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.