📙 #053 - Ink tests, nearly science, almost a zine, and America WTF?
Skip the first part to jump straight to the art!
Oh hey, a little preamble at the top. So, I like to think I’m okay at writing, not the best, obvs, but I feel like I’ve hit a kinda chit-chatty groove and we all just gather together for a few moments, read a newsletter and then carry on, lovely.
Throw into that what you already know; that I often start writing these newsletters about a week ahead of time, or at least small chunks anyway. So last week imagine the next heading was a delightfully well crafted, non-political, upbeat hand selected collection of words that just naturally flowed with elegance and grace.
But this week, instead I’ve gone with…
JFC AMERICA, ARE YOU OKAY?
There is art further down below should you wish to skip or bail at this point.
In last week’s draft, I wrote 👇
Cory has this to say about social media…
“Our friends and communities are on bad social media networks because they love each other more than they hate Musk or Zuck”
A very open hearted way of thinking, which doesn’t judge people for deciding to stay with one platform over moving to another, it carries on:
“Leaving a social platform can cost you contact with family members in the country you emigrated from, a support group of people who share your rare disease, the customers or audience you rely on for your livelihood, or just the other parents organizing your kid's little league game.”
You can read the whole newsletter over here: [Plura-list] Billionaire-proofing the internet.
👆 The point of all that was me still considering ditching Instagram, not (originally) because of how it’s run, but just because it feels like a constant grind when I could just be getting on with making art.
Of course the moment I decided not to use it, that I don’t have to use it, I suddenly enjoying using it again. Which certainly says more about me than anything else.
Anyway, I’ve joked before about switching to the postal service as my social media network, and the thing is, I keep joking about that; “hahah, wouldn’t it be funny if I just sent postcards of artwork to people” - so, perhaps I should.
At the very least, lets see how the next two weeks play out, and then I’ll decide my “Social Media Strategy”. Spoiler, it’ll almost certainly be: give up facebook and instagram for 6-months to see how it goes, while enjoying writing this newsletter and making videos.
# THE SEA HOWLS FROM THE WEST
This is my attempt to keep working on a project over several weeks to see where it goes, last newsletter I had the name and the vibe (foggy Welsh coastline).
Previously when looking for light grey ink (for plotting faint dots on my journal pages), I’d come across Sailor Ink BYAKUYA, a pale grey ink that does something weird and magical if you overload the paper a little, greens and blues and purples start to appear.
And as they say on their website…
The color changes depending on the length of time and the paper.
A mysterious ink that shows glimpses of different colors in shades and streaks.
Colors inspired by the shimmering sky.
Which is just what I wanted for my plots, the idea being that when a storm rolls in over the coastline it’s not just grey, but when you look closely; greens, purples and blues — earth shades nestled in with the turbulent stormy clouds and sea.
So I grabbed six colours and gave them a whirl. Which were so lovely, I went back to the shop and bought up whatever stock they had left of the rest of the colours.
Because, now that I have a job, I’m trying to be efficient in my multi-tasking, and decided to combine this with the 16 #ptpx (pen plotter postcard exchange) postcards I had to make. Now I could test the ink and plot the #ptpx postcards at the same time.
#winning
I even went as far as doing some Chromatography to see just how the inks were subtly different. Why did some sheer green, while others purple?
I will admit at this point I was just getting more carried away than anything, I’d already decided I was going to use the ink, these photos just make it appear more sciencey!
Earlier this week I moved onto the actual coding part, which has mainly consisted of drawing lots of lines on the reMarkable eInk tablet, which handily exports them as SVG files…
…converting those to a library of “artisanal hand draw lines” accessible with my code (hundreds of lines in JSON format, I know a bit weird, but here we are), which I can then load in at random and plot in various inks…
One day, these will become sky!
The next step, now I’m happy with the ink and paper and proof that it’ll all probably work, is to use those lines for the sky, throw a lighthouse on there, and then fill the ocean waves with word. Hopefully I’ll have that to show you next newsletter.
# THE END
I’m trying a slightly different format with the newsletter this week (and a bit last issue) of having more photos and less words. This ties back in with my general frustration with social media.
I could have posted all these photos onto Bluesky, Instagram etc, where you get to see them one at a time if the algorithm showed you. But to me, they make more sense presented together, where you see them all if you decide to a) open the email (thank you) and b) scroll past the first section that I probably should have cut. Or you don’t see any at all, and I’m fine with that.
I’m even toying with the idea of making a zine, to go along with those 16 #ptpx postcards to see how easy and practical it is. If it is, I may be one step even closer to snail mail social media 🐌
Right, tell those you love that you love ‘em (and maybe send them a postcard or letter), meanwhile I’ll catch you here again on the 6th of February.
Love you all, and stay warm,
Dan
❤️
| AMERICA, ARE YOU OKAY?
No. No, we are not.