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#2 exchange sketchbook: mitchel hunt
July 22, 2008
names of the mighty
by sven at 4:16 pm
John Hankins (AKA castlegardener) has started a sketchbook exchange. And, much to my own surprise, I'm participating!
Ten people. Ten sketchbooks. Draw on five pages (ten, if you use both sides). Pass the sketchbook to the next person on the list. Ultimately, you get your book back with drawings from a bunch of cool artists.
My big secret: I mistakenly thought there would only be one sketchbook being passed around when I signed up for this. Oops. Oh well -- I'm committed now.
"What a terrible thing to do, to deface a perfectly serviceable painting -- especially with penmanship of dubious quality... And yet, I'm finding that the more layers I pile one atop another, the richer the visual texture I create. It's a technique I call "obliteration." I'm not sure what good will ultimately come of it -- but it's one of my best artistic insights of the past few years, so best to just keep going down this road and see where it leads me. Similarly, stream-of-consciousness text seems to have a place here. Promising."
I've been having a lot of fun with laminating pages with layers of different colored tissue paper. It's kind of like a doing a wash with paint -- but with potential for some really interesting textures.
I'm also having fun with black-on-black and white-on-white artwork. I'm really pleased that these scans turned out as well as they did. I expected them to be completely illegible.
Heh. And because some folks in the exchange were joking around about inserting secret messages in their art... There's something hiding on the "hello" page if you look really closely.
Sorry, dear readers: I used a technique that can only be seen if you hold the book in your hands.
(But if you ask nicely, I'll tell you a cute story about how I originally happened upon said technique. ;-D)
posted by sven | July 22, 2008 4:16 PM | comments (5) | categories: sketchbook
Comments
yay! yeah, those scans are great. i don't think it's clear you're transcribing the writing on the second piece, though.
Posted by: gl. at July 22, 2008 4:34 PM
Oh, pleeeease!? I'd love to know a cute story about a cool technique!
Posted by: Shelley Noble at July 22, 2008 10:11 PM
A few years ago gl. and I were part of a writing group that did 10-minute stream-of-consciousness exercises. During one of those exercises, my pen ran out of ink almost at the top of the page.
I thought to myself, "well, now isn't this interesting!" -- and proceeded to write out the rest of the exercise without ink. (Perhaps a page and a half?)
So, you certainly can't photocopy those pages... But if you look at the notebook in the right light, you can actually read the words that a dry ball-point pen inscribed into the paper.
Kinda like invisible ink. ...And I was fascinated by this stunt as a commentary on writing: writing as the act of thinking and moving your hand -- not some tangible product.
Anyway, the secret messages in the sketchbook were done by just pressing into the paper with something pointy. (A mechanical pencil with the lead removed, in this case.)
Posted by: sven at July 23, 2008 12:40 AM
(^ funny. I was just drawing on an orange balloon with an orange Sharpy.
(^ the difference in tone is almost 2 Fstops. (^ or is that not tone but density?
(^ i sometimes do what I call "verbal deTOURant art"
(^ just stuff to keep my hands busy in order to keep my mouth shut.
(^ It used to be really useful while being a roady toady, during music sets.
(^ kept me from singing offcolorkey to songs I'd heard before like some clone of Wild man Fisher.
(^ sometimes, lip syncing instead of letting the voicebox vibrate is much like an inkless sumi brush.
(^ just add water stains.
Posted by: prosser at July 28, 2008 8:46 AM
Hey Brian -- nice to see you over here...
Ah, an inkless sumi brush. Yes. :)
Posted by: sven at July 30, 2008 12:24 AM