07 1 / 2012
over break…
I don’t have any of my stuff to take pictures of right now because I’m not in Rock Hill. But I can try to explain what I’ve done so far and then add the pictures when I get back to all my stuff, if that makes any sense at all.
I’m going to start with a couple of the decisions I’ve made since talking with you last. Most of these decisions have resulted from my experimenting with the techniques that I’m planning on using. Unfortunately, I’ve almost completely decided against embossing just because of budget, but I still wanted to create depth in some way. So what I decided to do is cut my design from illustration board. Yes, I know how crazy that sounds. But I’m actually pretty good at it and I feel like I’ll be able to experiment more with the patterns and stuff this way. Anyway, I’m going to cut my letters and some ornamental elements out of the actual poster, and use the holes as windows to the patterns that will fill up the letters. This does two things for me. I’m going to get the engraved depth that I’m looking for (the illustration board is pretty thick, roughly about 2mm, and I have a ton of it left over from freshman year) and I’ll be able to switch out the backgrounds of each of the letters until I get it exactly how I want it. This allows me some breathing room to mess up on the patterns. If I don’t like one color combination or how I’ve inked something, I can easily switch it out instead of freaking out and starting the poster all over again. Which is something I definitely want to avoid because it’s something that I know is going to happen. Probably a lot. At least from my experimenting with the background.
So now I’m gonna talk about that. As of right now, I’ve just been playing around a little bit with doodling patterns and coloring them in with watercolors. I’m using waterproof permanent india ink pens for the doodles right now. And then I place them behind the letters that I’ve cut out. I’m not so awesome at the watercolor yet, but I think it’s getting there.
Everything I have is really rough now. I have some sketches of the layout of the poster, and I’ve tested the illustration board window idea on some sketches and doodles. The plan from here is to decide on a sketch for the final and create it digitally so I can make a stencil to cut the pieces from the illustration board.
Which leads me to the size. The only large format scanner available to me scans 11x16. I think this is too small, and I’m still planning on keeping the poster 18x24. The way I’m assembling it will require me to make it in one piece, and I’d prefer to have a complete hand-made version rather than piecing it together in Photoshop. So I decided to make a scaled down version at 60% (10.8x14.4) I’m going to scan this and enlarge it for the final. With the layout I’m leaning toward, I’ll be working with letters around 2.5 inches tall, so I’m confident I’ll still be able to cut them precisely. For the final, the letters will be around 4.25 inches tall, easily legible from far away like I had originally planned.
I think that’s all I can really say at this point, and I’ll get the pictures posted as soon as possible. I think they’ll probably help to explain what I’m talking about, so I’m sorry I can’t add them now.
