ARTMAN GREG'S SCRATCH PAD WEEKLY BLOG ARCHIVES ~
MARCH 2008
3/28/08 - I just don't know where the time has gone. Speaking of which, I wanted to take a moment and describe how I completed my latest scratchboard, Soldiers (at a Market in Panama). I took the usual steps in my drawing process: First I enlarged the reference photograph I used and made a sketch, editing out a few soldiers and background information. Then I photocopied the sketch and added values - no, not the moral kind! I mean I decided what was going to be black or white in the sketch and used a marker to flesh it out. Then I traced my sketch onto the scratchboard and scratched away. But, of course, I really don't have the luxury of long stretches of time to devote to my work during the week. So I went with the 5 minute rule. Every day I would work on my piece for at least 5 minutes. This was hard at first, because I wanted to work for more than 5 minutes, and sometimes I did. But I always kept an eye on the clock. Now I'm usually pretty good at staying in my creative zone regardless of whether of 5 minutes or 105 minutes to work on a piece. But even I was surprised at how much I could get done in 5 minutes without rushing, and how easily I could pick up where I left off the day before. I proved to myself that no matter how little time I have I can always take time to be creative. Now stretching the work out over so many days seemed to make it take longer to complete. But the end result was just as satisfying.
Here is a picture of the work in progress. On the left is the values sketch underneath a piece of paper that I use which scratching to keep my hand from smudging the work. In the center is the work before I cut it out. On the right is the original photograph and the enlargement of it underneath:
I knew I didn't want the soldiers' uniforms to be white and I didn't want to put too much detail in them. At first I considered applying a dot screen to shade them, but then I experimented with pencil and that worked really well. The pencil picked up some of the texture that I had scratched into the board. I shaded each uniform very lightly and then massaged it with a shading stump to make it even. I had to be very careful though because the tip of the pencil was sharp enough to scratch away parts I didn't want it to, and the stump could also remove the black as well if I pressed too hard.
3/21/08
- First Full Day of Spring (on the East
coast), Good Friday, and the debut of
my new website and blog. Yeah, I'll be updating this once a week or maybe even more
frequently, so you'll want to check back in to see what's new and what's news on
my radar. A lot can happen in a week! If you've been to my website before, you
may be wondering... where are your photographs at? I now sell them on
items available from my Cafe Press store, Artman Greg's Gift Shoppe (www.CafePress.com/ArtmanGreg). My prints
(Bedtime Prayer, Are We There Yet, The Disk Jockey) are now only available on
. So if you want one, look up
ebay
item numbers 150226639294 (The
Disk Jockey),
150228045160 (Bedtime Prayer), and
150228051869 (Are We There Yet). Just copy and paste
the item number into Ebay's search. If you have been wanting to buy one, now is
the time!
Be sure to click on the new "Home Decor" links on the right. These will help convince you that, "Hey! Artman Greg's black and white art really will work in my home or office; I should buy one!"
Oh yeah, this is a read-only blog, so if you have any comments about something I said, e-mail them to me. If I like it, I'll post it. If I don't, I might post it anyway. I just made up this blog thing on Frontpage and it was relatively easy to do. But I will keep it updated. No, really!
4/25/2008 - I wasn't feeling so well this week - tummy troubles. My wife thinks it was probably a stomach virus. It really didn't affect my appetite very much, but it was annoying. It still hasn't completely gone away. But it hasn't stopped me from getting half of my drawing finished. So far it is coming along as I had planned and I'm happy with the progress.
I was driving to work on the interstate in the early morning this week. It was a rather uneventful commute up to that point; I was toggling the radio station between NPR's Morning Edition, the classical music station and the Gospel show on the Black station as I usually do. The sun was not up yet but it was twilight. Traffic was flowing smoothly and I expected to arrive at my usual time. A black car was driving rather fast about 20-30 car lengths in front of me when suddenly a baby deer darted out across the road in front of him! The car swerved violently to miss hitting the deer but as it swerved it went into a wild spin into the right hand lane. My heart was in my throat because I couldn't slow down fast enough to avoid what was sure to be a horrible collision. Though I had the windows closed I could hear his tires screeching as he spun around. The car in front of me continued to spin until it wound up again in my lane and stopped, facing me! I knew other cars were near me and were slowing down too in the other lanes but I wasn't sure if they were slowing down fast enough for me to make a quick move in their direction. Praise God, seconds before I reached the car, he accelerated and spun around into the left lane, facing the right direction, and stopped, though a little edge of his bumper remained in my way. I was able to go around him safely and continue on my way. Whew! What a sigh of relief! I thanked God for protecting me and continued my commute. What a close call! No less than 10 minutes later that same guy had caught up to me and passed me, speeding by in the right hand lane.
