Saturday, July 12, 2014

Creeping Up on a Drawing

 I need to make a little relief print of a sewing machine head for a new business card/retail tag.  I started drawing one of my machines early this morning and have continued throughout the day.  This simple machine head is deceptively complex.  The proportions are key, I think.  The first drawing was pure warm-up, and it looks like a stuffed toy of a sewing machine.
has some nice profiles, especially the bottom right.  The issue now is how much to eliminate.  Carving reduces a design to essentials, and especially tiny carving like this is going to be.

I like the simplicity of the one on the right, but the proportions are a little off.  Also, I like the thread, Next step will be some composite tracings, sewing end from this one, wheel end from that one, etc. Check tomorrow to see the final result.  I expect to get something carved and printed tomorrow. Then the print has to be incorporated into a layout.

7 comments:

  1. Bummer! My post disappeared! Here it is again! Wow! Lots of sketches! They look good! Now I know what you did for WW Sketchcrawl! I'm just heading out to my back patio! Good luck with the carving! ♥

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    1. I didn't know today was a WW sketch crawl! I think I'm on a daily sketch crawl though!

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  2. Yup, that was what I was thinking! And it's 2 hours later & I still haven't gone outside! Ciao, bella! ♥

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  3. Only a little...I grew up with my grandma who came straight from Italy. So she spoke in Italian and English. Mostly I understand it. But I was immersed in Cuernavaca & learned Spanish after lots of study before that. They are so similar when you hear them! Just don't try to read them! LOL! One of my BFF was one of the authors of "Italian in 10 minutes a day"...the really old out of print version! She has her degree in language, so we play a lot with all sorts of language! So Ciao and que le vaya bien! :) ♥

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  4. I went to the Rassias Institute at Dartmouth for intensive Italian. I already knew some French, having grown up with French-speaking grandparents and studied French in high school and college, but I knew no other languages. At Rassias you had to take the pledge to speak nothing but the language you were learning for the ten days you were there. My friend and I were beginners in Italian. One night we were in line at dinner and we were listening to the people behind us in line speaking fluently but with an accent that even we could recognize as odd. We said to each other (in labored italiano) something to the effect of "Those people speak with a very bad italian accent." Then we realized the people were actually speaking Spanish! We were so pathetic!

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  5. Hahaha! Love that story! When I went to Italy from Spain I was so surprised I could understand them. But I have a friend in Florence who can't understand the dialect in Sicily! So she had to watch "Il Postino" with English subtitles! Can you stand it? ;) When I was immersed in Cuernavaca, I think it was for 6 weeks...I ended up dreaming in Spanish! By the time I left, people thought I was from Northern Mexico! It's that border dialect! I wish I could remember it all, but for now my brain needs to focus on health & art when I can! Oh, I told some peeps in a FB group about your books...it's Cathy Johnson's Artist Journal Workshop group. She responded that she loved your books & has 3 of them! I only have 2, so I have to catch up! ;) Ciao, bella y chiquitita! ♥

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