Thursday, May 27, 2010

11th



Regularly Irregular

11th of the 7x7 panels. A slight deviation from what I've been doing with these, which had been gouache & acrylic on paper mounted board, this is acrylic, medical test strips, glass beads and blood. No, no, no, not the droplets you actually see, those are droplets of acrylic paint. The blood is in the test strips. Just miniscule amounts.

I've been accumulating great amounts of these and wanting to do something with them. The last experiment with them did not work out very well—I was trying for something more sculptural and it didn't work. Lots more test strips where these came from, so more are in the works already.

And about that book...

And I've been pretty silent on my current book with my senior, but I'm happy to report that some progress has been made. Here's a fairly full mock-up of the book. A lot of the content has been decided, I have all the papers, I know the final size. I'll probably start trimming the paper sometime in the next couple of days. I even went out and bought a much larger cutting mat in preparation. Now I have a 24”x36 ” mat and won't have to struggle with the larger sheet sizes. Tried it out yesterday, what a relief!



On other fronts

Lots of things have been happening—wrapped up one collaborative project, researching/discussing another for next year, working on a video with a friend, and thinking and writing about future solo projects. Nothing is set is stone yet, but hopefully some of them will wrap up or gel in the next few weeks or so.

5 comments:

Michael5000 said...

Medical test strips! Cool!

margaret said...

Whew, Shu-Ju, I was starting to get worried, but now I understand. You've been busy! I love the new paintings; I'm also impressed with excellent reuse of materials; perhaps these would have appeared in a Packrat Tuesday post? Regardless, I like seeing them synthesized here. And the senior book looks neat, too. Is that the one you're dying with water and dirt?

Hey, here's my verification word: RATize (my emphasis). Awesome.

fingerstothebone said...

Hey, I had to specially request that verification word!

Yes, the book is the one where I got dirt & water from various places for Helen to make papers for me. Progress!

gl. said...

it would be appealing to count how many test strips you have (or even how many you don't have that have already been discarded). it would make an interesting sort of calendar. do you test daily or multiple times a day?

fingerstothebone said...

I go through phases, depending on how things have been going. If things are as I expect for several days in a row, then I might go a couple of weeks before I test again. If things are not as I expect, then I might test 2 or more times a day.

When I first started having to test, I did it every day and made a book from it.