Omi's Cabinet

 

So - this is a view of my kitchen rarely seen. The fridge is on the left. 

I inherited this cabinet from my grandmother, my Omi. There were twins, this one and another, although I think the other had two doors and no drawers. My sister has the twin. The top half should have sliding glass panels, which I believe I still have, but which are sort of a nuisance in a kitchen.

Somewhere in the move from Germany - to Southern California  - and then to Philadelphia, some things got lost. Shelves, primarily. 

Even in my recollection of this cabinet being in my "mother's room" (ie. the one we three slept in while visiting our grandparents) it had two more shelves than I posses now.

 The above mess has existed for almost 8 years, since I moved everything in. And I am tired of it. What a waste of space!
Part of my impetus to go to the West Philly Tool Library last weekend for the workshop was also to pick up a table saw in order to replace the shelves in Omi's cabinet.
Home Depot provided the sanded 2'x4'. And after cutting it to size (with the saw I checked out from the Tool Library), I decided to forgo to the traditional polyurethaning. Since I have so much decorated paper - I decided to simply cover the boards with decorative paper. The pink/purple paper I purchased at Artist & Craftsman, while the green is paste paper I made myself.

 Yay for organization!

the beauty of the "clipping mask"

I had a wonderful lesson the other day from a friend. She showed me how to use "clipping mask" in Adobe Illustrator. ! I had this idea a few weeks ago to use scans of my paste papers to create letters. The class I am currently teaching, "The Printed Word," is making a book about one of their initials. I decided it was a good assignment for myself as well. I tried making these letters completely round-about in Adobe Photoshop. And I know, I know, you don't do type in Photoshop. The edges of the letters were completely raggedy - as one would expect. 

Now that I've been shown the right way to do it, I have these beautifully clear letters.

I'm mulling over how to make use of this with my students in the future. Using the paste paper is a great way to have students explore how pattern and texture affect what we are looking. For example the orange t above, looks completely different when the curves in the ascender are not there. What I don't understand is the strange background color. Hm. Maybe that's the next lesson. 

 

I love the blue T. 

And while I've been lesson planning, I came across an assignment online. Students need to design a glyph that does not exist, for a sound that does. I love this idea and gives us a chance to play around with type. I don't consider this one of those glyphs, but I still really like this one:

 

I like it because it plays with both of my initials.