Back to the Story...

What's all this about MUSCLE CARS? I thought this was a story about drawing Savannah!

We WILL get right back to drawing Savannah as soon as the chaos and excitement subside and a good rest is had.

In the news: I am a bona fide professional print shop now - after 8 months of wait and debate. My big fancy new printer arrived last weekend and the first prints, 11x14 and 13x19 went to sell at shopSCAD today. I am much more excited than a girl should be about a printer. I - am - excited. The prints look pretty awesome and are HERE in my etsy SHOP.

BIG Thanks to the critical print testing and recommendation of Photo & Print Guru Craig Stevens.

MUSCLE CARS for sale

From NPR, "Corvette Lovers Lament GM's Rocky Ride", Tovia Smith, June 3 2009: It all leaves members of this Corvette club wondering what kind of car clubs their kids will join. As one put it, GM has become more like the Japanese carmakers. But 30 years from now, he says, "who's going to want to collect Toyota Scions?"

Let them collect postcards instead!

I've designed the backs of the Muscle Cars Postcards and they are for sale HERE.

Another great commentary of the current transition in the auto industry on npr HERE.

MUSCLE CARS

There's nothing like working a long day of architecture and urban design and coming home and knocking out a bunch of muscle cars postcards - while ironing and baking oatmeal raisin cookies.

Here are the Muscle Cars, FIRST DRAFTS: The background graphics for the Fall set of Vintage Automobiles 1954-1963 was color block classic. For the Muscles 1967 - 1973, I wanted to try some detail patterns characteristic of original and restored muscle cars. From HowStuffWorks.com: "You obviously take the excitement of driving pretty seriously," said the 1973 sales brochure to Firebird customers -- most of whom were likely to concur. "Trans Am is as serious as they come." Bold graphics livened the Trans Am, led by a monstrous bird decal on the hood. Conceived by John Schinella, and derided by some as the "screaming chicken," this emblem would nevertheless become an easily recognizable -- and welcomed -- Trans Am trademark.

Got to love the Screaming Chicken.

Check out the Muscle Cars Gallery if you just can't get enough.

Comment from my dad: These models were good choices to enliven and preserve. Ahhhh, those were the days, then emission controls happened. An analogy: your right to swing your fist stops at my jaw. Muscle cars were like swinging your fist rather indiscriminately, using lots of gasoline (I didn't say wasting it) and environmentalists sticking their jaw in your way. Obama is at it again today with more stringent joyless standards.

DISCLAIMER: Publishing this comment in no way endorses the driving methods of the author of the comment. "And Remember: Don't Drive Like my...Father!"

SAVANNAH POSTCARDS for sale

...at shopSCAD in Savannah and in my Etsy shop, singly and in packs of five.

VINTAGE DRESS PATTERNS for sale

Well,
Life, Work, and Wonderful Visitors interrupted my schedule of introducing the SPRING SERIES. I am still underwater with deadlines at the office but trying to keep up...

The Vintage Dress Patterns flat note cards are in print - and in the shop. Find them HERE.
The border drawings are printed by inkjet but the pattern image is a xylene transfer by hand so it looks weathered in the final print, not a crisp scan as the digital images appear here.

I added two more patterns:

VINTAGE DRESS PATTERNS

Shall we take a short detour from Architecture & Urban Design?

Introducing the Vintage Dress Patterns.
Thanks to Christine for lending me her vintage sewing patterns. These prints are inspired by her store, Terra Cotta boutique, with a variety of accessories, some of which may be found in the shop, framing the pattern illustration. I like to consider the theme of the pattern cover and make categorical drawings, several varieties on a particular theme.

These images will become flat note cards, with the pattern covers hand-printed by xylene transfer. I may consider small prints. They will comprise a set of 8 and be companions to the Vintage Apron Patterns of last Fall, inspired by Back-in-the-Day Bakery.

8 NEW Prints, VINTAGE DRESS PATTERNS



VINTAGE APRON PATTERNS

Savannah MAP-DRAWINGS: new No.4

One new image (Savannah Map No. 4: Wright Square) completes the current set of Savannah Maps - drawing upon pieces of historic maps + new drawings. I plan to do similar drawings for other squares - Monterey, Madison, Troup...

(New) Savannah Map No. 4

Wright Square

Savannah Map No. 3

Coastal Landscape

Savannah Map No. 2

1916 Sanborn

Savannah Map No. 1

CITY HOUSES: no Copenhagen, no London (yet)

I did not complete five City Houses drawings, only three. The absent members of this set are Copenhagen and London. Apparently the images of the charming salvaged materials shacks along the pond in Copenhagen are only so vivid in my memory. The photographic evidence I have does not provide enough to make drawings from, unfortunately. Perhaps I will be there again.

I am still determined to draw London. The Mews, the alleys - similar to our Lanes in Savannah - where garage doors mingle with smaller dwellings. A less polished streetscape, more intimate back-door environment.

CITY HOUSES: Savannah Georgia

What...Did you think I would honor Portland and Charleston, and forget Savannah?

Here she is, draped in spanish moss. The prevailing house type in the core is the rowhome with a parlor level entry portico, most built in the early-mid 1800s. The variety occurs as the stairs from the portico turn or wrap, depending on the lot width or architectural whim, perhaps. Sometimes a door to the street level dwelling opens within the base of these tall stoops, sometimes just a window. Sometimes a roof covers the entry, or not. Variety also abounds in the homes to which the porticos are attached.

The streetscape along the lower edge is Gordon Row (1853), fifteen units built on the same pattern with curved entry stairs. It is interesting to note how these units have evolved by separate owners over 150 years. According to the official tour guide manual, top floor apartments after WW II rented for $5.00 a month and included to right to keep chickens on the roof. The structural regularity of Gordon Row is a nice counterpart to the diversity in the opposite streetscape which is a comglomeration of Savannah rowhomes.

CITY HOUSES: Charleston South Carolina

The Charleston side porch house prevails throughout the old city, in major and modest manifestations.
Merchants' mansions on the Battery,
the most common two-story versions,
and the more obscure, now (not as well-preserved) single-story side porch houses known as Freedman's Cottages. This streetscape features the first-mentioned types. I hope to draw the Freedman's Cottages in another iteration.
As for urban context, the palmettoes and the sea at the edge of the peninsula which the Battery houses overlook are essential, and the antique wallpaper pattern conveys the decorum of Charlestonian senses.
I will add watercolor to the porch spaces, highlighted on the print in a very light yellow, as the final layer.