Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Progress on the Great City!


The Great City of the World is getting drawn on the blocks this week. I just love doodling in Photoshop!!!
I started out by grabbing a bunch of ideas from clip art mostly, some from my head, some from actual cities. After much MUCH mulling and eliminating some ideas that were too detailed or just not suitable, I settled on about 6 sketches from which I made a composite preliminary sketch.

Now I confess I'm not much of a "pre-sketcher" for my own work, but this "problem" needs some planning. I have five vertical blocks to fill, each is about 22" x 30" (55 x 76 cm). The blue dividing lines in the sketch above indicate more or less the block divisions. And of course the overall sketch has to be divided into smaller puzzle pieces, so detail is not possible and clear composition is a must.

Next is to translate and simplify that messy sketch into the blocks. Now THAT I like! I love drawing directly on the wood. I already reversed the initial sketch because I like the composition above and printed each block a bit bigger for guidance.

Blocks are ready to go and I'm heading for the pencil drawer. I imagine that the final composition will change a bit, especially because as I draw I need to be able to mentally divide each of the five blocks into 20 little pieces (more or less).

So here we go! We have a downtown, suburbia, apartment living, a park, trees, sky, factories, office buildings, a river, boats, cars, trucks and buses...something for everyone.

4 comments:

  1. Maria... This looks exciting and I can't wait to see what part of the puzzle I get.

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  2. Oh, I hope everyone completely ignores the overall design and just do what they wish with their little piece.
    But the puzzle will work either way!
    Also, the final design will probably be a bit simpler than that mess up there! LOL

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  3. Clarification is in order! I think some of you are underestimating the SIZE of this darned thing!
    Everyone will receive a blank block, maybe a square, maybe a circle or (more likely) somewhat irregular shape. No drawing inside, nothing but a blank canv--er, block to carve.
    Each artist then draws and carves a little individual work of art...which later gets placed into its proper place in the overall design.

    The overall design is completely irrelevant to what each artist carves in their own little piece of world. The theme for everyone is City of the World, but each artist interprets as they wish! Okay, let's get on with it.

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  4. I'm like a little girl waiting the Xmas !!!

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