"Fixing" things? Some of My Favorite Shapes....

 

 I did this little 4" x 6" pencil sketch on a long flight back from Japan three years ago.  I often fill a sketchbook quickly, filling a page with shapes or doodles, and letting the visual forms trigger ideas or lead to the next drawing.

I usually draw a rectangle, the imaginary "boundary" of my image and fill it with a couple of lines or shapes. This one was a simple idea of basic shapes and primary colors, so I drew a rough square, a simple triangle, and-cramped as I was on the tray table- a quasi- circle....I added a caption, "Some of my favorite Shapes, Hanging out together" and thus it became another etegami--It was too awkward to color it in on the plane, so I turned the page and filled the sketchbook with many other similar drawings. 

 I've gone back often to that notebook and always thought about turning this into a very simple print.  I pulled out a few blocks, some tracing paper, and started to figure out how to interpret this.   One option would be to simply copy it exactly-there are ways to do that and I could reproduce almost exactly my original drawing.  BUT since I have to manually get it onto the wood, there is also an opportunity to adjust or fix the original drawing--maybe moving the text if it looks cramped or awkward, or in this case, maybe tweaking some of those OBVIOUS exaggerations I made in the original drawing (the square is actually a rhomboid, and that circle is NOT a circle)....and I will confess I did get out a compass, and adjust the circle to bring it closer to a geometric shape, straighten out the sides of the square, and tweak the triangle a little bit......

 But, that then makes other things look odd, and I realize that maybe it wasn't a great idea....as a rapid gesture drawing of imagined shapes, it has a quirkiness and spontaneity of something done quickly, just to get an idea on paper, that I really like, and that is very much how I usually do things.  Instead, once it gets corrected, it becomes more of a formal exercise of the relationship of geometric shapes and the negative space surrounding them (things explored very well by LOTS of great artists in the last 100 years)...and now suddenlty the hand-scribbled text also looks awkard, and may have to be redrawn or omitted...?

As I drew various corrected shapes, and played with the text, adding and moving letters to fill the empty spaces,  I tried to see if I could find a happy place between the two approaches. But once I realized that my vacillation was killing any hope of working--I just picked one of my attempts: one closer to a "real" circle and "real" square than the original.  (Made easier by using a collage....).

I'm going to go with this one.

But I still haven't decided whether I'll be carving text, or leaving it out.

 

 

Mirror, Mirror... Sign print is underway.

This will be a fairly simple print. I could probably get away with just 4-5 blocks but I'll probably duplicate a few as I get more texture and information in the color areas if they're printed more than once and off blocks with different grain patterns--If I use shina for color blocks I find sometimes I get a subtle grain pattern whether I want to or not.
This will be a set of simple shapes. Circle on a divided rectangle with a few bold colors and a few complex grays. Hope to pull off some good bokashi gradiants to animate what would otherwise be a very static work.
This cherry block is not really a keyblock as the big color areas will not have an outline but I wanted a little precise detail in the edges of the main form.
The success or failure of this one will come from the printing...so it will be a while before anything gets interesting.

Sign: detail

Infinite and Completely Irrational

Something infinite and completely irrational. Pi.

The small Greek letter Pi is used to represent the mathematical constant, ever changing, derived from geometry of the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter. This ratio for any circle will always equal: 3.141592653589....and goes on forever without repeating. No pattern, just randomness as you divide it out. Supercomputers are still churning it out and have it figured out to millions of digits.
My kids have memorized it out as far as they can and go around chanting the number sing-song throughout the day. Beats gum-chewing.

This is my contribution to the Baren Forum exchange # 43. I was pulled in from the waiting list. While not strictly on topic--the theme was "typography"--it does include large hand-drawn/carved numbers and the Greek letter Pi prominently displayed and hand printed.

Then there's also the formula for calculating the area of a circle...in case you forgot.

I had wanted the numbers to be visible through the ink of the "Pi" and should have printed the numbers block a bit darker or last so it would have at least embossed the damp paper. Lots of overprinting to the "Pi" as it either was too pale and lacked oomph or subject power but as it gained it by going darker I lost the effect of the numbers marching through it. At least 4 impressions and it still isn't uniform or rich enough. But the biggest defect in my mind is that I wish I'd partially drawn in the next number in the sequence so that the illusion of it continuing off page was emphasized. I'd already printed some when I figured it out and it was too late to go back.

Pi = 3.1415.....∞
Woodblock print-moku hanga (water-based) 7.25" X 11"
Baren Exchange 43: Edition of 32; 10 various-colored Artist proofs (too many but I couldn't decide).
4 blocks; 5 colors; 8 impressions.