I can see where I need some work. I guess it is a luxury to know what to do next :)

    

 

Where I left it

   So far today, I've had two painting sessions, and I don't seem to be able to leave the faces alone. Through the course of the first session, every one of the mother's features were obliterated and re-painted. I still see some things to fix before I can bring the values up. But it's closer. And I think I'm going to make the shirt yellow-ish instead of pink. So it can be gender neutral.

    Sometimes I am really grateful for the peace of my studio and the work I can do there. It is a big stress reliever to journey inward and paint. 

   Right now, I need it, because my university, where I am scheduled to teach four face to face classes in the fall at full capacity, has chosen to not require vaccines, have a mask mandate or social distancing. My students, unless something changes, will be sitting elbow to elbow for an hour and 50 minutes, twice a week. 

    I was so proud of how Ferris handled the pandemic last year, and I felt lucky because they worked hard to keep us safe. I don't know where that leadership has gone. I hope that my fellow faculty members and our student parents will speak up and demand safety for us all. Otherwise, this is going to be a rough semester.

 

Close

I've been so lazy lately, half paralyzed at the thought of school starting soon, so I've been skivving off to the pool or the beach, and the other half paralyzed in self defense of my school's (lack of) safe policy for us in the fall. 

   But today, I worked on settling this face, first in good daylight and then by studio light. She is close to where she will be in the end, I think. 

 

I do this every time

Even though the mother's face passed the upside down test, I still wasn't satisfied when I turned it back right side up. Her eyes looked too close set. So today, in a rash and risky moment, I changed them. And now, I think I like them! It's lucky, because usually when I haul off and do something like this, it is a journey of miles to get back to an acceptable state. But I think I can work with this one.

 

Resurrecting Mrs. Swift

   Every year, there is a show in Chicago about motherhood that I'd like to enter, but some of the pieces I have with that theme aren't in a presentable shape, or I don't have possession of them. The Scaffold painting I've been working on is one of them, and this is another. I just ordered a big mat board from Dick Blick, so that I can adhere these small panels onto a larger substrate. Then, my plan is to adjust the values so that it has higher contrast. The two panels that are missing have an error in size (I could explain why, but chalk it up to grad school and having to make-do on a schedule) and have to be re-drawn. Part of today's work involved cutting the new paper for those drawings. 

    This image started out as a very small drawing and then bloomed into an image for one of the paper quilts I made for my thesis show, titled, Mrs. Swift Learns to Speak Boy. The problem with the quilt and it's sister, Dreamer in Training, is that they are too fragile to enter in any competition where they would have to endure any amount of handling. I recently found the drawings that I used to make the prints for the quilts, and thought I should try to get them into a more presentable form. I hope I can do it.

Overture

   I never thought I'd write these words, but lately, I've been reading Proust for fun. I've known about the petit madeleines scene for a while, but when I read it this time, I was struck by how excited the narrator was about everything that had sprung from his teacup. I made this little sketch, just to remind myself of the impression the passage made on my eyes.

 

Checkpoint

One of the things I do to check my form and composition is to view the piece upside down. Mistakes seem to jump out that way. As far as I can tell, so far so good on this one.

 

New Look

 Well, I took the plunge and adopted a new template. The only thing I don't like is the position of the blog title over the background image. I haven't been able to figure that out just yet. But mostly, I think it looks okay.

A long time to get there

  When my son was little, the days were long and nighttime was a challenge. When everything was done and we were finally snuggled in our rocking chair, we would say, "Phew! It took a long time to get here!". I miss those days.

    That's the way painting goes for me, too. A professor once told me that my work looked terrible, until it didn't, all of a sudden. I suppose she would say that about this one.  It'll get there, though. One stroke leads to the next. I don't know any other way to do it.

   Just like putting a baby to bed, this kind of painting takes time, if you do it right. 
 

Can you tell which ones I like the best?

 

Baby steps

   I got started on the baby today and changed the direction of the mom's thumb. I was laughing at myself, because one of my favorite things to do is to adjust form with line, working with positive and negative space. I teach my students that concept, but after they get it, I try to steer them away from being too dependent on line and use value to define forms instead. That goes right out the window where my own work is concerned.

    I still haven't solved my background color issue. I think Blogger would really like it if I abandoned this old design and adopt one of their templates. I'll probably wind up doing that, but I have a feeling some things won't be easy to customize.