Icon Progress

So, here are some progress shots of the icon I'm painting in my Contemporary Icon class I'm taking this semester. Sadly there is only one class left and I've only begun - I still have to gild and paint the piece. I missed class last week due to a family death and so I missed some crucial work time - I hope to gild the piece this wednesday and gather all the materials I need so I can spend the next few weeks before my review board painting it. The painting shouldn't take too long, as long as I can figure it out without the impeccable guidance of Bob Baart. Not too much detail about the imagery here, more just about the process.

MDF board coated with gesso made in the class. All grounds are made from scratch, except for the bole.

the fresh icon, after 7 coats of gesso but before 5+ hours of sanding

after 5+ hours of sanding, holes drilled, image xerox transferred and gesso relief painted

testing out imagery for the side panels

because so much of the icon is going to be gilded, i had to incise my drawing so
i'd be able to see it while i'm painting - traditional technique

this is a closeup of the gesso relief - these are the spots where
the gold will be burnished (shiny)

the bole (red clay base) that is painted over the ground wherever
gold leaf will be applied. traditional water gilding technique - my
teacher suggests applying 5 or so coats, to enhance the gold's finish.
when you burnish applied gold leaf, you're really burnishing the red clay
below the leaf - that's what shines, and it shows through the incredibly thin leaf.

one coat of bole ontop of gesso relief - you can see the incising

one coat of bole (on top of the bunnies I decided to use)

full view of 1 coat of bole

awesome side view

4 coats of bole

full look at 4 coats of bole - i wish i had realized how much i would have to
gild before i spent so much time preparing and sanding my surface. oh well, next time.

Recent Calligraphy

Some recent calligraphy work. All done with flexible metal nib pens on Stonehenge 12x12 paper (mmmm).

Mixtape Box

Here's a book I started years ago and plan to finish for my review board this semester. One of the first books I did along with a mixtape, around the same time Aubrey was doing his awesome mixtape tent project at RISD. Anyways, I had this one mixtape that I was really into - my boyfriend at the time saw the playlist and asked me "do you always listen to such sad music?" - I listened to it often and really felt it to be representative of my emotional state at that time. My uncle had recently given me this great book about sign painting, that featured a whole bunch of fantastic alphabets. I chose something like ten different letter sets, and decided I was going to try and compose text cards for each song, using the restricted set of letters and trying my best to express something about the song through the typography. I spent forever laying these out, and then tracing them, measuring everything - and then colored them in (I think I had restrictions about what colors I could use too? This project was all about making something out of limited resources). Then I took them to staples, had them laminated, and started the box.

I think I had drawn up the box before I started the cards, but I'm not sure. The box is so far unfinished. It needs its lid, I need bookboard. There will be a flip up lid and probably a title on the top of the box. I dig this box a lot and remember it as being a really fun challenge to make - especially figuring out the sexiest way to fit the tape in. I love making boxes. And drawing up plans.

The idea behind this project is lofty and fun - each card is a song from the playlist of the tape, and the idea is that the viewer/owner of the piece would listen to the tape and be able to re-order the tracklisting to what they feel is appropriate. Dreams about having a color printer/copier set up have me thinking that the viewer would then receive some sort of print out of the cards in the order they arranged (maybe from .pdf's that would be printed out into some sort of one page book?), and a copy of the tape. I mentioned Aubrey and his project earlier because our two pieces were riding the same wave and I we hadn't talked at all while developing them. I would describe his but I don't remember it in detail enough to do it justice - but it was great, and you could record things you were playing/hearing. It's been a real pleasure having him as my mixtape friend in art for all these years now <3.

Narcolepsy

Call me a nerd but I love Ben Folds Five and I find that listening to his music is really awesome for writing of all kinds - calligraphy, term papers, whatever. I was listening to Reinhold Messner during class the other week and I was without something to write and so I decided to write out the lyrics to narcolepsy. So, I did that, and here it is - I folded it in class and drew some crappy stars and a moon with a gold pen that resisted the ink, which was cool. Nice little thing to do during class, better than just doing alphabets over and over - I want to get practiced with writing words, not just solo letters. Written with a flexible metal nib pen and sumi ink.

About Mixtapes // Installed

Here's some shots from the Culture Combat conference my friend Brian put on at Brandeis a while ago. Here is the original post about this project where I posted the text and playlist. The images are attached to those great but overpriced painting boards they sell at blick, but they're just so simple and easy it was worth it. The table below had a tape player w/headphones, people listened and took a book and if they wanted/if there were any left took a tape as well. all the tapes were grabbed and i have TONS of books left, as I made an edition of 100.

Again, if you're interested in a tape or book let me know and I will mail one to you.

Toy Animals

I have a little group of plastic animals on my desk, and sometimes I like to draw them. I started doing drawings of them and writing their names with a metal nib pen. I want to do them all - they're on 12x12 stonehege paper (which is the shit).

Aviary

So, hey, I'm back.

I showed some pictures of the start of this book a while back - and here's the finished project. It turned out alright, it's not aligned properly because I was sort of imprecise when I made it, but that's alright because it looks good when you hold it in your hands.

the first part of the book - photocopies of birds of prey from a guidebook.
i traced these birds and that's what the pages of this book are.

a progress shot - getting ready to adhere the transparency to the frame

after gluing it all together, including the tab for binding

I've never bound something using screw posts, even though I've wanted to forever - and I like it. Looks great, I love the use value even though it doesn't apply to this book, and it's pretty easy to do (although sewing is probably less effort). The cover went through a few stages, and unfortunately the photos I have of the cover aren't so great - but that one will do. I like how I left the cover - initially it had been just flat with AVIARY in gold in the center, but it was boring and I sort of messed it up. So, I made it a happy accident and I like the dimension the layers give the cover. There's tracing paper in between all of the pages, to help separate the clear pages. The pages are sort of meant to be looked at both alone and when held with the pages before/after them. Great shadows, too!