So I was figuring out the text on the pages that I had done in InDesign the night before crit. It was really REALLY frustrating because it didn't look great. At all. And in order to split the text up in a way that doesn't completely ruin the painting, I would have to do weird stuff with it and reading it became labyrinthine and confusing. People in crit agreed when I showed them the final printed off version. So I've made a decision. The text is no longer going onto the pages.
These paintings are different than anything I've done before. They are huge, but full of negative space. Because I was thinking that they would end with text on them, I decided to focus on a single central subject. They are also incredibly layered so I feel there is a lot of depth (visually, not subject matter-ily) to them. I couldn't stand to ruin this SPARSENESS that was creating such an atmosphere. I mean, the POINT of the paintings was to create an atmosphere to go along with the text. So, here is my new game plan:
I have extra white pages at the beginning and end because I was planning on doing twice as many huge painting pages. I even have extras on top of them because I was planning on having collages at the beginning and end as well as a title page, etc. SO. I am going to use these extra pages and fill them with the text. I'm not sure how I'm going to put the text on the page yet. Maybe screen printing still, maybe the old version of etching. Maybe Van Dyke prints. Letterpress would be the coolest but LORD I don't feel like dying at such a young age. The idea of setting all that type physically repels me. Plus my school has apparently decided that art students can't have access to the facility that has all the alternative process dark rooms and letter presses and etching presses this semester even though it's SITTING RIGHT THERE WITH ALL THE MATERIALS IN IT. Ugh. Seriously, how effing ridiculous that we HAVE resources and I can't use them.
Anyway. I'm still doing the collages of violent religious imagery--in particular of Joan of Arc and Jeebus--but there will be text on those pages as well. I will integrate the collages in with the text. Then the story will be split in the middle by the watercolor paintings I have done, which will have screen printed onto them just a sentence of the text that I find particularly powerful. I think I will begin the book with a watercolor painting that just takes up parts of a double spread, but has room on the bottom and top for text as well so the middle isn't strange and sudden and so you start to feel that sparse landscape atmosphere at the beginning.
Whew! Lawd, so much work to do, so many decisions to make! Hopefully I'll have this somewhat figured out by the end of next week. Now here is the painting I just finished recently:
In other news, The Office was awesome. Hurray for the return of fall television! Also, a post on my collage inspiration, Kara Walker, is pending, but there are SO many images that it will have to wait until this weekend. If I'm not puking all over the place, that is. I think I have caught something horrid.
Pages 9-10. Hurray! Also, it is Friday, so that is exciting. And now pages 9-10 with the potential text as done in In Design with my new favorite font, Adobe Jensen Pro. It's cool enough to look like it's sans serif, but it's totally serif: This text is by NO means set in stone. I was just playing around and getting ideas. I'm going to pass all my text by the graphic design prof here who is evidently a type nazi before anything gets printed on my precious precious paintings.
My friends, having internet in the studio is a blessing and curse. While I can now research images and such with ease, I also can spend too much time looking at things that are amusing but distracting and watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on magical, magical Hulu. But I do find some pretty ridiculous/awesome things. For example, I'm pretty sure this is the only way Wuthering Heights will ever be interesting to me:
There is also this educational comic on the Japanese language and culture. You know you love it, ladies.
Via Yes But No But Yes. There is a glorious list of ancient ridiculous comics going on over there.
Finally there is a fine specimen of manhood seeking out a very specific wife on Yahoo. His "Quick Disqualification List" of 19 bullets includes "You have to go to the bathroom more than once during a four hour date where we first have dinner at a restaurant then see a movie." He then goes on to create a "Quick Qualification List" of 12 bullets:
Besides those things that can be ascertained from the "Quick Disqualification List" above, the following is a list of things I seek in my future wife.
My preferred height for my wife is between 5'4" (162 cm) to 5'8" (172 cm). However, if you are very thin, shorter is fine, and taller is fine if you are slim.
Though most men like large breasts, I don't. The larger the breasts, the more I'm turned off romantically. Bra size 32 B is my preferred, but any size up to 36 C, depends on your height, is good. Any larger than that will depend on the rest of you. I've seen women with 36 Ds that are fine. But if you are in the 40 Ds and above, forget it, a total turn off for me romantically.
