Topographic Relief

I have photographed my most recent painting in various stages to show my process.

The title, TOPOGRAPHIC RELIEF, begs some kind of play on words, though I copied it faithfully from my model. I plastered the words on top because I enjoyed some real relief in stepping away from digital art for a period. Of course, it doesn't take long to recall the perils associated with rendering without Control + z. The painting equivalent involves dabbing at things with a moist Q-tip.

I decided on the project with the intent of of gaining knowledge about U.S. geography. I have a fondness for infographics, particularly those that involve midcentury fonts. This typeface reminds me a bit of Vera Humana. I thought about creating a political map, but I enjoy the rippling lines that topographic maps entail, and also, elevation maps take longer to go out of date.

The painting is a very literal exploration of the states through topography. Literal doesn't mean exact here. As I quickly discovered, I'm roughly as likely to paint an accurate topographical landform in acrylic as I am to sing all the words to 99 Luft Ballons in German. Which is not very likely. Still, the proportions are roughly correct. I used a grid enlargement technique that my third-grade class employed to enlarge, square by square, the cover of the book, Basil of Baker Street. Thanks again, Mrs. Pfisterer.

Why not include Alaska and Hawaii? I thought about it, but Alaska has such an awkward shape that I would have had to waste a good deal of room accomodating the Aleutian necklace, or else present Alaska in shrunken proportion to the lower 48 states. But I'm originally from Alaska. When maps make my home state too small, it melts away my candy shell. I'd rather omit the state entirely. And what about Hawaii? It houses more people on one island than does the entire state of Alaska. Yet I would have needed my smallest brush--the one that's basically one bristle--to create a to-scale, semi-accurate rendering. So I stuck with the mainland.

My inaccuracies don't stop there. I endowed the state of Virginia with a few extra peaks in the 9,000 ft. crimson shade for the sake of color balance. I admit, I have reason to be slightly biased in favor of the "Old Dominion" state to the point of flattering its mountains. I recently visited Washington D.C. for the first time* and the landscape made a stellar first impression. As I drove from North Carolina, I was quickly disarmed by the sheer variety of deciduous foliage, not to mention the increasing adorableness of the township names, which seem to involve archaic misspellings. Spotsylvania. Falmoth. Culpeper. 

Our nation's capitol was much prettier than I expected. With its rolling green spaces and abundance of white marble, D.C. was classical/neoclassical enough that I immediately began to romanticize. I kept hearing the opening bars of Beethoven's pastoral symphony in my head. I half expected to see little animated satyrs gamboling around, Fantasia style.* D.C.'s only failing was that it lacked in some quarters a sufficient number of delicatessens to serve the crowd of people on the streets. Do all the lobbyists simply pack lunches? Perhaps there are subterranean catering services?

I have now visited the northwest, midwest, and east coast of the United States, but there are many colored blobs on this board that are yet unexplored territory for me in the non-acrylic world. I've never been to California or the northeast. As with my painting process, however, my exploration will have to happen stage by stage.

*  For the Rally to Restore Sanity
* And really, with its jubilant atmosphere and abundance of homegrown signs, the Rally was satyrical enough.