From a to z

Just in time to post my second alphabet for A Letter a Week! (Some background on the project can be found in this post & my first alphabet can be seen on the ALaW blog here.) This alphabet is inspired by the theme 'Going Dotty', meaning it somehow incorporates dots/circles/pixels. It ended up very different from my original concept, which was to have assumed the form of a large 'cube' composed of twenty-seven 7-cm cubes—one for each letter of the alphabet + a 'title' cube. Each cube would have explored a way in which dots/circles are used to communicate/represent/express things in our world...the 'C' cube was to have featured columns as represented in architectural drawings; 'N' focused on musical notes; braille for 'B'; places on maps, i.e. towns & cities, for 'P'; knots for 'K', Venn diagrams for 'V', star maps for 'S' and so on. But as the weeks of the second part of the year flew past, I realized I needed to simplify the project in order to finish in time.

I thought about simply devoting a single cube face to each letter and its subject (instead of an entire cube), but then, as I was making polenta one day, the formation of circles when oil was added to the water caught my attention. I quickly photographed the pan of spotted water with the idea of indulging in some play time with Photoshop later. By using the 'Selective Color' sliders (found under 'Image': 'Adjustments'), going through 'red', 'yellow' & so on (then sometimes returning to a color again after going through the whole menu of colors), I was able to give the incredibly boring photograph some very interesting colors. I then applied the 'Palette Knife' filter to soften the circles a bit. By repeating the 'Selective Color' process on the newly saved image, I was able to further vary the colors, and ended up with a whole rainbow of 'marbled' patterns.

I chose six of my favorite versions—one for each of the six cube faces. Next I spent some time considering words of nine letters or less, with the idea that the letters of each color would form a word. I wanted to include each letter of the alphabet at least once, for a complete 'alphabet'. Despite the flexibility gained from the availability of 54 faces, finding words that used all of the letters was much more difficult than I expected (perhaps because I limited myself to words that I associated with living a creative life).

Many words had to be eliminated because their letters were too 'common'. After filling several journal pages with various letter/word combos, I got out the Scrabble tiles (which were immensely helpful).

These are the words I chose:

be amazed
explore
question
make/give
create joy
wish/find

And here are the 'words' (click to see a larger view)...

I was disappointed to see that I'd forgotten to mask each 'marbled' design—my original intention was that the letters would each feature a different ninth of the design (somehow I realized this only after printing, assembling & photographing the cubes). It would also have been interesting to devote some time photographing the formations that occur when oil joins water—to see the variety that could come from the process. Overall, though, I am happy with this collection of lettered cubes; they are feel good in the hand & are fun to play with.

By the way, this is the original, very humble, image...

And here is a jumble of letters...

 

And a few shots of the cubes taking shape...

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I hope the year is ending on a good note for everyone. 2012 has brought many wonderful things for me, but these last days have been tinged with sadness...my grandmother—the one I wrote about in this post—passed away on Christmas night. Her ninety-one years were good ones, and she has been ready to join my grandfather for some time now. It is hard to accept that she is no longer here, but I am glad that she is finally at peace...

May you find peace, and much joy, in 2013...