Comments, Suggestions

On Tuesday I talked to Jan Reaves about the project and showed her the fourth panel. She suggested I store and protect finished sheets by sandwiching each between two large foamcore boards, with a sheet of rice paper secured over the charcoal side to prevent smearing and double image effects. The boards can then be taped together and slid into a large plastic sleeve, as in plastic sheets that come in rolls at hardware stores.

Jan said it is important to think about the statement made by sticking fabric/linen tape tabs on the paper corners and punching grommets through the tape to hang with. Reinforcing the paper corners is something else to consider. Jan also pointed me to a Rachel Witt at the UO bookstore art section, who I intend to contact about these issues. First, the paper sheets must be stored somehow without the masking tape on them until the June showing, and second I must figure out the best way to hang them in the gallery. Obviously it is taking some work to figure out how to store and display my project, although I hope finding a solution doesn't eat up too much time for working on the project itself.

Jan also mentioned Lascaux spray fix for the drawings.

Yesterday I showed Kartz some more of the work and she pointed out the method of using dark and light spaces contrasting with details in my composition. On my panel 4, for example, she highlighted sections of the mountainside that could be darkened and/or worked over in other ways so as to bring out the detail sections around them more. She said the fog bank running through the forest was very successful, more in line with that concept. Also she stressed keeping the roads defined by having a small white line running underneath them.

Kartz mentioned I can use Photoshop to run some tests on images of the panels, so I will see what I can do. However, today I carefully worked some previously executed mountain sections on Panel 5, the continuation of Panel 4, and darkening them towards the top looks really good and brings out the bottom sections. Speaking of which, Panel 5 is progressing and I will try to have it in a conclusive state on Wednesday of Week 10, and if the stars smile upon me, some reworking-progress on Panels 1-3 too.