Starts and fits

Time flies when you’re underwater.

I’ve not written much in a while. I have a couple of false-start-drafts which no longer seem relevant. I should write more and be less precious about it. It’s fine for this space to have smaller, conversational thoughts in between bigger ideas.

Dinosaur pencils work best

I had an interesting false start on some artwork recently. I created a composition of a partially finished portrait sketch and printed it large. 24” by 36”. I bought a canvas of the same dimensions.

I found a great archival glue - used in book binding - and it worked perfectly to bind the print to the canvas.

But I miscalculated. The 24” by 36” canvas is actually more like 23 ¾” by 35 ¾”. I suppose this allows for framing. My printer doesn’t print full-bleed at 24”, it requires a ⅛” border on each side for the rollers.

These two facts combined mean the print hung over the edges of the canvas when mounted. Trimming the edges revealed I wasn’t quite aligned. So now the mounted print on canvas has white line on two edges.

In the past I’d used these birch panels for artists - thin plywood mounted on a frame. They’re a great surface, you can frame them or not, and they are precisely measured.

I wanted a lightweight canvas, and not a 2’ ✕ 3’ slab of wood.

Measure twice cut once they said. Did I listen? Nope.

I’m torn between inventing some kind of system to cover the white edges or to tear it all apart and start fresh.

I found some time to doodle recently and completed the above portrait sketch from a Uniqlo ad. I’m pleased with my progress here, even if I’m only at this sporadically. My brush work is less fiddly, looser, and generally more descriptive. I’m not fiddling things to death. I like it.

I used this as the basis of some collages which I shared to Instagram.

Dogwoods and cherry blossoms, power lines

Cherry blossoms on the sidewalk.

These I just printed out large. They’re rolled up on my desk right now.

While I enjoy the results of painting into and onto my digital paintings, I realize after looking at these big prints, that I am partially motivated by guilt. As if the big print out on my giant printer isn’t “enough”.

And that’s just silly. The printed output is just as valid as anything else. It’s hard to unlearn art school guilt.

I stumbled across this wonderfully weird music video by Tove Lo recently. It’s about love and robots.

I love when music videos become strange little art films.