Now for Something Completely Different: PechaKucha Night Review

Hello everyone, I hope you've had a great week and are looking forward to an even better weekend. Despite really liking the day job, I'm looking forward to having a couple days for a little me time. Hopefully I'll get more of this paper stuff written and finally get back to printmaking! I've been missing it something fierce.

This blog is usually about me, my misadventures, and printmaking. Hell, "misadventures" and "Wade" are the title of the blog, so it makes sense really. But today I'm doing something a little different. I'm not going to talk about myself (as much). Instead I'm going to give you a little review of last night's PechaKucha at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport. What is PechaKucha besides something that I have trouble prounouncing? (Peach-uh-Koot-cha? Pitch-uh-Kuh-cha?)

Pikachu, I choose you!
Image from http://www.pokemon.com
Also, I totally don't own the character, Nintendo does. I wish I did though.

So what is PechaKucha? Without going into too much detail or history, it's a pretty awesome idea. Okay, a little more detail and history then... It started in February 2003 in Tokyo. Ah Japan, Pikachu is pleased. Anyway, it began as an event for architects to get together, network, and show each other what they had been working on, all in a public forum. It's evolved since then (see what I did there?), and in its present form it isn't just for architects. It's for everyone. If you're passionate about something, you can talk about it, but you have to talk about it in a certain format. You get to show twenty pictures, but you only get to talk about each image for twenty seconds, for a total of six minutes and forty seconds. No questions during the presentation, but everybody gets to hang out afterwards and make connections with people. It's pretty awesome, and if you want more information you can always check out www.PechaKucha.org as well as attending one in your area if you can!

So Clarissa and I decided to go check this out, and we had a great time. What did we see? The first gentleman up was Dave from the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum in Walcott, Iowa with a presentation titled, "Antique Trucks Are Cool." He showed us some beautifully restored trucks, and gave us some great info about the museum which we will be sure to check out sometime. Next up was Susan, with a presentation on Book Arts. I assumed that what she did was make books, and I suppose that's true. Those books, however, aren't like the ones on my shelf; instead they take the form of interactive sculpture. Next up was a woman named Janet who discussed her love of crocheting in a presentation titled, "Beyond the Granny Square." She makes interesting afghans for friends and family, and also some funny hats that gave us a chuckle.

Stephanie and Cole from the local theatre group The Prenzie Players, discussed their upcoming show Lear, a gender-swapped production of Shakespeare's King Lear. This isn't their first Shakespeare production, and their stage images looked amazing, so we may try to check out the upcoming performances during the first few weeks of April, and I hope a lot of people do. Then an art professor named Anna took the microphone and told us about how "A Drawing May Save Your Life." This took many forms, from POWs using art to stay connected to their humanity or maps showing the safe route to distant locations. Also, fun fact, medical students who take drawing classes are better at diagnostic medicine! After Anna, Randy of Otherography.com told us about how he uses archaic photo processes, specifically the Van Dyke Brown process, to create stunning pictures. I very much enjoyed the examples that he showed us; images such as a cow wishing it could play a piano brought a smile to my face. If you have an opportunity to check out his work, I would definitely recommend doing so.

Following Randy, Franco told us about his recently released book Tracks on Damp Sand, and read us an excerpt detailing the trials of a pair of bald eagles constructing a nest and raising their first hatchling. Then Ann told us about Project Renewal, a non-profit organization that works with children, providing them with a range of educational and recreational activities in a safe environment. They're doing some great work with kids, and with my mom working so closely with children, it always touches my heart to see the lives of kids made a little better. Closing out the evening was Clarissa's friend Michelle from Indigo Yoga presenting "Art in Motion." I'm used to seeing yoga poses. They happen pretty much non-stop around the apartment, but it was intriguing to see imagery of yoga poses done amid paintings, sculptures, and galleries, while the yogi in the images was running through a series of poses live to music. All of these presentations were interesting and I could go into much more elaborate detail on all of them, but I won't.

Pikachu grows weary of words.
Again, image from http://www.pokemon.com
And Nintendo still owns the character

What I will tell you is that it was an awesome way to spend the evening. Were all of the topics something that I'm really into and passionate about? No, but the thing is that someone obviously is passionate about these things, and I'm passionate about people doing things that they're passionate about. So maybe all these things weren't my particular cup of tea or brand of vodka, it was still interesting to hear how and why the people that presented were passionate about their topic. I will definitely be attending the next one. That's right, the Figge hosts these things monthly! If you're nearby, you should give it a whirl. If you're far away, you should see if there is something like this close to you. Either way, you should give people a chance to tell you what makes their heart go pitter patter. It may not be what gets you going, but it makes for an interesting night and you may make a new friend in the process.

I want to know what you're passionate about. Hit me up in the comments section or tell me on twitter (@CaptGam). I'm out for now, but I promise I'll be back with more printmaking as soon as possible! Have a fantastic weekend everybody.

Draw Daily and Other Interesting Tales

Well friends, I didn't get to any printmaking this weekend. Please don't be too disappointed in me, I'm already pretty disappointed about it myself. I did get a lot of work done on the whole "internship report" thing, but it isn't very satisfying. Hopefully I can finish that stuff up soon and get back to things on which I'd rather be working. 

But let's get past the weekend's failure to complete papers and get printing. Let's talk about this new thing I've been doing here lately. I call it draw daily. Here's how it is; I love to draw. Sometimes it's something that I've had on my mind (I keep a long list of various ideas on Evernote that pop into my head, many of which I hope to develop into prints someday). But other times it's just doodles. Sometimes it's quick drawings of comic book characters, and here lately I've had a thing for trying to draw sea creatures. Sometimes I try to really develop what I'm working on, but sometimes it's just doodles. No doubt you've seen some of these things already if you follow me on Twitter (@CaptGam) or Instagram (wdtellett). 

