Surprise! Surprise! My new refurbished refurbished Epson R3000 arrived early. Astonished, I was able to unpack the printer, set it up, and print. Oh my God! Epson is finally getting it together—hopefully they have. This R3000 is working well at the moment. Touch wood! It has only been a few hours!

I printed my manhole covers sheet after sheet. The printer is not noisy and spits out printed sheets with no blotches of ink! I’m back in business!

I haven’t given up printing my own artists’ books; but still thinking of a printing service in the future, will see what this refurbished printer brings.

I printed 30 sheets of manhole covers in one day with no problem. Alléluia!!

I leave the printed sheets twenty four hours to settle and dry before phase six of the project. This step entails die-cutting the printed manhole covers and collating them.

Throughout my project, and time passing, I’ve had to go with the flow on how to cut, print and present City Shields.

For the first time in sixteen years I’m running short of my packaging of choice for City Shields. My dilemma is finding Iomega Disk Jewel Cases. They are no longer manufactured. If you know of a place I can buy jewel cases for Zip disks, please let me know.

I had ordered thousands of Iomega jewel cases back in 2000 when they were popular for the original seven volumes of City Shields. The first volumes included a volume of Scotland; three volumes of Ottawa, one volume of Toronto, Ontario; and three volumes of Hull, Québec. Doculink International printed the original volumes and were die-cut by Capitol Box in Ottawa, Ontario.

In 2006, with new camera and new printer, I printed the volumes of the series myself with an Epson 2200. Capitol Box created a cutting jig to cut one manhole cover at a time. Unable to create the correct assembly to use the jig, it caused the paper to tear every time. I bought a Fiskars Circle Cutter from Michaels Arts and Crafts Store. This tool is super easy to use, it only cost $19.99 and works well. The clear plastic base makes alignment easy with no guessing games. Where do you find your tools?

This year, I needed to replace a discontinued Aspen paper for the insert. I chose an Inkpress Plus paper. I can still order the Generations G-Chrome Lustre paper to print the manhole covers. How do you cope with discontinued favorite papers? Do you enjoy trying lots of papers? Maybe you print on different paper for your projects and the brand doesn’t matter.

My goal was to collect manhole covers from each Canadian province and the 50 states in the US. Changes and finances are making it impossible to achieve! My project is at its end!

Would you like to delegate certain tasks?

My work exhilarates me and I enjoy the activities in my studio. Certain activities are monotonous repetitions. After a day of these, I get cross-eyed.

The learning curve with Tinkercad is more work than I assessed. I have figured out how the Ultimaker 2 3D printer handles measurements depending on heights and widths. I have redrawn my prints so many times...did I mention redo, redo, redo and redo! Oh! and re-measure. An Epson or an Ultimaker 2, Aargh!

As simple as my Tinkercad drawings are they are difficult to print. I should job out this task for sure! There were changes and savings too numerous to illustrate. Here are a few images that show the steps I took to break down the slipcase into two pieces to print. The last drawing is ready for print. Let's see if this works!

© 2016 Louise Levergneux, 3D printed slipcase for Xtraction

Do you thrive on endless repetitions? Is it meditation?

Which experience is worse drawing in Tinkercad or Miguel Endara’s pencil touching the paper 32 million times to create Hero?

Karina Smigla-Bobinski gave the task of drawing to the audience that came to play with her kinetic sculpture installation.

ADA is a post-industrial "creature" self-forming artwork. She is a 3m diameter PVC balloon performance machine and her patterns of lines and points, get more and more complex as the number of people playing increases. What an experience this must have been!

Adrian Göllner, an installation artist who collects old wind-up alarm clocks. Compelled by the energy stored in the spring of over-wound clocks, Adrian channelled this found energy into drawings.

The Clock Drawings were either created by the clock’s movement, which was directly set atop a piece of carbon paper, or the movement was suspended just above the carbon paper. In both cases, when the alarm spring was released, the hammer struck the surface and made a mark.

Each clock used to create a drawing had its own particular temperament. Getting a clock to run continuously or convincing it to give up the energy bound on its alarm spring often required a specific apparatus. As a result, the weight of the drawn lines and the size of the paper vary considerably. Each drawing is presented in simple box frame and accompanied by a one-page account of the drawing process and Adrian’s suppositions about the clock owner’s circumstances.

The first of the alarm spring drawing was created using an old Italian Veglia alarm clock. When released, the alarm hammer struck the surface of the paper so vigorously that it dragged the movement for 3.5cm.

“The person to last service the old Italian Veglia alarm clock had written his name and a date on the inside of the clock case, which allowed me to conclude that I had just witnessed and recorded Possibly the Last of Bill Tets, Clock Repairman,” as narrated by Adrian.

© 2009-2011 Adrian Göllner, Possibly the Last of Bill Tets, Clock Repairman — © 2009-2011 Adrian Göllner, Possibly the Last of Bill Tets, Clock Repairman

To facilitate another clock drawing, Adrian partially disassembled the clock and prepared a piece of paper to fit over the face. He then started the clock, fitted the piece of paper and replaced the minute hand of the clock. Glued to the minute hand was a small pencil lead. Powered by the winding motion of an old farmer’s hand some seventy or eighty years ago, the lead was dragged across the surface of the paper for a period of 3.86 hours.

© 2009-2011 Adrian Göllner, 1919 Westclox Big Ben, Style 1A Alarm Clock — © 2009-2011 Adrian Göllner, 1919 Westclox Big Ben, Style 1A Alarm Clock

These drawings intrigue me, the straightforwardness of the idea gives me chills, brings me back to old history. The drawings are pure and the energy is strange and yes, Adrian ghostly.

What could I devise to help with the monotonous tasks still ahead? How does an artist rethink the process or think minimalism?

Simplicity is best, but for right now my new project needs its final feature to be complete!