[map, art] A Club For Those Who Want To Map Like Jerry

3481.

Back in 2013-2014, which I documented for the record, I documented my stumbling upon the organic life's work of a man named Jerry Gretzinger, who was creating, as he went, an imaginary world, 8 x 11 sheet by 8 x 11 sheet.

It's quite large now. over 50 feet long in one direction, and his world has toured the world, being shown in museums and art galleries. At first it was said to be called "Ukrania", but the name which has stuck is simply "Jerry's Map". Since it's been a while, here's the idea: Jerry began creating an imaginary city during lulls in a tedious job. The year: 1963. The original town, Wybourne (the original tile, pictured right) grew and grew from that beginning and then, as interests do, he moved on and shelved it. Eventually, a nephew discovered the stored map, asked him what it was, and he started growing it again. And never stopped.

This is something I've done and many aspiring artists and map affectionados such as myself have copied it. To us, Jerry is a hero because he's made a true commentary on the many forms art takes ... process, evolution, accomplishment. He operates on a set of basic rules controlled and governed by his own internal logic and directed by a deck of around 100 command cards fashioned from recycled playing card decks. These cards prompt for everything from introducing new colors to generating new tiles to creating new collages on the tiles to archiving and refreshing the world. So, to my mind, like no other artist, Jerry's Map not only chronicles the change in art over time, but it chronicles the changes the artwork makes on the artist, who folds that back into the process. The changer is changing the changed, and the changed is changing the changer.

Today I stumbled on a sub-Reddit called "Mapping Like Jerry!". It's a collection of similarly-inspired and aspiring artists who, seeing what Jerry has done, are moved to create their own versions of imaginary worlds. Jerry himself takes part, joyous as the friends he's obviously made along the way.

The sub-Reddit is at https://www.reddit.com/r/JerryMapping/.

[creativity] Inspiration Pad Dares You To Ride The Wave

3159.

Of all the interesting ways to challenge your creative brain to keep up, this is one of the most interesting and simple I've seen.

Designed my Mark Thomasset, the Inspriation Pad at first seems like just another of the incredible range of paper notebooks we've been seeing all over. About the same form factor, thickness, dimensions. It's a ruled notebook, red margin line, blue writing lines. But you open one and maybe you see this:

Or any one of a bunch of different patterns, from other waves, to mazes, to off-kilter registrations of the pattern, to sphereized and pinched lines.

The closest analogy I can come to is that of the Zen koan which, as I understand it, is a riddle without a logical answer. Considering the koan causes your mind to go places where logic cannot follow and the answer to the riddle as such is equally ineffable.

One looks at the wavy pattern above and the mind jumps on it and tries to ride it, and out of that creative tension, ideas may flow.

This has apparently been around for a while, but this is the first I've heard of it and I was delighted when I did. I can see why this might work but, of course, as the response to a koan, I can't put it into words.

The first version of this is displayed as a Behance project here: https://www.behance.net/gallery/Inspiration-Pad/430578,  and the current Pad is available through design firm TM's website, here: http://www.tmsprl.com/shop.html 

[art] New Books in the Studio

3005.

Just in, these little gems:

The one on the left, The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield, is actually one we've had for a while. It helped me when I kickstarted my notional graphic design career (which remained notional; perhaps I left some ingredients out, I don't know … I'm going over those issues now) and it's a book full of good, as anyone who has ever read it will tell you.

The one on the right is the new one. I'm just taking that one up now. Turning Pro is designed as, at least visually, not a sequel, but an extension to War, I can tell this by flipping through and reading passages here and there. This is a good thing. Because, for me, getting inspired is one thing. I muff it up magnificently betimes, but getting started isn't really the problem, keeping going is the problem. I lose focus very easily.

I could say more about that but I realized I just came up about as far as I've ever really explored that subject. I knew I've received great gifts, both real and talent-wise, my problem has always been I don't know how to use them and where to take them. Mayhap this is my next stop.

In the meantime, I'm glad that Pressfield is extending the train of thought. For those of us who can catch the ball and run with it, War is a great book and everything it's cracked up to be. For those, such as myself, who can catch the ball but are promptly bewildered by how to run with it and immediately get sidetracked by some bright, shiny thing (in that I behave much as my cats do) this book (noting Pressfield's previous style) may be just the thing. I'll be exploring this in posts to come.

Next one: Urban sketching seems to be evolving as a social activity and distinct thing-to-do. I've picked up and put down this volume many times in bookstores, but I've finally been able to bring it home:

The Art of Urban Sketching, by Gabriel Campanaro, documents the group phenomenon via sketches from several cities in which this easy-to-join club has 'chapters'. Sadly, despite the wonderful Portland skyline in the bottom of the book's cover, my artist-heavy hometown is not one of them. But the stuff that is in there is so wonderful, so expressive and passionate, that I can't help but drink as much of it in as I can.

Nobody ever draws Portland's Outer East, and 122nd Avenue. Maybe that's my place. In the meantime, I'll be consuming it most deliciously.

[art] A Henna Artist's Positive Ramble on Getting Unstuck and Creativity

2987.

