Inner Peace
Feb. 25th, 2004 12:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zdashamberYou may have all seen this, but in case you haven't, it gave me a laugh... I did my darndest to figure out who it should be attributed to, but no love.
On the subject of finishing things off, I'm rather pleased with my weekend, in that it started Friday when I finished up a bit of art and sent it off to the Ambercon art contest...
Ever since I decided to sketch out "Vision 46", in August of '02, I've been planning to work it up into a woodcut-looking thing for the Ambercon art contest. I'd entered the contest the first year they ran it... 2000? (Paging through my "Sent" folder to determine the year... Man, 2000 was a more innocent time...) ...apparently, in 2001, and won 2nd prize. One of the warm happy moments of my life came from subtly poking my friend Cliff (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
obadiah), who had attended Ambercon that year, about the art contest...
Me: "So, they had an art contest, right? New this year? How was it?"
Cliff: "Oh, it was pretty cool, I didn't spend too much time looking at it..."
Me: "Do you remember any of the pieces?"
Cliff: "Oh! Someone had done a takeoff on MC Escher's 'Another World' with various Brands! That was really cool!"
It just doesn't get any better than that... It's like showing up at your funeral alive, and hanging back to hear people saying nice things about you. :)
Aaanyway. Right, so, I had picked up some scratchboard etc. to do this with last fall. See, I like the solid, good-on-t-shirts style of woodcuts, and the way I figure it, there are two ways to cheat on that, to get around the difficulty of actually carving wood: scratchboard, or carving linoleum and running prints off with a press. Carving linoleum is the best, and I loved the chance I got to do that in high school, but it requires a lot more materials, and equipment I don't have.
When I heard froma2macgeek on the Amber List that the art contest was a go for this year, I decided to leap into action. I did not, in fact, leap into action, but I did poke around a bit on the web a week or so before the deadline Friday to get some tips on scratchboard technique. Both the sites I looked at suggested that I trace the outlines of the art onto the scratchboard after somehow getting the art onto a piece of lightweight paper... Not having lightweight paper, though, or, for that matter, the original art ready to hand, I waited until Tuesday, when back at work I printed out the sketch you can see at the link above.
The transferring process was not trivial, as I was, alas, working with inferior materials--the art store near my place offers only one sort of scratchboard, an inexpensive variety that is black on top of white, with the black material slightly more cohesive than the white, so that it will take the opportunity to flake off in bits larger, perhaps, that what was desired. Also, as I mentioned, I was working through normal printer paper; and the only carbon paper the art store offered was also black. Fortunately, I am adaptable. As I impressed the outlines of the piece into the scratchboard with a pair of old sewing scissors, I cheerfully thought
The actual carving went well... I had fun coming up with ways to hint at different textures. I've always envied people who can shade with crosshatch, and scratchboard makes that, too, easy to fake. And I was completely and utterly thrilled with the way the Pattern looked when stippled like a bed of coals.
Not having any specific scratchboard tools, I'd gotten some pen nibs and a holder for them; the solidity of the C-4 calligraphy nib worked well, but the normal pointy writing nib (101?) was too flimsy for this work. A pin took up the slack for tiny detail work. I was thoroughly satisfied with the way the Higgins Black India Ink made black once more places that would be better black, and now that I've gotten a chance to fiddle around with using actual quill/nib pens and ink to do art, I'm never again going to waste my time inking with anything else. All those years of bleeding ink and overly broad tips... Gone! I may even use the quill pen to write normal letters!
Right. So, the thing was, on Friday, I was quite tired, and not even half-done... I'd not yet even hooked up the scanner I got for Christmas. And I sat there unwinding and cruising the internet, balanced on the edge of saying "Screw this! I'm going to bed!" What finally brought me down on the side of finishing the picture was the thought, "If I don't finish this now, it will lie around unfinished for years."
Which brings us back to the bit of hurmor that started this reminiscing off...
Upshot: It took nearly as long to stipple the Pattern as it did to walk it, and now my desk is covered with tiny black-and-white flecks, as if I were trying to stump Sherlock Holmes with fake cigar ash. And I feel good.
