feather2pixels

To begin designing the set of Down A Little Dirt Road, I popped my head in the CMA Library.   From the visual perceptive, the particular theme from the script that gets me most hot and bothered is earthquakes, and I found several technical books filled with engineering imagery that had me licking my chops.  Even just two minutes with these books make me kind of sorry that I can’t magically change my job from teaching this kind of stuff to teaching how to make art out of this kind of stuff.  But everything is okay–did you know that as an engineering teacher here, I am allowed to borrow an unlimited number of books for an unlimited period of time?  That  gave me a great idea for a way to make easy money over the summer.

But right now I need to start making this set.  I decided that a healthy variety of technical figures from the fields of geology and structural engineering would be an interesting starting point for look of this world.

I compiled 30 pages of images into one humongous project in Photoshop, where I was able to experiment with sizing, juxtaposition, and layering (click to enlarge):

A peek at part of the compiled image project.

The result was a continuous image roughly 5 x 3 feet in area.   That’s 15 square feet of great ideas!  I have plans to use this image to produce three large silkscreens for stenciling.  Looking ahead, if I get my way I think I kind of prefer to pretty much screen print the shit out of the entire set.

I have a few new artists joining my CELLspace screen printing studio this month.  Consequently , I thought it would be nice to set shop up with a proper sign, so I unpacked a piece of very special driftwood I have been saving and set to work ruining it with my art.  I found this wood at Mile Rock Beach in San Francisco five years ago and really, nothing I could print on it could ever improve it in an aesthetic sense.  But that has never stopped me before and I have been saving this for a special occasion so tonight I fired up the old t-shirt press and threw down a simple three layer print.  Then I screwed in on the door.  Took me less than an hour. (Click to enlarge)

The t-shirt press allows one to adjust the height of the screen on the platen.

I secured the wood to the platen with tape during the printing process.

At CELLspace nothing looks junky!

Woah! Today’s stormy morning took down one of Folsom Streets beautiful and humungous Chinese Elms.

It was so big, the entire street was blocked.

Also--not to make everything about me, but the way this tree took down a 1992 Toyota Camry with it was eerily reminiscent of the the way my own was hit by a Chinese Banyan on Hyde Street five years ago.

The aftermath.

This made me think of the Urban Forest Map, which is internet information overload at its best.

clicl to enlarge!

Awesome, Tamar.

After mail ordering special hinges that completely clear a door from its cavity in the open position,  I finally got around to assembling the door to my light-proof silk screen cabinet.

But apparently I suck at measuring wood and of course its turns out that there are huge gaps for light to get through.  Hopefully its not enough light to ruin unexposed screens.

Did I mention that I teach a college class called Instrumentation and Measurement?

At least the door pretty much opens and closes.

i have reinvented the door

special hinges

enormous, light accommodating gaps

Last weekend I drove up to Napa to meet my parents visiting from Philly. Parking was tight but I ended up finding a spot in the lot of an upscale shopping center. I was a little worried that my car might be ticketed because we took off for a bike ride with no intention of upscale shopping.

When we returned, I found this note on my windshield.

Not only had the upscale parking lot managers never suspected my desperate plot to park and dash, but based on the appearance of my car they assumed that the car couldn’t belong to anyone but an employee.

Instead of a ticket I just got a comically threatening note. The Camry saves the day again!

I guess this is kind of insulting, but my car has seen worse.

Sad things are happening every day. (From the Outer Sunset district)

Casters are definitely on my list of new favorite things.  I special-ordered these beautiful ones from the internet to roll-enable my homemade worktable.   They double lock (to disable not just rolling, but its uncouth cousin swiveling) and I was able to very securely fix them in the end grain of my 2×4’s with half inch lag bolts.  Have no idea what I am talking about?  I guess that just makes me the clearly superior carpenter.

Mm, these look good enough to eat.

Looks like I am doing graphics and set for Erin‘s next play, which is being produced in Berkeley by Just Theater.  My first duty was to design this postcard.  It’s supposed to get you interested in the connection between earthquakes and dreams, ideally without invoking Tori Amos.

front

back

Here’s some work from the fourth meeting of the postcard workshop: (more…)

Dispatch from the San Pablo Bay tusnami:

(San Pablo Bay 3/11/11)

We lucked out this time.

As your supreme leader,  I order it illegal to complain that San Francisco doesn’t have seasons, enforced by a one hundred coconut fine.   It’s okay if you don’t like the San Francisco seasons or find them different than what you might be used to, but people who say that San Francisco doesn’t have seasons either just got here or haven’t been outside yet.   Amateur hour!

(In a fantasy world that I created in my head, I am supreme leader of San Francisco.   Much like a clinical schizophrenic, I created this fantasy world because it is too difficult for me to live in reality, where lots of people know more about the city than I do.  Oh, and I run my city in the model of the Kingdom of Jordan.)

My point is that Sunday was the typical SFs winter day: wet, beautiful, and teeming with life.  Bernal Hill was bright green and there was a five pound rump roast on the BBQ.

Bernal Hill

South Van Ness Ave

I am quickly approaching the end of my winter screenprinting workshops.  Tonight marked the third of four meetings of the postcard class in which, after much preparation, we finally got to printing.  Here are some of the pieces completed tonight.

Jason‘s heart (this is one of the best pen and ink rendered stencils I have seen–he got superb line quality)

Alison’s two-layer poem print on wood.  I was impressed how well the text worked here.  I am biased, but the print on wood looks great to me.

Grace’s greeting card.  Her two layers from hand drawings combined very effectively.  Simple and well executed.

Oh yeah, I also figured out how to make an animated gif with Photoshop.  Why I would want to make an animated gif is another story.  But for now it’s time to party like its 1994:

More items printed at the postcard workshop:

Jeni's print on guitar wood

Jeni's print on guitar wood

Jeni's print on guitar wood

Jason's postcard

Grace's greeting card