Weight wise, for the following heights, the indicated weights, give or take 10 pounds, are generally best, the less weight the better. However, depending on your build, an acceptable weight may be quite different. For example, I have heavy bones, in high school, I was 20 pounds over what the charts said I should be, but there was no fat on me whatsoever. I've known girls that were very slim but weighed 10 pounds more than the average girl her height and build. Whatever your weight is, you must be somewhere between thin/slim to a lean athletic (meaning, not much fat). To help you better understand, in American sizes, if you are a dress size bigger than 8 or in plus sizes, it would be highly unlikely that I would be interested.
5'0" - 90 lbs or less
5'4" - 120 lbs or less
5'8" - 140 lbs or less
You are under thirty years old. My preferred range is between 24 and 29 for such girls have generally finished their formal education and have a good idea of what they want for themselves in life. However, I will consider younger and older. If you over 29, you will have to be pretty and slim.
You have no children, will not have children and do not want children. I have already raised four wonderful children and do not wish to raise anymore.
Sorry, but when it comes to turning me on, light chocolate to white skin color is needed. However, there are exceptions for darker skin, but they have to be very beautiful.
As my wife, you will have no desire for a career of your own, since as my wife your career will be working side by side with me starting and running our own businesses (Yes, I’ve started and ran my own successful businesses in the past). Only my future wife and me will know the details of the businesses until they are started. All you will know now is that they will be financial in nature, they will help others financially.
You are a hard worker. My wife to be and I will work hard together, play hard, rest well, and enjoy the fruits of our labor. Our work will have us traveling all around America. The fruits of our labor will enable us to travel around the world if we choose.
You are content in humble circumstances. My future wife and I will live humbly at first and as our businesses grow and flourish, so will our lifestyle. Therefore, if you are looking for an easy life of play and leisure then I am not the one for you. This eliminates virtually all girls of well to do parents for such girls are used to getting everything they want and have an expectation of instant gratification. My joy will come from watching my wife’s enthusiasm and excitement of growing businesses that provides the financial freedoms to do the things she so desires to do.
You must be able to get yourself, at your own expense, to anywhere in America.
ETC.
Then comes a wordy tome that has paragraph titles like: "An obedient wife is NOT the same thing as a slave!", "Do NOT fall in love with me until I say so!", "When a Wife Becomes a Whore" and "Multiple Wives". Unsurprisingly, he has been searching for several years.
And lo, I leave you with a glorious abomination of God that could only be a Dürer:
Bwahahaha! Okay, I'm currently pumped on a three espresso shot caramel machiato. Perhaps this was a questionable decision seeing as I have a packed day tomorrow and class starting at 9 am, but whatever. I'm getting things DONE.
First? Pages 7-8! !kaPOW!
The next two pages are already taped down and on their way to getting done. They should be finished by tomorrow AT THE LATEST.
!sha-ZAM! mock up for pages 9-10, pages I've already started painting.
11-12 are already figured out, so 13-14 will be my goal tomorrow. Gettin' stuff done is pretty fulfilling. Also for some reason there is a girl in my narrative writing class whose name is Precious Angel. I don't know if her parents named her that or if she decided on her own that that was her name, but I don't know which is worse.
I was pretty aghast to find this photo shopped horror of a classic piece of Americana feminism, generally because people are trying to pretend like Palin is a feminist when in reality she is anything but. She is a woman conservatives like because she touts every ideal--particularly gender ideals--that they hold dear in a pretty package that really has no substance.
Back into semester now. The trip to England made me not want to be in school anymore. And then I came back and I was and that sucked. Especially because I missed a whole week and everything was going on and I had to catch up. After a fairly stressful week, I'm back into it and I even have a prospective finish date for My God: December 1. I plan on having all of the big pages finished by October 5, which gives me 3 weeks to paint 8 pages out of 12. Also, I plan on having no social life. Fortunately, after a dry summer imagery has been coming really easily and I already have another 3 pages mapped out and 1 about halfway done.
Mock up for pages 7-8.
Pages 7-8 being transferred onto big pages.
Mock up for pages 9-10. This will probably change a bit when it hits the big pages, there is something lacking. I think I may have applied the water colors too thickly over the entire thing. It will be a slower, more thinly layered process when I get to the big pages for it.