4/19/08 - I made the enlargement of the reference picture I needed and have begun the drawing. I make the initial drawing onto tracing paper, darken the back of the tracing paper with pencil, and then trace the drawing onto scratchboard. This process allows me to edit and tweak the piece as needed before it is applied to the scratchboard for the finished work.
I knew that working on this piece would require a lot of repetitive work, and I'm not just drawing each "item" as a duplicate; I decided to render each "item" as an individual object, so that each one will be slightly different. You will understand why that is important later on. I can tell this is going to be a highly emotional piece to create, and my goal is to channel all of that emotion into it.
I took my daughter to Walmart and we shopped for some paint. No, I'm not repainting the walls! It was paint for the artwork. At first I thought I might use ink, but I wanted to go for a uniform, flat look. As I thought about it more I wondered, "Maybe I should use ink anyway, because it gives a textured look once applied." I had used ink before (see The Magic Touch) but the way I had originally pictured the work was for it to be a flat color. I hadn't used acrylics on scratchboard before so I wasn't sure if it would warp it. Finally, I decided to buy a small amount of acrylic to test it on the scratchboard, and it worked without warping it. It dried lightning fast too. But I can't afford to make mistakes with it since that will mean scratching it and the scratchboard off beneath it to fix it.
4/11/08 - I'm lagging a bit behind with this art project. I need to get a reference picture enlarged but have not found a large format printer in the area. I may wind up enlarging it on the computer, printing it out in pieces and then putting those pieces back together. It's more work but at least it's free and in this economy every little bit helps. I will say that this piece is based on the American Flag but I have a little dilemma: if I reduce the number of stripes will it still "read" as a flag? If I use the correct number of stripes it could overstate my point, which may not necessarily be a bad thing, but isn't what I had originally planned. Hopefully this dilemma will not create a block for me because I really want to get the work done.
For me, another important part of creating the work is choosing the music I will listen to as I create the final piece. I need music that helps me stay focused and in whatever mood I'm trying to bring out in the piece. It also helps me to stay in the creative zone when I get interrupted or can't work on the piece for awhile. I can just put the music back on and it will trigger the emotion that I want in the piece. This was particularly effective when I created "Are We There Yet?" While I am thinking about what music I want to listen to I won't actually be choosing any until I start the finished work.
4/4/08 - This week I joined an artist's networking site - www.ArtScuttlebutt.com . It's a neat site with a lot of artists from different walks of life and all kinds of styles. Although they didn't have a category for scratchboard on there. So I had to categorize my artwork as "Other." I always knew I was special. So far I've met some pretty friendly folks. What I also like about it is that when I made up a blog, it appeared as a new blog on their home page right away, giving my blog more visibility. But don't worry, I'm not going to write 2 million blogs for you to read. This one and that one will be practically identical.
I've been preparing to start a new piece of art that will be based on slavery. It will present slavery as a metaphor for something else. That is the only detail I am giving at this point, but I invite you to stay tuned as I share the progress and process of making it. I had this idea a few years ago but now is the right time for it to come forth. When I prepare to create some of my work, I usually base it on a thumbnail sketch of an idea I've captured on paper and filed away. I do online research on the subject. I try to find books that I have that reference the subject. After I'm satisfied with the research I begin my sketch, deciding how big or how small the work should be, how it will relate to the edges of the paper, and laying down the basic shapes in the work. Right now I have finished my sketch and will create a more finished drawing that I will base the actual work on. This time I will be using one color, and I haven't decided yet on how I want to apply the color to the scratchboard. I thought of one method so far but it may not be archival, and part of the impact of this piece will be the color I use. So far I have decided that the piece should be 14x30 but that may change as I work on it. I need it to be at least that size so the detail can be seen.