Like I said, I love to draw. It helps me relax, it helps clear my head, and the more that I do it the better I get at it. But here's the other thing; as is the case with most things in life, it can seem hard to make time to draw every day. I have work, and then I have things to do at home, and all those other daily drills that people need to do. And this is why I started Draw Daily (#drawdaily on my social media). Again, like most things, starting is the hardest part. I have half an hour of daily drawing time scheduled on my Google calendar and it sends me an alert to my phone to remind me to get to it! I schedule almost all of my life this way actually. I don't necessarily use the allotted time for the scheduled purpose, but by creating an alert to remind me and just breaking my day into sections, I've already set myself up to do what I need to do as opposed to slacking off. Hopefully it'll eventually just be one of my habits that I do every day. It'll just take some work.

The short term results have been both fun and instructive...

 

Although a number of these aren't original or fully developed, they're useful exercises and great practice. 

In other news, Clarissa and I will be headed to the Figge on Thursday to see this month's Pecha Kucha Night, an informal presentation/demonstration featuring Quad Cities Area residents sharing the things they make, do, and love. One of Clarissa's friends will be presenting, and the Figge is always a fun place to visit, so we're both looking forward to it. And now you can probably look forward to a little review being posted a day or two after the show. 

Thanks for reading my latest update. Please don't hesitate to hit me up in the comments section, I welcome your questions and comments. Also, I welcome you to follow me on twitter (@CaptGam) and Instagram (wdtellett) and join me in #drawdaily. 

Unless otherwise noted, all work by Wade Ellett is licensed under a   Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://themisadventuresofwade.blogspot.com. 

New Toys!

I've had to put some things on hold to work on internship reports so that I can go take oral exams and finalize this second MA. I'm really the opposite of excited about the whole thing. I would much rather be reading comics, making prints, or even scanning photos at the day job. But, the plus side is that I'm using these internship reports as an excuse to buy a registration jig.

WHICH ARRIVED TODAY!

And that's pretty cool. I've been considering making one, but given my limited number of tools in the apartment, and the fact that buying the materials would probably have cost me as much if not more than the one I ordered complete, I decided to go ahead and purchase one.

And its arrival has transformed me into a little kid on Christmas morning in Batman jammies. At least in my imagination...

So now that it's here, I'm a little more motivated to finish writing reports so that I can do a little experimenting this weekend. Even if I don't get my reports completely finished, I'm sure that I can take a break to pull a few copies of Think Digital/Act Analog or a second proof of the "cat" print.

I'm pretty pleased with it, at least via my quick inspection. It isn't too light, in fact it's pretty weighty. It does seem to want to slide around on the table I usually do my printing on, but I think I can rectify that fairly easily. The side for printing unmounted lino is a little too high for what I've currently got, but I think I can take care of that with some wooden shims, which I'm going to need to adjust the width of the margins anyway. I'm sure I'll have more to say about it after I actually use it to pull some prints, but for now I'm pretty happy.

Of course, now that I have a better method for registration, I'm really itching to do a reduction print, and I have a new daffodil drawing that may fit the bill. 

I'll keep you updated when I finally get these reports written and I can get back to working on important stuff (which is printmaking, obviously).

So I'd call it a pretty good day. If you're interested feel free to follow me on twitter (@CaptGam) or on Instagram (http://instagram.com/wdtellett), and I always welcome any and all comments. Til next time friends.

Unless otherwise noted, all work by Wade Ellett is licensed under a   Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://themisadventuresofwade.blogspot.com. 

The Beat Goes On

It's been a little longer between blogs than I like, but I've been a busy man. I've had a lot going on at work, home, and everywhere I've been in between. So what have I been doing? Well besides being swamped at the day job...

For starters, I finally finished my Athena run. As in completely finished, all prints made, trimmed, editioned, and signed. This block is now officially retired.

I also got a good start on Tables Turned. This is my highest volume run at this point, so it's being broken into even smaller groups than I usually print. Considering that I'm making fewer mistakes these days (cheers to improving) I should hopefully be able to finish up all these prints by mid-April.

I also printed a first proof of my as of now still untitled print of my cat. It's given me a little trouble, mostly because my experimenting with creating texture fell really flat and ended up leaving me with a lot more white space than I initially planned. After the success of creating texture in Athena I'm a little disappointed that this didn't work out a little better, but I'm still pretty pleased with the overall design and appearance of the proof. 

I am just going to have to do a little more learning and experimenting with creating texture before I can safely tuck that tool into my utility belt, but I did learn a bit about what not to do while working on carving this block. Namely, not to get ahead of myself. I should have done a little more planning on how to remove the lino in such a way as to show fur but try to maintain the appearance of a white cat. I'll try to keep that in mind in the future, but this pretty much guarantees that you'll see another design of a white cat popping up eventually.

Perhaps the most exciting bit of news, however, is that I finally pulled a final print of Think Digital/Act Analog. It turned out pretty good, and peeling it off the block to see it looking right was a pretty exciting moment. I may or may not have done a little happy dance around the apartment (hint; I did).

Now I just need to keep that momentum going and finish that run before too long. Hopefully within the next month of so. I'm going to try to keep from jumping into too many designs all at once and see the ones I'm working on through from start to finish. I'll let you know how that goes.

Thanks for checking out my latest work, and I hope you come back and see what I'm doing down the road as well. If you're interested in getting updates, interesting tidbits, or random thoughts from me, then please follow me on twitter (@CaptGam) or on Instagram (http://instagram.com/wdtellett). As always, please feel free to hit me up in the comments section as well, I welcome any and all interaction.

Unless otherwise noted, all work by Wade Ellett is licensed under a   Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://themisadventuresofwade.blogspot.com.