Peep this, cats and kittens:



This positive, happy woman rambles on for about ten minutes and ten seconds (eleven, actually, but ten minutes and eleven seconds just doesn't fall as trippingly off the tongue) about being stuck as a henna artist and how to become unstuck as a henna artist. But, there's always a level of arting around that works universally, beyond, above, and below the obvious level of expression and art media.

This video has very good suggestions and ruminations about inspiration, looking, and being for not only henna artistes but any artist who feels 'stuck'. It's ramblin', but in the good way, most definitely.

She is, fortunately enough for me, someone I happen upon betimes in the workaday world. She's typically a very happy, dry-humored sort and if she brings that brio to her henna work, it's gotta be good.

She also has a blog (http://www.freehandmehndi.blogspot.com/) , a YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/FreeHandMehndi), and a Face-to-the-Book page (https://www.facebook.com/fhmhenna), which may be read and viewed and enjoyed.

[art] What To Do With Your Uncalendar™ If You Aren't Really Collecting Clients Right Now

2973.The Uncalendar is my favoritist paper toy right now. It takes a head full of buzz and fuzz and tempts me to create order. Me and discipline have never been the best of friends.

But right now I'm back in Finnegan* mode, and am not exactly trying to crowd it with events and clients. So what to do? Well, since anything goes, and it's a nifty frame to hang things on

… idea scrapbook!

… a parking stub from OryCon 35, some randome thoughts pinned down and stunned with formaldehyde and displayed, and 2 versions of a logo concept.

… Samantha Phillips' SIG image, and some more notes.

The little graph about 2/3s of the way down the left-hand margin of the verso is serving as a checkmark. If the idea to create can be quantified, I can sum the number of checks in three activities: "Write" (diary primarily right now), "Blog" (you're looking at it, I can check it off!) and "Draw" (still trying to negate inertia there. Number of checmarks/21 gives a decimal fraction that will increase as I push myself to do more.

Get you some Uncalendar (why don't you guys have a FB? I'd like that so hard!)

* Finnegan mode: Beginning again.

[art] Muse, Located At Last.

2749.Amanda Patterson, at her tumblr blog, has located at last, I believe, the physical manifestation of my muse:

Great legs. Not so hot about the Alannah Currie hair, though. But then you don't choose your muse, so to say.

Circle Amanda Patterson on Google+ at https://plus.google.com/u/0/103636214904400746295/posts.

[art] To Cross The Gap, One Must Build One's Own Bridge

2674.
This is part of the advice I don't usually follow. It makes so damn much sense though, of course.

Pete Michaud shares a clip of Ira Glass talking to television creatives about how they need to stick to it and provides a bit of insight. A pulled quote that stood out to me is this:

Everybody goes through that. For you to go through it—if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase, or if you’re just starting off and you’re entering into that phase—you’ve got to know that’s totally normal. The most important possible thing you could do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline, so that every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one story. Whatever it’s going to be…

All of us who aspire to the title of artist know this intuitively. Some of us follow it better than others. The logic that just working makes such fundamental sense, though. The logic is sound. You know your tools by using them. You know your capabilities by using them, too; you evolve your capabilities by practice.

As the old joke goes, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, Practice, Practice!" There's a truth there.

I can draw. I am afraid of messing up. I, like many aspiring artists, won't be happy if I can't come out with what I want to have on the first go. It's a tough obstacle to get round.

[pdx_design] Morel Ink - New Name, Old Stalwart

2605.A favorite PDX resource, Witham and Dickey, has changed thier branding and name. Before (which wasn't too shabby):

… and after. Now it's "Morel Ink".

Nifty logo (notice the way the blue color from the old logo is incorporated? Legacy on a subtle level) and clever name. We likey. The name is also shared by certain mushrooms that Cascadians tend to enjoy. Also, if you respace the letters, MOREL INK becomes MORE LINK, which is a laudable thing to want in this world which can get sometimes a bit too impersonal.

I've always wondered about applying to them …

[art] Another Diary Girl: Elizabeth Taylor

2595.My last diary girl came out pretty well. I wanted to push my envelope a little, and found a picture that really spoke to me.

In a Time magazine article from a couple weeks back about the passing of Elizabeth Taylor, there was this big beautiful face-shot that, despite being in black and white, captured her facial beauty very well I thought. The famous eyes, darkly outlined, kind of looked right into you. Also, the overall theme was rather simple and involved a monochrome palette, perfect for graphite, which, due to its eternal friendliness, has always been a co-favorite with pen and ink.

So, out came the diary, and this is the result:

Here's a closeup of the drawing itself:

So, I'll be honest about this one … I'm not 100% pleased with it. I didn't get the physical appearance as close as I'd hoped, and for some reason, at this resolution, it's plain to see why. The eyes are too big. The mouth is too narrow. The vertical proportions are off. I tried for Liz Taylor, but what I got more resembles a blend of Audrey Hepburn and Carrie Fisher … which are/were not unbeautious actresses, but when you're trying for Liz, a bit wide of the mark.

