AEDM2012: Days 5 + 6

As anticipated, I didn't manage any art on Sunday, but I completed these three pieces between Monday and Tuesday. The first uses contact paper image transfers of a black and white photocopy of a Berlin street  map. It's an insert on a AAA road map of Central Europe from 1968. It happened to photocopy in pieces so that's how I used it, deciding to fill in the center with my own map-inspired lines.

Before applying the transfers I used red watercolor and plastic wrap on the paper for the background.

The second piece was also inspired by a piece of this same late-60s road map, the legend describing the international road signs:

You can read it if you click on it. I decided to take the organization of shapes (triangles for danger, circular for instructions, and rectangular for information) and apply them to babies/toddlers. I brainstormed quite a few possibilities and decided to include two of each. Wouldn't it be great if babies came with instructional signs?

You can click on that to make it bigger, too.

The final piece is an abstract road map using tape resist and a secondary color palette. The compass rose is an older stamp I carved quite a while ago. Without it, I think it's just an interesting abstract. Hopefully with it, it starts to make you think "map."

I'm having fun. It's a good challenge to ask myself to create pieces that can be considered complete, although I could see going back into some of these later, too. I've noticed, though, that I spend quite a lot of "art every day time" facilitating the kids' art. When I have time, I'll post their artwork, too.