Change & Dedication

Sep 16, 2020
4 min read

This week has brought a few big changes.

After considering it for months I have finally decided to make the move and leave my part time job at the jewelry store so I can fully dedicate myself to and focus on my art. This was in part both a sad and happy thing. I honestly enjoyed my work there and I had been there for close to three years and thus grown close to my coworkers, it felt like a family and it is very sad moving on from that. On the plus side though it is liberating, to have more time to work on my art will be really nice. It is scary though, I think giving up a guaranteed pay check for creating in the hopes you'll be able to make it, it is a phase mosts artists go through at some point in their lives.... I am just scared (but also excited) to finally be here. Not to be a downer but I consider myself to be somewhat practical, realistically, I know the majority of people who try do not succeed. But of course I will give it my all and hope for the best, striving and working hard to be in the minority of artists who do....

This weekend I obtained the most expensive part of my project.

THE TV. It is a 70in TV (It is 65.6in wide and 40.2in tall) and I don't think it really registered to me how big that actually was until I stood next to it like......oh...my.

It hardly fit in the car, we had to phone in a friend to get it into our apartment, I had to remove the couch out of my office into our bedroom to make space for it. AND I STILL NEED A PLACE TO PAINT the giant piece of plexiglass..... oh boy.... space issues aside thought I am very happy to have it finally. It is a much nicer tv than I originally anticipated getting... originally I wanted an older non smart TV so that if it got ruined it was no big deal. But now that this is an ultra 4k smart tv I really want to make sure that it will be safe throughout the process so we can actually use it after. So that brings me to the glass part that I will actually be painting on. I originally was looking at Home Depot to get my materials but there was so much to choose from and I wasn't really sure, plus I guess Lowes will cut glass but not Home Depot... through a recommendation I was told to check out a small local glass shop called Menard's Glass in Southbridge and stopped by there Monday morning. I spoke to the owner's wife and she said that her husband and son would be very excited to hear about my project and would be able to guide me on what the best options would be.

I spoke to him, Rick, and he told me that paint adheres to plexiglass much more than it does to normal glass,that glass would be stronger and protect the TV better than the plexiglass would, and that plexiglass would probably have scratches in it by the end not giving a clear picture of the digital painting on the TV. He also recommended getting Tempered Glass, it is treated to be stronger and also safer if it breaks which he said would be much better for a piece being interacted with by people. Once tempered though, it can not be cut or trimmed, so I have to make sure that I order the exact size I want, I am thinking on adding an inch on each side for framing but would like the opinions from a few more experienced Becker faculty before I place the order, which I plan to do by the end of this week as well as picking up a sample to paint more tests on (although now that I'm working with glass, will probably be the same as the tests I did on the bottles) and it will take about 2 weeks to get in. Rick was really knowledgeable and helpful. I am really happy to be working with a local family owned business on this instead of a large chain store.

I did a few little thumbnail sketches to try and decide how I want my composition to be for each piece. Drawing it out made me really thing about the layout, balance, and scale. These were thumbnail and obviously very very small compared to what it will be so I will have to do some larger maine ones to get more of a feel that will have much more details, turtles, etc but this gives you the general idea.

For the beach scene I really want to have the turtles arranged nicely to give you that feel and pull towards the moon. I think movement and how the viewer's eye is directed is really important for the flow of this piece. I like the idea of the large moon, I know it is more stylized and less realistic but I think it will have a really nice transition to the city as it gets scratched away.

For the city scene I am going with turtles moving across a 4 lane highway with a barrier in the center and guard rails at the other side, with a bright city glowing in the background. It has been hard to find reference pictures for this, I'll have to do more digging... but perspective is going to be super important for this one.

Also did a first little turtle sketch. #cute

This week I also created a conceptual idea for an LED Light Installation for my Human and Computer Interactions course.

You can see all about that in my blog post In the Dark. <----- (link)

While I was searching around the internet for light installations I found a video of on of Christopher Bauder's pieces called DEEP WEB which led me to another called SKALAR and then more after that. I am so hooked.

This work is just so mesmerizing and I would absolutely love to get the chance to experience something like this in person one day. And can we talk about his website??? It is such a fun and interactive page. I really like websites that act like this.

Anyway that is it for this week! See ya soon!