However! It would be a mistake to assume that because I didn't get exactly the result I wanted that I consider this a failure. I'm unstiffening my visual and drawing muscles after a too-long hiatus; I would have been overjoyed to hit the mark but that's not really a practical thing to want. Things rarely go that well when one is tentative. But I did use shading to indicate volumes; I did use tone, rather than line, to define objects, which is what happens in real life; I did, at least, get the damned woodless graphite sticks … the second greatest art supply after pen'n'ink … out and used them. And when you've been creatively disabled, as I have for a while, just the feel of these things getting used is redemption.

I have the basic muscles. They're still there! The thing is, to flex them. I'm going to try to draw a bunch of lovely women, and then after that whatever strikes my fancy, or maybe during, and keep putting them in my diary and putting it up here for all the world to see.

This is hard work. Creating art always is. But there's good hard work, and it doesn't scare me much anymore.

[art, typography] Lucy Knisley's Comic Alphabet

2584.Illustrator Lucy Knisley has matched up the alphabet with a significant character from the history of comics. It's a poster that you can buy and to do so, you can go here:

http://www.society6.com/studio/lucy/ABComics

Really, it's twenty-six characters no matter how you look at it.

[comix] Free Donna Barr! Comix, I Mean! In Yer RSS And Suchlike!

2581.Donna Barr is famous for a very good reason - great art! Great art! Great art, and great stories … two! Two very good reasons: Great art, great stories, great characters … three, three very good reasons …

And here's two very important examples: This fellow is the Desert Peach:

And this fellow is Steinhard Löwhard … or "Stinz":

And they are the most amazing characters. One of the biggest draws to me for Barr's art and storytelling is the obvious affection with which she blends German history, astoundingly original characters and believable situations. The Peach blends WWII life in North Africa with a M*A*S*H-like sensibility for the absurdity of the human condition in war and the simultaneous fragility and resiliency of the human spirit, and Stinz blends the Wilhelmine German empire with … centaurs of all things. And all the characters become friends, which is just the thing that any great storyteller must do and succeed at.

Donna's two websites, http://desert-peach.com and http://stinz.com, are posting the whole run, an new comic daily. So that even though you ought to buy yourself Donna's books, if you can't, you can read them, one new (or new-to-you) comic a day, and there's even an RSS feed, yo … you load it into your RSS reader and you'll never miss one! And it's free. SUCH A DAMN DEAL!

If you aren't reading, why not? I expect a good answer to that question.

[web_comix] Supermassive Black Hole A-Star - Black and White is More Lively Than Color

2573.Now, I don't know what it is about mininalist art. Oddly enough, when you render something complex in an elemental form, such as black and white, somehow it becomes even more alive.

I have a hypothesis about that.

I came upon it when watching a rerun of The Twilight Zone, the classic, Serling version. One of my favorite episodes is one called "The Midnight Sun". The main part of the story concerns a young woman, an artist by profession, just trying to survive minute to minute in an environment which has become literally untenable; the Earth, for some reason, has begun to spiral into the sun, and the sun has become so big in the sky, that there is no night anywhere - just relentless heat. Hence, the title.

Effective set dressing helped, but the lack of color forced my mind to work. I could feel it happening. I watched the TV image, and while I did, my brain was overlaying sense impressions that weren't obvious because the color cuese were not there in the image. I felt drawn in and subsumed into the teleplay; it wasn't an abstract thing - a tenuous part of me was with that woman, dying under the hostile sun.

I needed a glass of water while I was watching it.

Black and white - or monochrome - art does this to you. It involves you. It makes your brain work for the image. I'm sure, if you did a CAT scan of a person percieving a B/W image vice a color one, you'd see different areas of the brain active. And I know you can't feel it, physically, but somehow I did.

There is a webcomic I just stumbled on, the full title of which is Supermassive Black Hole A*. It's also simply called A-Star. The object in question is the supermassive black hole that's supposed to be at the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy; it's called A for Aquarius, the Zodiacal sign in which the galaxy's center can be found, and the asterisk, or "star", denotes that it's the biggie, number 1. The title gives itself to a hard SF comic of the far future in which Mankind lives amongst the Galactic Core and near and around A-Star.

But enough of that. I told you all that to tell you this: this comic is amazing because its palette involves just black, white, and the occaisional shades of gray:

Everything is that way, from the interior scenes to the space scenes. It draws you in, and the storyline is harsh and unforgiving on the characters - they all play for keeps in thier contexts - and it drew me in. I wasted (not really) a couple of hours yesterday, following the story of far-future megacorps and assassinations and revenge.

I find it amazing.

Here's the URL: http://smbhax.com/

Read it or … you kinda suck. I don't mean to be mean, but I gotta tell you the truth.

[inspiration] Blog 2 See: The Stuck Creative

2569.There's stuck and that's a good thing, and there's stuck and that's a bad thing.

I've not delved into it too deeply yet, but The Stuck Creative (http://thestuckcreative.wordpress.com/) looks like News I Can Use™. One thing you have to be ready for if you fancy yourself creative is gurus happening where you least expect them. So, this is something worth exploring, on the face of the title just alone - it tells you its story.