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!

Mixtape Project

About Mixtapes

Brian asked me to contribute some art or something to the conference, Cultural Combat, he helped organize that is this coming saturday, at Brandeis. Well, really he initially asked me to submit a paper, but I didn't do that cause I'm lazy, so I did something that combined both. The piece had to have something to do with 'culture', and after sorting through a whole lot of idea bullshit, i decided to do something about mixtapes. I decided I wanted to do a mixtape, a xerox book, and a streaming playlist. I later decided to enlarge and mount on blocks four of the cassette pattern drawings that I did a while ago. I'll post pictures of how they look when they're hung, and how the whole dealie looks set up - but for now here are the pages that comprise the accompanying book (details of that later too). I'll also post the imeem playlist so you can listen! If you're interested in getting a copy of the mixtape and/or book, email me (in contact link) - as far as tapes go, i'm pretty sure i'll be giving out 12 on saturday and will offer up to another 15 by mail - the book is unlimited, and i will try and maintain the playlist as well!

disclaimer: I have to just say that this is one of the first times i've ever printed and released my own writing to a random public audience. it's a little weird but it's not like this is some piece of writing i hold near and dear to my heart, which makes it easier. anyways, it was nice to write something, i haven't done any in a long time. also, i have tried many times to write about making mixtapes but have never had any success, i always get too nervous and stop writing. i'm not really into reading about mixtapes either, so if for some reason you are slightly morally opposed to reading some bullshit about mixtapes and culture i 100% back you decision to not read it and tell your friends to leave it alone too.

Productive Day - Notebooks

Spent quite a few hours today making some notebooks for the upcoming Holy Craft! Fair (assuming I get a confirmation that I have a reserved table... oh, memories of planning the PRFM's in hartford and having annoying people like me email incessantly to 'make sure they have a table reserved'). Made over 10 books I guess, used up a bunch of paper, and played around with some of the letraset letters I have (oooh so many sheets, loves it). Also finished Aubrey's mixtape box, but must refrain from posting pictures before he sees it in person - can't ruin the surprise!!!

I usually price these between $5 and $10, and I always sell a bunch anytime I do a craft fair.

Rattfink Press

More Calligraphy

More calligraphy, sorry if it's boring. Worked with reed pens again today in class (although none of the ones I made, the teacher carved these and although I modified the two I used a bit, there was quite a difference from those that I had carved myself - interesting? Maybe.) working with uncial letters - apparently the half step from capital script to a lower case script that developed through everyday quick, sloppy writing, which was then perfected by scribes to be used in proper texts.

Anyways, it was fun - I really love this class and working with these pens, I can't wait to see how I like working with metal nibs again when it comes up in class. When I get into it, it's so easy for me to understand how scribes and illuminators could spend the time writing these letters to produce the incredible texts they wrote. At points, I'd draw a letter and it would look like it came off a page of parchment in a book of days or something, and it's like - wow, this isn't impossible! But it is a skill, and it requires time, and thus, I love it.

Here's a bunch of details, sorry they're all so gray, I'm too lazy to scan these things.

Animal Blobs?

I dunno. I have this box of transparencies and my head was stuffy all weekend and last night I tried to sit down and do some work, feeling guilty after literally doing nothing all weekend, and i made these guys. I'll probably make a bunch more and sell them as napkin rings or something ridiculous at this Holy Craft! Fair I'm doing in March.

And I'm Back...Alphabet Book

I'm back. I got lazy. A little sick, a little tired, a little more lazy.... but i'm back!


Here's the details from my last post.
Started that day off writing practice alphabets with the reed pens from class (and a few more I made that morning) and ended up ten or so hours later with this, a book (but not its' box) start to finish, in one day*:








So, it's just an entire alphabet. You should see the stack of mistakes I've got - they're really not mistakes for the most part, just letters that didn't come out how I want them. I've gotta figure out something fun to do with them, but anyways, I really like this book. It was a total fluff project, just practicing my handwriting, but I like it. Definitely somewhat inspired by Laura Davidson's work, or at least I have to shout her out because she uses a lot of ink writing in her work and it's really beautiful.

The book is SUPER long - the last photo, I think I'm holding the A over my head, and you can see that it hits the floor at only M. Gotta make a box for it, deciding between a slipcase and a box - but i've been playing with transparencies and I think that may come into play with whatever form the box takes...

On crappy strathmore pad medium weight run of the mill watercolor paper, torn down to two and a quarter by three inches. Letters written with handcarved reed pens with dr. Phil Martins peacock blue ink, watered down. Single sheets were bound with strips of decorative paper. The cover is decorated with blown ink.

More posts tonight.



*note: this is the first time i have done that, you know, make an entire book in one day like that, in probably two, maybe three, years.

Exhausted - Alphabet Book

So, today I went crazy. Here are some sample shots of the results, more description tomorrow.

Reed Pen Calligraphy

hand carved bamboo reed pens

three nib sizes

The other class I'm taking this semester is Letterform Anatomy with Joe Landry. Throughout the semester we learn the basics of letterform - each week we advance through the history of the letterform (that developed into the english alphabet), working the letters in the traditional way that is attached to the technique of the time. The second week, we did large scale paintings of letters using only downstrokes. The third week, we carved letters out of foam as if we were carving sandstone (SO FUN). This past monday, we spent the day carving bamboo reed pens and then practicing our script with them, again working only with downstrokes.

Without a doubt the most dangerous, and therefore fun and exciting, project I have ever been allowed to execute in a class, we spent as much time as we wanted carving pens out of bamboo reeds the teacher provided for us. This was so much fun and really made writing with the instrument that much more interesting - as I was writing I was able to alter my pen or make a new one to suit the size I was interested in working with.

I decided to take this class for three reasons:

1) I love the instructor (GREAT teacher, incredible sense of humor)

2) I love typography but am not totally interested in your run of the mill graphic design based typography course - i've taken a few of these types of classes and while it's fun playing with letters, I really love working without the computer sometimes.

3) I use handwritten text in a lot of my work, and I struggle with not having control over my form. I have a skilled hand when it comes to craftwork - cutting, folding, gluing, sewing, eyeing things, etc - but I've never felt very skilled when it comes to writing. I am often complimented on my handwriting but I myself find it to be very... unsteady. I hoped that by taking this class, and gaining a stronger understand of how and why the letterforms exist as they do, as well as learning how they were traditionally constructed, that I would be able to have a better grasp on how to form the letters when working them with my own hands. I have actually already noticed a feeling of more control when writing, since starting this class - and working with downstrokes only is something I really enjoy and have implemented often outside of class.

So here is what I worked from class on Monday - just some type sketches, using the three handcarved reed pens, and watered down sumi-e and walnut inks. Obviously I played with what the ink can do - I had a lot of fun filling letters and jumping the ink pools from form to form.

The letter that looks like a backwards P or a large lower case Q with a long J tail is my fictional '27th letter' that we had to invent for the class - we are supposed to work this fictional letter as we do the rest of the alphabet each time we learn a new technique.