installation scheduled

I've not made a great deal of progress on the drawing but I have scheduled its installation for Friday, September 21st - about three weeks away. Ty Art, an art services company from town is going to handle the delivery and installation of the drawings. It's going to be a fairly labor-intensive process: I'll first have to roll the canvasses on 10"-12" diameter, 10' long tubes, then Ty Art will pick up and deliver them and the un-assembled stretcher bars to UH. Since the drawings will be installed at app. 18' off the ground, it will require scaffolding and ladders. Ty Art will stretch the canvasses in the commons area, then install them. As Christopher Tribble, co-founder of Ty Art, told me, it's doubtful a sheetrock wall will be perfectly flat across 13'(let alone 26'!). So I'm sure there will be some issues to work around. We're anticipating it will take a full day. First though, I need to finish the drawing. I hope to make some headway this weekend.

right panel taped and trimmed

This weekend I finished taping and trimming the end of the banner which appears on the right panel. Now comes some experimentation with charcoal dust on a separate, smaller canvas. A note: the panels, when installed, will be closer together. The banner on the right panel was positioned with that distance in mind.

taped and trimmed

Tonight I finished trimming the tape on the left panel banner. The tape is necessary to mask the banner when I apply charcoal dust to the ground. Tomorrow I'll work on the right panel. I've still got to sand the gesso, then project and mask the small, end piece of the banner. Once I get that done, it will be time to put the left banner on the floor of the studio so I can apply the charcoal dust.

progress

After a bit of a setback, I made some progress this evening. The setback was my realization that the initial banner I photographed and projected onto the canvas was scaled too small. I'd actually had the feeling since I'd drawn it that it was too small, but had tried to convince myself it was okay. Finally this weekend, I realized it wasn't going to work, so I reconfigured and re-photographed the banner, and tonight when I projected it onto the canvas, realized it was the right thing to do. It's curious that if I initially get the scale wrong, it's always under scaled rather than over scaled. Not sure what that's about. Fear?

I've drawn the banner on the left panel and begun taping it off with masking tape. Next I'll trim the tape to the contour of the banner with an Exacto knife.

brief update

I've been traveling so much I haven't had much chance to work in the studio, so, not much to report. Work has begun on the drawing, and I hope to have the whole thing drawn in and masked off by the end of the coming weekend. Then I'm going to put the canvasses on the floor and apply the charcoal dust from above and from all sides. I'll take some photos once the banner is completely masked off and ready for charcoal.

process

I've determined the text that will go on the banner, and decided the shape I want the banner to make (after photographing multiple variations of the banner). I've also put three coats of gesso on each canvas. Here's the process from here:
1. sand each canvas
2. project left canvas image, draw banner contour and demarcate shadow lines
3. photograph projection for later printing of reference for shadows
4. tape acetate sheets to canvas, trace banner contours with sharpie
5. roll up acetate sheets and put away for later cutting
6. draw/paint shadows (powdered charcoal and water)
7. project same banner image again, outline letters
8. draw/paint letters
9. repeat for right panel
10. cut acetate masks for both panels
11. spray mount acetate masks on canvas
12. snap radiating charcoal lines
13. apply powdered charcoal to ground
14. apply fixative (mix of vmp naptha and Soluvar)

the final text

After multiple edits, I finally decided on this text for the drawing:

Shine and rise, gentlemen and ladies! Smell the coffee and wake up! Forget and forgive circumstance and pomp. Learn and live nothing but the truth and the whole truth, for all and once, over and over… ever and forever.