Sunday, May 11, 2008

Johnnynorms' book


I'm finding it slow going, but halfway house and here's my first four. The keyhole with scratches worked fine. Next is Doors Filter In, named after a song that starts "Well chosen metaphors, instead of all those slamming doors" and mentions "Steps steep, dreams deep" - finding it hard to let go and draw confident and fluid, this was stiff and awkward, saved by turning it into not what I meant in the first place - this is going to happen quite a lot.

The selfportrait looks unfinished, but I daren't touch it more - it's quite a fragile sketch and I don't have the skill to carry on.
And fourthly is Strumerama, a bit more relaxed and fluid. Yes, fairly pleased with that one. I can see lots of great work being posted on the blog, looking forward to seeing it in the actual books, still feeling daunted by adding my tuppence hapenny...but not as daunted as before I put the first pen to paper.

9 comments:

Ian russell said...

great to see a self-portrait in there, John. I don't have a theme but that's what I'd like everyone to do in my book - a self-portrait - just because I love 'em!

great work, especially the keys and escutcheon, and they scanned well - I'm having difficulties - any tips welcome!

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

I am totally with Ian here, I'd love everyone to do a self-portrait in my book, if they are upo to it, I love self portraits.


These are very cool, love the random spread of keys.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

The strumerama is really fun and evocative!

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

I just made the doors filters one bog and studied it closer and it's SUPER! :-D Lots going on, cool angles and nice variation in line weight.

steve said...

Norms in full effect here--good good stuff man!

Johnnynorms said...

thanks all, glad you like 'em.

Ian - what are your scanner difficulties? your last scans seemed ok. I just lay it on, close the lid, and a heavy book on top just for good measure (prob. not needed, but it's a habit).
Hmm - i always sharpen the scan after too - in PShop, that's Filter>Sharpen, then I hit Fade (Shift+CTRL+F), which is the reverse of Sharpen, which allows me to adjust the amount of Sharpness I apply, cos 100% is usually too much - it usually ends up between 25% and 60%.

Ian russell said...

Yeah, it's probably me being fussy. I used to be able to scan straight into PSPro via TWAIN which gave me a lot of control. Now with Vista the TWAIN doesn't function so I have to scan it blind almost. They seemed a bit pale - that could be a combination of shiny paper and shiny pencil. If I compensated for this, the colours shifted and looked peculiar. D'oh! It's okay.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

My scans never look quite like the originals in a variety of ways. I sort of thought it was par for the course.

Moleskine.Exchange said...

Well, you all have me beat, I have no scanner. I scan at a friends occasionally, but all of mine are photos of the pages.

Great start, John!