Older Images I'm Drawing From.

Image 1 Drawing

Too much on my mind.

Ugh. It's 4:25 am and I'm tossing and turning. So i decided to update the blog and draw some sketches to go along with my last three digital pieces. I have a handful of sketches but I can't seem to be content with them yet. This might be why I'm still awake. I can't get them out of my head. Just the thought of them being unfinished makes me restless and antsy, and makes me want to stay up til the crack of dawn to work on them. That and the other two studios goin on right now. Oh well. Back to the sketchbook.

The End Is in Sight...

Sorry, there hasn't been a lot to post on since I've just been carving and working all week. I figured I'd condense the posts into this one since they'd all be a sentence, like "still carving today." Anyways, I was working on the third one today, thinking that they'd all be ok for tomorrow, and whoever makes the foam puts little perforated little cuts along the surface that make it easier for builders to break and harder for artists to carve. I was carving along the edge of one of these lines, and the whole thing split in half. So I had to start over with the third piece, setting me back to finishing the rest of the project this week. I expect it to be done on wednesday night-ish, so for the people that are in class, I'll show what I already have tomorrow, and the finished work on friday during class. I reworked the mache by adding more regular glue and some flour, since the original was too wet and crumbly. Due to material costs and mixing glue, I'm putting off the paper mache part until all of the images are finished carving up. I don't want to have to get the mix right more than once. The other three to be printed should be off the ground later this week, and finished over thanksgiving break.

Growing, Developing, and learning EASIER ways to do things...

Woohoo! Image one is done, and I have found MUCH easier ways to go about doing this. For the next two, the two pieces of foam will not be glued together, but smaller pieces will be glued on to the areas that need more raised sections in the relief. It just takes less time to avoid drilling through an entire layer of foam to reveal the lower layer. (Sorry if this makes no sense to people not on the same track as me)

Foam 2!!

Yeah, I know this can be one post but the format was messing up and this is my way to solve it :)

One piece wasn't enough, so two should do the job.

By the way, Image one is almost done. I just have a few touches to put on it tomorrow, and the other two are goin in the mix. All three transfers are going down at the same time just to make it easier on setup for gel and all that fun.

Foam!!

My version of mapping out the image on the foam before I carve it.

Minor Setback, but nothing crippling.

Earlier today as I was carving the foam, I stepped back and looked at it for a few minutes, and wasn't 100% happy with it. I was using 2" foam and the depth that I wanted to capture with it wasn't available in that shallow of a depth. I started over with 2 pieces of 2" foam for 4" and a greater depth and a more effective difference between each level of carving. Plus, this will go much more smoothly since there will be larger areas to work with. When I worked on the mockup and the 2" piece, it was slow and tasking since the areas were so small and fragile. The glue is drying on the large piece and it'll be dry for me to work on tomorrow morning. Since this process will already be complete on the first one, I'm printing the next two and finishing the first one tomorrow. The process will already be down and I'm going to make definite plans to have the three finished by the end of next week, giving me ample time to work on the other three images.

Monday's Critique...

Carving is going well and everything is smoothing out properly. Hopefully everything will continue to go smoothly and I'll have image one completed for monday's Critique.