…These past weeks have seen lots of work on the ‘privacy’ print.

Looking back over my notes on Edward Tufte, thinking more about the organization of the whole print, I figured out how I am going to lay it out. There will be an axonometric drawing of a living space on the bottom half of the print (this one will be kind of like a ‘dollhouse view’, we will be looking in from above & be able to see all the rooms and how they are connected). From every place (’moment’?) where an interesting dynamic between personal and shared space is created, there will be a line leading up or down to a smaller diagram or perspective drawing, plus some text describing how each spatial connection does what it does. This is exciting, since it lets the different doorways and connections exist in a context, related to each other, rather than floating in space — it gives them an added layer of meaning.

[early stage]

This also implies that I need to actually draw a building. This is: “Scary!! (fun?)” as I wrote on my large brainstorming sheet of paper a week ago… The building I’ve been working on is kind of theoretical, since it is only one story, even though any living space of this size (5 bedrooms) in a city (small lot sizes) in New England (cold climate) would almost definitely be a 2-or-more-story building. However, when you have more than one story, it’s relatively straightforward to define private spaces, since the stairs can be used to create the separations between private and public, and even make subtle refinements within those categories… Last week, one of the subscribers told me about figuring out how to use the space in her house: she put her bedroom and office on the second floor, and then created a “guest zone” on the third floor, so that her guests can feel like they have their own special place, and not feel like they are getting in her way or invading her personal space when they visit Providence and stay with her.

So both for graphic purposes, and to deal with the more difficult problem of creating privacy when the whole living space is on the same floor, I’m going with a slightly unrealistic 1-story building.

[later stage — “I broke the drawing”]

… to make it more realistic, though, I am working on making a believable structure and roof plan…

*

… and because I couldn’t figure out the roof issues to my satisfaction by drawing it on paper, I let myself be persuaded by Andrew to make a model on the computer.

[early in the process…]

This involved me cursing at the screen for a couple of hours while conquering the learning curve on Sketchup, then getting pretty psyched about it (though still frustrated occasionally…)

It’s been an interesting drawing experience, since I haven’t used a computer drafting program since a long time ago in school. Skp doesn’t have a very intuitive interface for moving your point of view around, or moving the model around — I’m using key shortcuts and a mouse, very awkward, so it feels like inventing a new way of moving in space, like learning to walk from scratch. However (or maybe because of this?) I find myself almost physically connected to the building I’m drawing: I’ve found myself craning my neck to look around a corner… it’s very strange.** Sketchup is probably most satisfying when you accidentally jump into the wall of the building itself and things get glitchy… suddenly you are making nice Thom Mayne or Zaha Hadid drawings, congratulations! I’ve been taking lots of screen captures. It’s three days later, now, though, and I still haven’t finished the roof plans. A fruitful distraction.

… in other news, I am moving my sleep schedule back four hours, so that instead of going to sleep at 10 am and waking up at 6 pm, I can go to bed at 6 am and wake up at 1 pm. Tonight I’m a little late… but working towards it. !

* the green cardstock = cutoffs from those wedding invitations I printed a while ago!

** I’ve never experienced Second Life, but I find myself wonder what Sketchup would be like if the interface, for navigating in space at least, was something like the one shown in this slightly weird but fascinating video from the makers of SL…

I finally gave in to temptation and bought the multi-multi-pack of many-colored permanent markers from the Big Top Flea Market in Atlantic Mills:

Given that these are from the flea market, they are not actually Sharpies but Shoupies, and they cost me $2. This was not the temptation to own a lot of colorful permanent markers, but the temptation to own a product very carefully crafted in imitation of a really-carefully-branded product. I probably should have left them in their packaging as an art object, but I’m too practical for that, and… there’s a lot more where they came from. (At the flea market, I had the choice of two other non-sharpie ‘brand’ names, written in the same font, both with the same capital S. No photos: I didn’t want to attempt explaining to the friendly Chinese girl working the booth that I am a graphic artist with an arcane interest in fake products, not the undercover trademark police…)

They did a pretty good job. I am always thrilled by seeing off-brand objects that use graphics to imitate the product they are ripping off — (more…)

The text layout for the bottom of the farmers’ markets poster, as I draw it four times:

[initial sketch layout]

[refined]

A month later: whoops, there are five more markets that need to go on the poster!

