grid instructions

here's a recap of the instructions of the grid you're making for tomorrow:

1. cut a 6 x 8 inch window into a piece of cardboard
2. with strings, create a grid that makes 1 inch squares inside the window (ie cut lengths of string that are as wide as the window and then tape them to each side, one inch apart. do this horizontally and vertically)
3. draw a 3 inch grid on two sheets of your newsprint (ie each line is three inches apart)
4. label the columns on both your cardboard grid and your newsprint with letters (a,b,c...) and the rows with numbers (1,2,3...)

the more carefully and accurately you make both your grids, the more accurate your drawing will be.

look at this!

below is a link to tom phillips's book "a humument". it's a victorian novel he altered with drawings while letting certain words remain legible. i was talking to eva about this, and it occured to me it might be useful for all of you to look at it.

http://humument.com/gallery/slideshow.html

this is a really great example of turning a found object into an interesting series of drawings.

along those lines, zak smith did an illustration for every page of thomas pynchon's "gravity's rainbow" (which is like 700 pages long).

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/zak_smith/title.htm

i would consider something like this series of drawings to be in many ways a take on a found object. all of the drawings are directly inspired by a pre-existing work. the website is not ideal, but you can check out some of the drawings.

individual meetings!

here's the schedule:

thursday:
11:00 Eva
11:20 Alex
11:40 Spencer
1:00 Yun

friday:
10:20 Benji
10:40 Anna
11:00 Matt
11:20 Patrick
11:40 Erika
12:00 Andrew
12:20 Elise
1:00 Greg
1:20 Adam
1:40 Scott

meet me at java house on e. washington st (between dubuque and linn downtown). i'll be camped out at one of the tables towards the back.

New Assignment!

welcome back to the blog! yay!

for your next assignment i'd like you guys to work in a series. the way i like to think about a series is that each individual piece can theoretically stand alone, but in the context of the other pieces, a new, or emphasized meaning, is achieved. for this assignment i'd like you to think about material and presentation.

to inspire you, here are some images of drawing series ("series", according to dictionary.com, is both the singular and plural...). the top one is joseph grigely. he's a deaf artist who collects the bits of written notes that people use to communicate with him. the next image is marlene dumas's "blindfolded" series (20 inkwash sketches). the next two are part of sandra cinto's "nights of hope" series. and the last is anna barriball's "36 breaths", which are all ink on found photographs.

in particular i'd like you to think about the grigely and barriball images and consider the materials they've used. this assignment is a good opportunity to incorporate found materials as well as altered images from things like magazines, books, and other mediated sources.

your series will be due next wednesday (april 1st).