1000 Woodcuts

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Mail Room Trivia

Shipping Department

Once at a fine festival, I had the pleasure of selling a boatload of woodcuts and original woodblocks to a collector from across the country. Since they were traveling by plane I offered to ship the order "free" since they just casually benefited me with around 5K of sales.

Got home, packed, shipped, didn't think much of it. About a week later I get this nice bonus check made out to 1000 Woodcuts - Shipping Department Manager, with a very complimentary note from my collector for the "shipping crew". I had a good laugh about that and promptly complimented my cats, dogs, tape gun and my husband for putting up with me during shipping days (I can get a bit cranky!).

The very boring and repetitive task of shipping 160 tiny blocks!

I just finished the second of three batches of shipping the little darling blocks all over the world. For those of you who may someday ship something to more than two people at once, I highly recommend a shipping program of some sort. I use Endicia from endicia.com because it is the cheapest, no frills, allows me to ship all the variations of the US Postal Service, including international shipping.

The Shipping Crew

Since shipping pictures aren't any fun at all, I though instead I would introduce all of you to my shipping crew. They are very efficient and get the job done. As you can see, the boss dictates that we wear a strict uniform in my studio, jeans, white shirts and blue sweatshirt. Sometimes when we print we wear jeans, white shirts, and blue sweatshirts with aprons added.

This is CoolMaria, she thinks she's the only gal
in the neighborhood with a tape-gun. Strong as an ox and
will work well past dinner time.

Introducing HappyMaria, very enthusiastic although sometimes
confused by the whole spreadsheet-block-code- thing. We keep
her around because she will do virtually anything with a smile.

And this is the RuthlessMaria, will drive everyone crazy with
her "let's keep working until it is done!". If it were up to her,
no lunch for anyone until all blocks are wrapped up. She's a
good soul though, and gets things done for sure and is very
meticulous about everything.

Stay in touch!

1000woodcuts Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/1000woodcuts
Maria's Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/maria.arango.diener
Maria's Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/1000woodcuts
1000woodcuts YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/1000woodcuts/videos

Monday, February 23, 2015

Chunks of wood everywhere!

Last day of chop chop

Wow, how time flies when you're having fun, huh?!
All 160 blocks are officially cut. I have some observations from this and the last two days of chopping wood:

It's true, they don't make them like they used to--saw-blades, that is. I massacred twice as many blades as lost their tiny lives last year. Sad, really.
Dust masks are not really completely...AAAACHOOOOO!!!...dust proof, sniff.
Cats freak out at the sound of the saw almost as much as they freak out at the sound of the vacuum cleaner.
My neighbors are either really nice and tolerant or deaf. Their dogs are definitely not deaf...but they are really nice.
If a lot of jig-sawing must be done, pick a nice windy day so no sweeping of wood dust is needed.
A boring task is much less boring with flamenco music.

Okay, seriously now, here are the pictures from the last day of sawing. I am ready to mail beginning tomorrow. Artists! sharpen your creative minds and tools please!

The "sun" block, ready to be chopped.
Had to set up in back porch due to rain, yes, rain!

Saber-saw-action-figure complete with safety equipment, ready for action.
A lot of kneeling and gyrating required, good thing I stretched.

Puzzle blocks are bigger this year so everyone can have a good time.

Not much left of the big blocks except a bunch of dust and
weird shapes. This one will have to wait for puzzle blocks
to hold its shape again.

The sweet sweet look of the "love" block, the last block to be cut.

And this is what 160 puzzle pieces look like.

Lot of long sweeping shapes, some teardrops, rounds...
Challenging blank canvasses for sure!

The empty, sad, big blocks, will bide until they are filled
with happy tiny creations from all over the world!

Mailing begins tomorrow!

Stay in touch!

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Puzzle blocks get chopped

Drawing finished

Before cutting the puzzle pieces I had to finish the drawing, redraw in marker, adjust and then redraw again in thicker marker. The jig-saw isn't quite as accurate as the drawing (operator error, mostly!) and so I make sure that each piece is drawn with plenty of leeway so that I can cut without fear.
Fear? Me?

Anyhow, here is a quick slide show of the drawing process. Basically, one large block at a time, I draw a grid both on the mock panel from the computer and on the wood block. Then I transfer the drawing, adjusting as need be. As each block gets finished, I place the adjacent block or two so that the drawing will flow from one to the other.

After the charcoal drawing is adjusted to my liking, I bring out the markers and redraw everything. A good sanding with 400 grit paper and every charcoal and pencil mark gets cleaned up nicely, leaving the clean lines of the marker. Time to cut!

Chopping Away

The cutting process is slow and I have to arm myself with patience, a jig-saw, blades, a map of the puzzle, a drill, sandpaper, styrofoam base and a box.
First I label the map with the puzzle pieces I will cut out, then I start cutting. When the puzzle piece hits the edge of the block, I just cut inside the black lines and around. When it is an "island" then I have to drill a starter hole, insert the thin saw blade and cut as before. When two pieces touch each other, I take advantage and cut from one to the other.
There is much dust, which is why I cut outside on the grass (no sweeping!) and cover my face with a scarf. After each block is cut, I sand the edges smooth, note the location code and an arrow indicating the sky on the back of each block and into the box it goes. Pretty soon all I have left is a skeleton block with a bunch of holes.

A little video/slide show demonstrates the whole process:

I felt a bit goofy today and named the big blocks peaceful names. Thus we have the Dove block, the Earth block, the River block, the Sun block,...I forgot the rest but they all be peaceful too. Only the first letter is used in the puzzle pieces code so nobody will ever know about my goofiness, ever.

Stay in touch!

Monday, February 16, 2015

And so it begins...

Drawing old style

For transferring the sketch onto the woodblocks, I use an old fashioned grid and pencil followed by charcoal stick. Once I'm satisfied with the sketch and I more or less know where the cut lines for each puzzle piece will be, I strengthen the lines with either magic marker or sumi ink. All depends whether I feel like drawing with a brush or a marker.

Getting quite good at snapping pics with left hand
while posing right hand :-)

Two blocks more or less sketched out

The ink will stay through the process of sanding smooth, tinting the block and cutting the pieces. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First thing is to get the drawing on the blocks with pencil and charcoal. The pictures on the computer help to correct errors and generally get a "bird's eye view" of the large blocks. I also stand on a stepping stool to get the big picture from time to time.

I work with two adjacent blocks at a time, then retire those and add two blank ones, always having four blocks on the work bench at once.

There she flows! I can see that dove-tail needs some work,
maybe I'll move it up a bit

Advantage of the charcoal stick is that I can wipe off with a brush of the hand, making drawing very loose and free and making my hand very black. I may finish another two tonight and the rest tomorrow. I might even make a silly video.
Each block has to have 20 potential puzzle pieces, some with room to grow in case I miscounted our participating artists. Shapes are going to be funny this year, I don't want anyone complaining!

During a break I went to my favorite place in the whole shopping world: the home improvement store! There I picked up a couple of foam supports for the puzzle piece cutting phase and a fresh new batch of scroll blades for my saber-saw. Cannot wait to get those little pieces cut out!

Ready for next phase already!