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"I do believe in an everyday sort of magic...the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we're alone." Charles de Lint

Thursday, August 3, 2017

Lighthouses...Part One

Digital lighthouses to be exact.

I mentioned about a month ago that I was going to tackle a digital art project for my friend Rachel's wedding. She is the daughter of Jay and Janice who I just sailed with recently. The wedding is a little more than a week away and I'm in full blown production mode.  Here's how the project got started....I'll report in on the finish in the next couple of days.

The task was to create 18 lighthouses to sit on the tables at the reception...each with a name of a Maine or New Jersey lighthouse. The bride is from Maine and the groom is from New Jersey.

I started with a photograph of a nautical chart of Casco Bay actually used by Rachel's grandfather. I found a simple shape of a lighthouse and overlaid the image onto the map.



I blocked out as much of the map as I could so I wouldn't waste ink. Next I printed each lighthouse onto card stock changing the name 18 times. I made the text boxes translucent so they could be easily read and the map would show through just a bit. I used a wide dark blue border so I could easily cut it out and create a defined frame. I placed a compass rose at Spring Point where the wedding will be held...which, by the way, is less than a mile from where I used to live in South Portland.


I created a mirror image of each lighthouse because it needed to be two sided....so that's actually 36 printed lighthouses.



I created a document with all the names...and checked and double checked for spelling and accuracy.  But still....I make no guarantees that they are 100% correct.  Art should have flaws anyway. If you find one....don't tell me. But then again...I could just make another one.

This is not all of them.



Before I cut them out I copied a more simple map on the back....you'll see why in the next post. I experimented with a blue border on this side two but it was too tricky to get it to line up perfectly to match the front. Stay tuned for part two.


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