A New T-Shirt part 2

Went up to the Studio today for a few purposes.  One was to work on my latest idea for the t-shirt design, and one was to find out the plan for Wednesday night.  When I pulled into the lot, I saw Nichole's car, and figured I should go see her while I knew she was still there.  She confirmed what I had expected (based on yesterday's conversation on the the topic), that the drop-in event for this Wednesday would not be happening.  Not a cancellation but a postponement, as she hopes it will be occurring in early 2020. It was her idea after all- an exercise built around the idea of positive and negative space.  That positive/negative relationship is the core of relief print design, so of all these Wednesday night drop-in things, this was the closest one to woodcut.  Unfortunately, after checking all 3 social media platforms she had put it out on, there was only one confirmed plan to come. We have four people confirmed for next week, so we hope that one will go on as expected.

With that settled, I went down to my space to take another run at the t-shirt design.   I though what I did yesterday wasn't bad, but I realized the relationship of the letters in the new BAC logo had some shapes in common with the shells on the beach and thought it might be interesting to play that up.  The logo often shows the letters gradually drifting from one color to another, but we can't do that with our one color shirt design, so I represented it as solid black, as requested, in my first attempt.  Cross sections of trees have rings that represent annual growth, and seashells have similar markings, which I believe also represent indications of growth, the shell being expanded as the living creature within gets larger, though I have no idea what length of time is represented in this case.  But I used such lines in my clam and mussel shell designs yesterday, so I thought it might work in the letter design on this latest drawing.

And maybe it will, but all I had with me today were relatively fat black markers, which were a little crude for the idea I was trying out.  Using more lines, as I did on the shells this time, and textures in various places, may work, but I will need a different pen.  But the session wasn't a total waste, as I did learn what can be done.  Adding more lines to the shells (and similar lines to the logo) and textures to the sand and starfish seem to be good ideas, but for a sketch I need better pens.  And since Molly wasn't around, I got to listen to music.  Put on one of my home burned discs- a copy of the early Southern Culture on the Skids album Too Much Pork for Just One Fork which I originally found in that leftover music box at the record store that had become a hair salon.  (Back in the early 90's, at one point two friends from two different parts of the country who were musically knowledgeable told me to check out this band,  so when I found this disc I bought it. a good decision.) I filled out the rest of the disc with songs from the second album from the Chickasaw Mudd Puppies, which my friend Doug described as "porch music"- two guys on stage sitting in chairs, playing guitars, and stomping on boards.   (kind of a southern thing) On the way home today I stopped at a local supermarket to buy some needed items and picked up some fine point black markers, so I will redraw this one before I send it to my contact.

Back home I sent an e-mail to one of my summer woodcut students who had expressed an interest in the Wednesday night thing for this week, to let her know that it wouldn't be happening, saving her the trip.  Nothing would have happened that she couldn't do on her own, except getting some feedback from other artists.  Maybe when it gets rescheduled.