[not so good, markets are too small, layout is all choppy… but hey, rounded corners!]

[more unified, slightly larger boxes, better spaces for other information. I’ve already started inking & cutting out the rubylith, so this, with minor changes, is what I’m going with…]

Yes. I could do this on the computer (I have in the past, and I obviously do a lot of other stuff on the computer). There’s no real reason not to, besides the fact that I like holding a pencil more than a mouse . . . and there’s some sneaking suspicion that by going through these paper revisions, erasing and re-drawing, things end up better in the end. I can’t prove that, and there’s no doubt that graphics programs can also give you the same amount of gritty feedback, and offer extended possibilities for equivalent richness and complexity, as well as the ability to be more flexible in adjusting things, so I’m not really putting it out there as a position or a statement. At the end of this process, though, I’m sure that working on it by hand adds something undefinable to the final object — the mark of my hand? the wobble of the lead or the pen or the knife blade? an element of messiness that a computer can emulate, but never quite match?

Somewhat relatedly, here’s a link to Jo Dery’s website, which I think is newly present on the internet. She’s a printmaker, comic- & zine-maker, and animator/filmmaker from Providence. She works in sketchbooks, on paper, on film as well as digitally, and, um, all the results are amazing.

From sketch…

…. to full-size mockup with letters!

There’s actually way more done than this by now, these pictures are from last Monday night (March 24). The letters are totally hand-drawn, no tracing! but I used a computer to print out sample text to get the letters to fit more-or-less right in their space, and to get the kerning (the spacing between each letter) roughly in place. After I had figured out most of the letterforms (drawing them as I went along in the “Providence & Pawtucket” text at the top), I started adjusting the kerning on the paper as I drew… since the computer kerning wasn’t always right. The tall letters, diagonal slant, and tight fit of the central text made it necessary to really adjust each space by eye, squinting at the negative space between the letters, trying to feel out how much breathing room they have… sketching, looking, erasing, redrawing the letter a 16th or a 32nd of an inch over — etc. It sounds maddening, right? but I have done it so many times now that I have a feel for it, and I haven’t done it in a while, so it was relaxing, falling back into old ways, an understandable task.

I’m going to try to post images of this project through to its completion — I’ve mostly put up process work so far, and if you’ve read some of the earlier posts, you may be wondering, “does anything ever get finished?” It does, but I think that after I’m done with things, I’m less excited about them than I am in the middle of the process. Also, since most of them are posters, or multiples of some kind, people see the final product… but the process tends to go unseen…

secret door work & livelihood update:

I occasionally do some screenprinting work for a local offset printer, Black Cat Graphics. They call me when they need a light-colored ink printed on dark-colored envelopes — the one thing their processes and techniques can’t pull off. (The jobs tend to be really fancy wedding invitations designed by a swanky place in New York… but luckily all only one color.) Right now, I’m in the middle of trying to be super hard-working and organized to get the second series print (about private space & shared space) done for my show in May. It’s been going well so far, even though there have been some major exceptions of space-out time — mostly I’ve been very productive & pretty organized and staying focused and on-task.

Black Cat called me up at the beginning of the week to ask if I wanted to do a large screenprinting job — more than twice as many things as I’ve printed for them before, more than twice as much money. The envelope printing will be demanding, but straightforward — lots of small details and fine lines, but I’ve ironed out (most of) those kinks in the last couple of jobs I have done for them. (Part of the reason I like working for BC is that J—, the proprietor, is as picky about quality & detail as I am, maybe more so…) It will take some time, because of the large number of pulls, and that will be time taken away from me getting the print done… it might even mean it’s not totally ready…so I initially was going to say no. I realized that, though, having the extra money will mean that I won’t have to be stressed out about money by the time of the show itself, and that I won’t be worrying about whether I sell anything or how much I sell, won’t have to let money affect how I approach the whole situation — at least not any more than it already affects any situation… So, seen in the light of that trade-off, absolutely worth it. I decided to take on the job…

and. . . I’ve definitely hung up half-finished work before . . .