The Deer Print part 3

Decided to go in a little earlier today, late morning, as I wanted to talk to Nichole.  No problem, just wanted to update her on a few things. For example, the other day we finally had our planning meeting, and the other person in attendance seemed very interested in the building hosting some kind of macrame class or workshop.   Kept bringing it up.  (Also very opposed to any kind of life drawing involving nude models, claimed no one would attend.  My experience says otherwise, but I wasn't going to argue it.) In a later conversation with Nichole she agreed with me that the macrame thing seemed unlikely.  But then last night I was looking at the Belmar Arts website, scouting upcoming shows for participation/blogging, and saw something about an upcoming fabric arts show.  We've had them before, something I don't participate in.  But it mentioned macrame as a possible medium, which was never the case before.  Is this a thing now, or did our other meeting member convince them already?  When I did see Nichole she raised both possibilities, so I knew I wasn't crazy.  My advice was to monitor this fibers show and see what was happening, and be ready to react. We talked about a few other bits of business, then I went downstairs and got to work.

My goal was to finish the block drawing for this commissioned deer print. Before leaving home I had done some quick sketches on paper from the original framed print, including a grappling hook that was too small to notice from the photo I had, and lots of other crane parts.  Brought all that to the Studio.  Still no Molly yet, though Nichole mentioned having gotten a text from her.  For music I went with something from my library there- the Beatles white album, which is my oldest compact disc.  Back in the 80's when compact discs were first introduced I didn't buy any right away.  Vinyl was still more common and much less expensive, plus, there were no Beatles albums out on disc yet. But I remembered an old blues tradition- among the relatively poor blues fan base, few could afford record players, so those who could buy them did so, and everyone else in the community bought some records, then when there was a party, everyone would show up with what they had.  What finally tipped the balance was when EMI/Parlophone finally started issuing Beatles albums on disc. What they settled on was to follow the British album system.  The EMI subsidiary in America was Capitol, and so American albums through 1966 had very different contents- generally a few songs shorter, and had to contain singles that British buyers did not want as part of an album. plus occasionally some songs in America were held back for different albums, plus (as all bands did back then) sometimes the Beatles put out singles that had no connection to any album.  And other nations had their own variations.  But when it was time to deal with the compact discs, the decision was made to do one digital remastering and put out one disc line up for the world, and they chose to match the original British line-ups. So the first four discs were based on the first four British albums (none the same as the American ones), then the next four British albums, etc.  It finally wrapped up in 1988 with two volumes of Past Masters which collected all the songs that didn't appear on the British albums- singles, EP's, etc, with the exception of the Magical Mystery Tour album, which had been created for the American market, with the songs from the British Magical Mystery Tour EP plus several uncollected singles.  That album was later issued in England and was now part of the compact disc line-up.  So the first two compact discs I bought were two Beatles albums from the last wave- The Beatles (aka the White Album) and Abbey Road, in grand blues tradition, purchased before I had something to play them on.  One of my college friends of that era was a chemistry major who insisted that compact discs had no future, as the plastic used to make them had a 10 year maximum life span.  Those discs that I bought in 1988 are still working, so I guess he was mistaken.

Anyway, I had a block to finish. When I did the original block, my drawings of the towering cranes (seen over the tree tops) were based on photos I had taken of such things, a common sight at our rapidly redeveloped shore region.  They were not exact copies, but approximations, abstractions meant to evoke the idea.  So this new block drawing didn't have to be a perfect copy of that one, just carry the same connotations. Took about an hour to fill in those details, sometimes requiring a complete redrawing.  Then moved on to finish filling in the drawings of the shrubs, put in something on the ground. Eventually I'll hit all these with some brush and ink wash, but I didn't have that with me today.  Results are below:

It's pretty much what I expected from this so far. Sent a copy of this photo to the person who commissioned it, and I'll continue the block next week.