I have started telling a few friends that the site is live. Until today it has been private, now I will send out a few links. It is one month into the project. A moment of birth.
As Kate just said: the virus has been released.
Conversation with Kate – Shit or gold ether way is ok.
I talk to Kate every day about this. She is very enthusiastic about my efforts. What is good for me is that she listens well & I get to hear myself.
In the conversation yesterday I heard myself saying that from a creative point of view the outcome of this project does not matter. If it goes well and it is celebrated in cyberspace and in the world with a spread of the prints then there will be a similar look & feel to the prints. If on the other hand things go flat. Expect an exploration of “flat” (Such a theme is on my mind, after all every drawing has a surface. More later.) If the project goes dead, expect explorations of death. See what happens when I will fill my ink cartridges with blood & shit.
OTOH if it flies, we will see air and flight. If it flows, we will see water and if prints go well on ebay – expect golden images.
Either way the project will go on & have integrity.
Conversation with Johnathan Smart
Here is a report on a conversation that I had about two weeks ago. It had an impact, and sent me into a reticent mood, so blogging it now, two weeks later.
I like Johnathan, and I like his gallery, and on the first of September I popped in for a look. Chatting about the project was not really on my mind, I did not have many sketches up and no computer with me, or prints. However we got chatting & I showed him the sketches I had online on his computer. About five at that stage. He was interested and liked the project, the concept, the dot.com aspect. The project.
I felt my cringe factor creep in with sketches of the horse & the cat. That conversation led to me thinking again about what I was doing. The project. I felt down, but it was a good conversation. I look forward to more.
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Today I embrace that dot.com aspect. This is part of my much bigger life-long project of “Exploring the Psyche in Cyberspace” in that field I am in my element.
Perspectives on the project
What does 1,000 look like? One thousand sketches. One month in (almost) and the site is up, and there are 40 images online. Plenty more on my machine awaiting further conceptualising, refining. So here is one perspective, a view on what has been done:
From there you can link to the Blog Post map. Being able to visualise what is happening to this project as a whole is … a sketch in its own right.
Is that an oxymoron?
It will be interesting to develop more perspectives. Pie charts… visitor data, and so on.
Borders
Borders count! One reason for the A3+ size printer choice was borders. I can now make them bigger! Here is sketch, # 31 Nut positioned on its A3+ sheet. I have a whole new feel for that picture, especially in tones that surpass what I saw on my screen!
Atoms
I love the feel! I love the colours, they are rich and deep and dark.
I am pleased. As I write, I’m making prints that I like! Nothing I’ve done till now has worked as well as a new printer I bought yesterday. An A3+ printer, it can do 13 inches by 19 inches. It uses pigment ink stored in eight cartridges. I am printing on archival paper and these prints will last! Best of all they are beautiful!
The transition from bits to atoms is being made.
People so often talk of going digital. For me it is a delight to go physical on this occasion. I need to change the website again, some prints will be in A4 others in A3+. These prints are nice! It seems to me that some sketches suit the A4 size and others blossom when bigger. I will make the call on this and offer the editions accordingly.
From photographic production to ink-jet
I am updating this post by adding yet another intro. I now print my own using Archival paper & an Epson R2400 printer. This is creating bigger and better and more durable prints than I have been able to outsource.
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History follows.
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Here is what was in the terms page until today:
When you purchase the print of a sketch here is what you get.
A minimum 10×8 inch print made on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper (matt). All the prints, even when they are landscape mode are printed on paper in portrait mode with a wide white border. So the images may be quite small.
But it has changed. I will use an ink-jet process using high quality papers & pigment based inks that pass the durability tests. I will out-source that through a third party, I have several I am trying out. The prints look better in ink than in the photographic chemicals. Eventually I will get my own printer, I want that creative control. I’d get one right now but the one I want is not available in NZ. More on that later.
The photographic images might be of use for some things. I will leave open the possibility of a range of media, but ink-jet A4 will be the default.
Bursting
 The project is bursting. It is time for birth. The contractions have been coming. There is nothing I can do, this project will be launched soon. Right now I need to update the pages with references to printing, that has taken a new turn, more about that in the next few posts.
Busting but not yet born.
Giclée
There is a tradition, and this project may be connected. Giclée. Nice word (Zhi Clay). Fine arts prints using ink jet printers. There is something else afoot in www.thousandsketches.com … Giclée usually involves original physical copies this project does not. The net is more figural in this project, and here is the guts of it: the net is the canvas.
Conversations with Alex
Alex was here on a visit from Dunedin on the weekend, she is such an enthusiast about art, a tutor in art theory in Dunedin. I just loved our connection & learnt so much, it will come through in the posts to come; and in the sketches! The outstanding moment was as we were talking about one project within the project, something more thematic & dramatic (it will show in in good time):
“Get rid of the fucking cats and flowers & just do 1,000 sketches on this one thing!”
She was involved, not damning. I get it, there is no theme, no unity no form, I had already felt that. I am just starting something unformed, doodling, experimenting with the tools. Our discussions around that got me to think more clearly; taking down stuff would not fit with the bigger idea of this project. There is a bigger idea too. This is project is itself a unified thing, an entity in its own right. It is an artwork of a kind. It is following my journey, catching up from childhood drawing, integrating it with my current explorations in Cyberspace. I am nakedly showing my process of grappling with art on the net, writing this blog about the journey & doing it all in one one year. The project is the art more than the individual sketches. The sketches will evolve, I am only about 4% into them, there is room to grow.
Also evolving is the project’s own life, and I am evolving.