By following some simple advice I read in an article, I have finally found inner peace. The article read: "The way to achieve inner peace is simply to finish all the things you've started." I looked around the house to see all the things I had started and not finished... So, before starting anything new this morning, I finished off a bottle of red wine, a bottle of white, the Bailey's, Kahlua, and Tia Maria, my Prozac, some valium, my cigarettes, and a box of chocolates. You have no idea how good I feel....
On the subject of finishing things off, I'm rather pleased with my weekend, in that it started Friday when I finished up a bit of art and sent it off to the Ambercon art contest...
Ever since I decided to sketch out "Vision 46", in August of '02, I've been planning to work it up into a woodcut-looking thing for the Ambercon art contest. I'd entered the contest the first year they ran it... 2000? (Paging through my "Sent" folder to determine the year... Man, 2000 was a more innocent time...) ...apparently, in 2001, and won 2nd prize. One of the warm happy moments of my life came from subtly poking my friend Cliff (
obadiah), who had attended Ambercon that year, about the art contest...Me: "So, they had an art contest, right? New this year? How was it?"
Cliff: "Oh, it was pretty cool, I didn't spend too much time looking at it..."
Me: "Do you remember any of the pieces?"
Cliff: "Oh! Someone had done a takeoff on MC Escher's 'Another World' with various Brands! That was really cool!"
It just doesn't get any better than that... It's like showing up at your funeral alive, and hanging back to hear people saying nice things about you. :)
Aaanyway. Right, so, I had picked up some scratchboard etc. to do this with last fall. See, I like the solid, good-on-t-shirts style of woodcuts, and the way I figure it, there are two ways to cheat on that, to get around the difficulty of actually carving wood: scratchboard, or carving linoleum and running prints off with a press. Carving linoleum is the best, and I loved the chance I got to do that in high school, but it requires a lot more materials, and equipment I don't have.
When I heard from
a2macgeek on the Amber List that the art contest was a go for this year, I decided to leap into action. I did not, in fact, leap into action, but I did poke around a bit on the web a week or so before the deadline Friday to get some tips on scratchboard technique. Both the sites I looked at suggested that I trace the outlines of the art onto the scratchboard after somehow getting the art onto a piece of lightweight paper... Not having lightweight paper, though, or, for that matter, the original art ready to hand, I waited until Tuesday, when back at work I printed out the sketch you can see at the link above. The transferring process was not trivial, as I was, alas, working with inferior materials--the art store near my place offers only one sort of scratchboard, an inexpensive variety that is black on top of white, with the black material slightly more cohesive than the white, so that it will take the opportunity to flake off in bits larger, perhaps, that what was desired. Also, as I mentioned, I was working through normal printer paper; and the only carbon paper the art store offered was also black. Fortunately, I am adaptable. As I impressed the outlines of the piece into the scratchboard with a pair of old sewing scissors, I cheerfully thought
"Do you have the feel of the instrument?" I asked him.
"Yes, it's a sharpened spoon, isn't it?"
The actual carving went well... I had fun coming up with ways to hint at different textures. I've always envied people who can shade with crosshatch, and scratchboard makes that, too, easy to fake. And I was completely and utterly thrilled with the way the Pattern looked when stippled like a bed of coals.
Not having any specific scratchboard tools, I'd gotten some pen nibs and a holder for them; the solidity of the C-4 calligraphy nib worked well, but the normal pointy writing nib (101?) was too flimsy for this work. A pin took up the slack for tiny detail work. I was thoroughly satisfied with the way the Higgins Black India Ink made black once more places that would be better black, and now that I've gotten a chance to fiddle around with using actual quill/nib pens and ink to do art, I'm never again going to waste my time inking with anything else. All those years of bleeding ink and overly broad tips... Gone! I may even use the quill pen to write normal letters!
Right. So, the thing was, on Friday, I was quite tired, and not even half-done... I'd not yet even hooked up the scanner I got for Christmas. And I sat there unwinding and cruising the internet, balanced on the edge of saying "Screw this! I'm going to bed!" What finally brought me down on the side of finishing the picture was the thought, "If I don't finish this now, it will lie around unfinished for years."
Which brings us back to the bit of hurmor that started this reminiscing off...
Upshot: It took nearly as long to stipple the Pattern as it did to walk it, and now my desk is covered with tiny black-and-white flecks, as if I were trying to stump Sherlock Holmes with fake cigar ash. And I feel good.