32-20 Blues part 2

 

Another nice day today, so after a visit to a lab for some required blood work, and breakfast at home, I took a ride up to the Studio.  It was about noon when I got there, and assumed all the office people were at lunch, so I got to work on the latest block.  I knew from photos that there were a few things I wanted to address immediately, then I would find more. Toward that end, I had done some sketches on paper since last time.  For example, I knew that I was not happy with the whiskey bottle and glasses.  I knew because I have drawn these kind of things before.  A few years ago I had drawn and later cut and printed bottles on the beach for Amy Kucharik's "99 Bottles" video (up on YouTube if you want to see it), but I didn't like the angles of those drawn bottles.  I went back further to my Fourth of July set of prints, having remembered a time where I took my favorite drinking glass (from glassblowing class) to Armen's studio to partake in a bottle of bourbon he was keeping there, and later made a print of it for the day's image.  Found it on the blog devoted to this set (February 17, 1994 if you want to see it) and liked that set up, so did a sketch.   Then hair.  I remembered a home made video of a song from Morphine that showed a model with some wild hair, so I did a quick sketch of that. Had that sketchbook with me today. 

I had brought one home burned CD with me today, a more recent album from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (Dig, Lazarus, Dig), the story of which I told back in August of 2019.  Like the other Nick Cave album, not blues, but subject matters fitting the drawing in progress.  When that ended, I grabbed one of Molly's discs. which is weird as normally she just listens to radio, but recently she brought in half a dozen discs to listen to, including one from the Pixies, Doolittle, which I wrote about back in October, 2019, as I had home burned copies of a lot of Pixies in the Studio in the past.  That particular disc includes the album (which is the last new release on vinyl I brought at a mall record store, all that gone soon in the time after that), along with some rare vinyl Pixies I had, but my studio copy looks like it had been chewed up (I certainly didn't do it) and plays hit or miss now, so I had no guilt about listening to her copy.  Part of why I wanted to listen to this album was a song about how two members of the band had a miserable time in Puerto Rico as college students, something I have been reminded of with news of how the hurricane has affected that island.

Anyway, as the music played, I drew. First I erased and redrew that bottle and glasses.  I copied my sketch of my earlier print, so this was a flask style bottle.  I put the new hair on the figure in bed.  Not really happy with this yet, so I'll probably go back and do that again.  I made some other slight adjustments to the figure, redrew the furniture and parts of the room (no real changes, just better), for now added some shadows, bringing it a little closer to the value balance I expect in the final piece.  Also added lines to put in the text from the songs, as the other blocks have.  My plan is to cut it all, including the song lyrics, though I will also pull proofs without the text to send to Tom, as I believe this will be added by letterpress in the final printings of the works.  

I decided to bring the block home with me, as we are expecting some rough weather in the near future, and I may not get up there again for a little while.

Before leaving, I stopped back at the office, and Jeanne was there.   We decided to set a deadline of Friday for deciding the fate of my next drawing class, now sitting on one student.  She promised to send out another reminder (which she has done) via email, so we can hope a few more sign up by then.  I reminded her that I still haven't been paid for the third class, and it would be good to get that before the fourth class begins, if it does.