The Weekly Press: 2008.06

Woodblocks

#300
Source material: Log wheel, woodblock type.
Looking at the repair job of this wheel, more evident in image #299 (wedges of wood hammered in), I was reminded of woodblock type and decided to explore what these two elements might look like together. In the first attempt, seen below, I kept elements separate to contrast them. Here I let them run together to see what patterns they would make. It's almost as if the wood were returning to it's more natural state.

#299
Source material: Log wheel, woodblock type.
I love how such a simple word can have so many definitions, leaving it wide open as to how you might resolve the meaning in your own way.

Abrupt Edges

#298
Source material: Log wheel.
A recent trip to Chiloquin and the nearby logging museum netted this and the following, both turned into a diptych with the idea that two images of the same object need not line up to give the flavor of the thing and the chasm even adds a little conceptually.

#297
Source material: Log wheel.

#296
Source material: Ashland clouds.
With summer weather comes great cloud formations, and living at the floor of a valley, there is usually more than one view that is special. This and the following two images have been made into a triptych even though they’re sort of and not quite contiguous. I like the abrupt changes at the edge, and still there’s a sense that it’s all the same scene.

#295
Source material: Ashland clouds.
The choice of color (or lack of) was made so to focus on composition, modulation and patterns. The deep blue and golden clouds of the reality were nice, but hey, it’s art.

#294
Source material: Ashland clouds.
I left just a sliver of Grizzly Peak for reference.
This triptych and the above diptych are viewable on my portfolio website “featured” page.

Luck and Elbow Grease

#293
Source material: Honey locust pods, plaster wall.
By pure luck I stumbled across this effect of glowing pods, and except for carefully outlining the shapes to effect the background separately, this image came together very quickly.

#292
Source material: Painted plastic tarp, Idaho clouds, polka dots in graphite and charcoal.
In contrast to #293, I worked a long time on this one, scrapped many versions, then finally began getting the texture of the fabric to an interesting place. Still, on its own, it wasn’t all that interesting. Adding “drawn” polka dots created a nice contrast, but the balance didn’t really gel for me until the clouds were added as a third element and modified to interact with the other two.

#291
Source material: Cutty Sark, Japanese cloud icon.
I wanted to give the ship a sense of nostalgia, and the sepia tone is a something of a cliché; the clouds yet another. Still, I like the effect. Two clichés equal success.

Diptych

#290
Source material: Checkered wrapping paper
This and the following image are the first two Weeklies meant to be a diptych. I don't know what took so long to think of this, since I've been wanting to make a horizontal piece for a long time...

#289
Source material: Grain Storage
Many years ago when I lived in Flagstaff, one of the big employers was Purina and when I first saw this recent image, it reminded me of that plant in Arizona. The logo for the company was a red checker so the rest of this diptych came together pretty easily.

Surface | Content

#288
Source material: Wasp nest
My friend Tom sent a scan of a wasp nest that fit perfectly with the concept I was tossing around at the time: The fact that content can seem empty or not present in so many things these days. Originally, I was going to post this image as text only; something I have yet to do. The metaphors of emptiness and hives seems like rich territory to explore.

#287
Source material: Kaweah Lake, Japanese wave icon
Continuing from last week, I've explored further the abstractions created by reflections on a lake surface. In this and the following images, negative and positive photos were overlapped and blended to interact with the overall pattern of the wave icon.