Small drawings on paper (in progress and not necessarily right-side-up).

Just a quick post to show some of what’s been going on lately. I’ve been on vacation for the past week, trying to spend most of it in the studio.

Not much to say otherwise, except that things are starting to come together.

Flipping the print over so it could be rolled up and placed in a tube for the trip to the framer.

I’m in the process of getting negatives drum scanned for a new body of work that will be comprised of a series of large-scale (at least 48″x48″) composited images. This will be the first time I’ve used photography and Photoshop in my work, which has primarily been sculpture.

I’ve been making photographs as a hobbyist for a long time, but until recently, Photoshop was mostly an application I used for minimal photo editing and turning designs into web pages. Tools like layer masks, layer adjustments, blending modes, brushes, and most of the other 8 million options were of no use to me. Now that my needs have changed, I’ve been going through a crash course on workflows and tools needed in photo compositing. This also involves getting used to a tablet, which is necessary (and so much easier) in this type of work.

The best technical information I’ve found has come from a video series named “Calvinize: Signature Techniques of Photoshop Artist Calvin Hollywood” (he also has some short tutorials on youtube). It’s mostly concerned with beauty retouching, but the technical information definitely applies to my project. Plus, with a great German accent, lively narration and a lot of skill, Mr. Calvin easily beats out the drones in the other series I’ve tried.

Since I have no experience with large-scale printing, I wanted to go through the process before printing anything from the series. I decided the perfect candidate was a photo of Sunset Beach on a glooming morning, one I’ve wanted to print since the first time I saw the proof sheet. If you’ve clicked on the image, you’ll immediately notice the terrible reproduction I was able to eek out of my flatbed scanner. While the scanner is on the low-end (Canoscan 8800F), it’s usually pretty good with most images, at least for the web. It turns out that the negative had some issues. After drum scanning it, the nice folks at The Icon told me it may have been mishandled at some point, either while loading the camera or unloading the finished roll. Makes sense, I was still getting used to loading a Hasselblad when I used it to shoot the photo a year ago. Luckily their scan was nowhere near as screwed as mine and they were skillfully able to work out the issues.

So yesterday, after a few interesting and informative proofing visits earlier in the process, I picked up the print and dropped it off at the framer. It was definitely more stressful than I’d have guessed. Transporting anything I’ve spent so much time and money on is always stressful (including cats). And my imagination made sure I’d think about all the mishaps possible in a short drive across LA. Elizabeth helped to keep things in check, though.

The print looks great and I can’t wait to get it back from the framer and on the wall (3 weeks, as they’re crazy busy). More importantly, I now understand the process, as well as what to expect in the final output, something I’ve needed in order to feel comfortable enough to keep moving forward.

Contact sheet from my Hasselblad’s last roll.

Sorry for the dramatic title. The above is the last roll I shot with my Hasselblad before it died. Its mirror arm has snapped and fixing it would cost more than the body is worth.

Don’t fret though, I’m going to get another. It’s just that I hate it when something so functional is wasted because it’s too expensive to fix. It’s even worse when it’s been in service for 51 years. And, when it was supposedly owned by the flutist from WAR (I bought it from the person who bought it from him). I mean, you can’t make that kind of history up.

I still have a mind to fix it, a very small mind. The Hasselblad tech thought it pretty impractical, though. He makes sense, he works with these things all day. He has no sentimentality.

Four successive scans without film.

I’ve been scanning, and scanning, and scanning. The more I do it, the more sensitive I become to little things that interrupt the image, dust and hair. I’ve bought canned air, white gloves, and microfiber rags, but I still can’t seem to get a predictable reduction in the amount of these clingy interlopers. In fact, it’s gotten worse.

Fed up, I started scouring the web looking for similar stories in the hopes that there was a method to this arcane practice I was overlooking. I’m learning that scanning film (using consumer flatbed scanners) is as shifty as the guy on the street trying to sell you a “genuine” Rolex. Everyone has “the best way” to do it. And it’s exactly opposite to the other guy’s “the best way”. The thing is, both guys are getting great results.

So, noticing that my latest results were showing the same dust pattern regardless of how much I cleaned the glass, I decided to take the scanner apart, thinking the dust was on the underside of the glass. An hour later I do the first scan with no film on the glass (first strip). I’m swearing to myself that this is the same pre-disassembly pattern. I wipe the glass, scan again (strip 2) and find exactly the same result. WTFUCKKKKK?!

So I start thinking through all the surfaces that have a stake in scanning the film. Both sides of the glass, as well as both sides of the film have been my working assumptions. The only thing left is the light in the lid. But surely, any dust on that would be diffused since it’s furthest from the scanner head, and surely outside the head’s short depth of field. One quick wipe, another scan (strip 3), son of a bitch… Strip 4 shows that it was pretty much the problem all along.

