Weekly IP Blog#22

What I did

Fri. 3/23/12: 5 hours at  G & B Graphics. Placed order with the printers for my tornado. Looked at test prints of all three of my work. 

Sat. 3/24/12: About 1 hour 45min editing my volcano and hurricane based on the test prints I did with the printers.  

Sun. 3/25/12: looked into cheaper lighting options for about 1.5 hours. Wood frames or none would be the best to go with. Played with words I could use to describe my work or at the show, wrote out a list of the key words I liked the best for each natural disaster.

Mon. 3/26/12: set up flash cards next to my work and drafts of gallery labels for about two hours. Played with the idea of having text between my work and what words I could or could not use. Wrote out the possible artist statement and title of my IP project.

 

Tues. 3/27/12: Met with James and Stephanie to go over my test prints and printing options. Learned about some edits I can make, my darks could be darker and the hurricane look less flat Spent 2 hours editing my hurricane for printing. 

Weds. 2/28/12: 3.5 hours, went to G & B Graphics to do more test prints of my hurricane. Oked the order for my volcano to printed. We discussed different mounting and lighting options, learned how we could drill and set up my pieces for the show.  

Thurs. 2/22/12: about 1.5 hours reflecting on my work this week. About 1 hour and 45min rewriting my description of my work and title. Spoke with  G & B Graphics about seeing one of my prices this weekend mounted and light from the back as a set example of how we could have it set up at my show.

What I accomplished/discovered/encountered

This week was amazing because Im actually printing some of my project. It's nice to see that my hard work is finally paying off and get closer to what I've envisioned this whole year! My tornado print order was placed last friday, and seeing it done this week was a pleasant surprise.  G & B Graphics is great! They are extremely kind and understanding about how important this is. They are helping stay in budget, have a lot of control of my prints, even get a chance to set up the some of the print files for the printer myself. I was there for about 5 hours last friday getting to know the small but amazing team at G & B Graphics. I learned a lot about the large printer settings and different printing options I could have with the test prints we ran most of the day. They have different printers, but the one for the canvas large printer the color translation was pretty good and helped me figure out what edits and settings I had to make for each natural disaster to look good printed. 

The tornado had the risk of looking too pink and dark, so the printer handled the file well when I lowered the brightness of the warmer colors a bit but brought up the contrast. The volcano was at first way too bright, which was good but bad. There is going to be florescent lights behind each print, so the tornado had the risk of standing out too much in comparison to the others. I dimmed down some of the white areas, especially in the middle of piece to help it stand out less. The hurricane was the hardest one to edit out of all three! Because of the color pallet I choose to work with, it had the huge risk of looking really washed out and the water looking flat. I did 5 prints of the hurricane, playing with the hue and contrast settings as well as the lights and darks. I met with James and Stephanie and Tuesday to a get feedback on what was happening on the test prints. We laid the 8.4x11 test prints I brought back on a light table and discussed some the line qualities that were distracting and how making my darks actually black would help keep it from looking so flat. I ended up repainting some of the lower potions of the hurricane to make my darks black and the pallet more green. Below is the edited version. 

test prints

I put in the order for the hurricane and volcano today, so those should be done soon. The prints still need to be mounted onto plexiglass and then have the lights set up behind them. I've have already spoken to Mark about this a lot this week and we are going to try to have the prints set up as "floating frames" so no light box frames around them and instead have skrews on each conner holding the print about 11/2 from the wall. The lights will be drilled into the wall behind the prints and have light spilling out. Leaving out the frames cuts down my budget by about $300. I will be visiting  G & B Graphics this weekend to look at a mock up set up of the tornado as a "floating frame" with the lights drilled into a wall behind it. 

Also this week, I played around with the idea of having text between my pieces at my show. Im imaging the key words or the quote I have on my postcard to be what people could read at the show ("…like a thousand whirlwinds… what appeared at first like an exploratory filtration, fallowed by inundation, and finally a destructive force unleashed… like a roaring animal…"). Some of the words for the tornado are wispy shape, energy, and funnel form, wild, free, dizzy, confused, electric, and crazy. One of my favorite descriptions is of a tornado is the ‘‘‘stretched serpentine-like form" as a title or text description. For the hurricane I found connecting it to a much more mystical realm than that of the tornado was important. Key words for my hurricane were coils, deep abyss, foam, tranquil core, and turbulence. Using the word "Hurakan", the Mayan weather God, as a title or dissection topic for my hurricane is something I could do as well. For the volcanic eruption I have epic, charged, fierce, vexation, muddy, doughy, walls or mountains of fire. I put some of these and the parts of the quote on sticky notes and placed on a table to each of the test prints I had of my natural disasters. I personally did not feel tied to having specific words presented with the prints, I like having the visual shock and presence of the prints take over the audience as to what they are or could be. I asked most of the people who have been giving me feedback on my digital paintings all year and about the idea of using text and some said it helped the work and others said it did not. I can go either way, right now Im not sure how well I can display text with the prints but Im still playing with the idea as my project is gets printed. I've also been debating about the title of my work, description, and artist statement I should have at the show. I am thinking of using "Forces of Delightful Horror: series of sublime natural disasters" as the title. Today I learned that each of my prints could have their own title and description. So I'll be looking at my options for each print having a great title or just strong one collectively. 

What I think I should do next

This weekend I will be working on finalizing my title and project description for my work. Like I mentioned before, I will be looking into having each of the three pieces having their own title and discretion vs. one for the three together. I think I like one for the three together right now, but Im not sure yet. This weekend I also plan on seeing a mock up of the gallery set up of the "floating frame" and lights behind my tornado print at G & B Graphics. I also will be helping this week in the construction of the skews and light set up for my prints. I am very excited to say I plan on submitting a print or the stand ins this thursday to Mark. I'm still worried of something going wrong with my prints because I put in the order later than planned, but is seems to be ok so far and a process worth being carful with. Im working hard to keep all three pieces cohesive yet interesting and true to their digital creations. Hopefully the week to come will be great in nearing the finalization of my work.