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 :)