Scanning really sucks. Too many variables to keep track of. But, until I get rich enough to get a lab to do it, or I get sick of film (no chance), I’m stuck with it

I’m almost through my first batch, a September surfing trip. I’ll post the best when they’re done. The next batch is 2 roles from India. No idea what those have in store. They went through countless x-ray machines and were shot with my Holga (which is even more dangerous to film).

Along with the photo compositing I wrote about earlier, I’ll be working on a series of works on paper. Here is one that has been ongoing for a long time now.

And a little process.

I’ll also get the rest of the India photos posted as my responsibilities start to unwind.

Scanned and altered photograph

Among all the projects ongoing (and collecting dust) in my studio, I’ve been thinking about a photo series as well. With the recent purchase of a Hasselblad and the long hours at my day job, making photographs has been the most accessible creative output for which I’ve been able to make time.

I use my cameras for many reasons, but one that has been standing out more often is that of recording something I later want to use in a drawing. The process has been feeling less successful lately. While the photos have been making more sense, the taking-things-from-photos-and-trying-to-replicate-them-on-paper part hasn’t been working out. It’s just felt like poor copies, some part never quite transfers to the paper. It could be my lack of proficient materials handling (I really suck at it) where in I’m actually trying to replicate something instead of just pushing materials around until I’m pleased with the result. Or it could be that whatever it is I’m trying to transfer loses all integrity when outside of its environment. It’s probably a little of both.

So I thought that maybe what I really want is to draw on the photos directly. To this end, friend and coworker Cris Stritmatter was nice enough to give me 2 hours of his time to show me some of the techniques for photo compositing in Photoshop. The above image is the result.

Layer blending, layer masks and brushes haven’t really made their way into may skill set in all the years I’ve been using Ps. One of the hardest parts will be losing that “photoshopped” feel. That wasn’t necessarily the goal of Cris’s demo, but I believe it will be the most challenging piece. The suspension of disbelief is key for these to be successful.

Ink on paper

Needing to get some things off my mind, I tore down some sketchbook paper and started drawing whatever came out. Together they look like hieroglyphics but as I drew them they were just forms and compositions that had been swimming around.

I remember the Art of the Maya class I took in graduate school having a big effect on me and I still have a few of the books lying around. After I hung these, I looked through one of them again. I couldn’t place any specific form but some of them definitely had an overall quality that showed a close relationship.

I’ve been thinking a lot about over-thinking my work (no pun intended). The self-impossed requirement to understand what will come after the very thing I have yet to make has been paralyzing.

I don’t have a big drive to explain my work but yet it seems obligatory in the current environment. I love a great story but when it involves the purported meaning behind an art object or experience, I usually tune it out as it’s often heavy-handed and trite. A contrived story can really kill a good piece and a bad piece is rarely helped by a great story. But yet, they persist and it sells.

Maybe it gives people something to hang onto while they let themselves absorb the work. I know I’ve been guilty of this in relationships. It takes time to get to the heart of something and in the meantime I’ll create a story that gives me some foundation while I work out what’s real and meaningful from what’s superfluous and distracting.

No answers are forthcoming here, but the stream-of-consciousness drawings above help me cut through to something that is actually helpful.

I started covering the handle in salt a while ago. I finally decided it was done and hung it above my studio door. Hopefully it’ll give some good luck.

Quick sketches of street tar contours with ink and colored pencil on velum.

Another street tar contour. Acrylic and gouache on paper.

Patterns based on traffic signal embeds. The actual patterns are great but my sketches are a long way off. Acrylic and oil on paper.

Just a quick post to keep things alive around here. I’ve been getting to the studio a lot more lately. Things have been going smoothly. Not much else to say.

Still sketching. Trying to add more color. No idea will this is leading, if anywhere. I’ve realized that I don’t need to know, as long as I just keep making whatever it is I want to see. This way of thinking has helped me to relax and experiment more.

I’ve found that I like using very wet media. This line was made with a small rubber ear syringe with a inner tube needle inserted in the tip. I’ve used these a lot in the past, especially while making the wine and coffee drawings.

I made new tables! I love these suckers. So much space to spread things out. At some point I’ll write a how-to on making one. Pretty simple design and solid as a rock.

Thinking about the color I choose to photograph, I shot this on my way out of the studio the other night. The crack’s line quality also drew me in.

The building used to be an old Army Navy store.

Below are images of a water tower in Griffith Park. The constant covering of graffiti shows some interesting layers and color combinations.

(use j/k navigate through the images)