Drawing a Circle on Etch a Sketch
Since 2010, artist and scientist Andrea Tilden has been honing her skills cartoon on an Etch A Sketch. She discovered the iconic toy's potential after buying one to entertain her son during a snow storm. Her work includes a serial on Barbies. IMAGE COURTESY OF ANDREA TILDEN
BAR HARBOR — Ever tried to draw a circle on an Etch A Sketch?
You are excused if the exercise ended with flinging the iconic crimson children'southward toy toward the nearest trash bin.
"I can't draw a circle on an Compose A Sketch either," admits artist Andrea Tilden.
A visiting professor at the MDI Biological Laboratory, scientist Andrea Tilden says her artistic pursuit is relaxing in contrast to her every-day scientific work analyzing large sets of data.
PHOTO Past CYNDI WOOD
She can, however, draw intricate likenesses of the human form using a single line controlled by the toy'south two dials.
By solar day, the Ellsworth native works every bit a computational biologist. Currently on sabbatical from her education chore at Colby Higher, she is working as a visiting professor at the MDI Biological Laboratory in Bar Harbor. She is collaborating with biologist James A. Coffman in his research into the effect of early exposure to the stress hormone cortisol on zebrafish embryos.
Tilden, who lives in Waterville, draws parallels between her professional and creative pursuits.
"I'thou the type of person who can sit and focus on one thing for a very long time," she said.
Her scientific piece of work involves analyzing large sets of data. Her art, while also meticulous, can feel relaxing in dissimilarity.
In one case an Etch A Sketch pattern is laid out, the bodily execution can be virtually "mindless," Tilden said. She can spend an hour on the shading of a tiny quadrant and upwardly to seventy hours per piece.
She is constrained by both the size of the Etch A Sketch (the screen is 6.25 by 4.5 inches) and the fact that the entire piece must be equanimous of a single continuous line. Imperfections are inevitable.
"The inability to lift and move the stylus requires that I be both highly controlled and tolerant of chaos," Tilden wrote in a web log post virtually her fine art. "Every line is permanent; there is no erasing or reconfiguration. The works are therefore total of imperfections that can be seen on close inspection. I work millimeter-past-millimeter, achieving different levels of shading by varying the altitude between lines and by retracing multiple times over minor regions."
"Other than some basic outline lines, everything is a horizontal or vertical line," Tilden said.
She first ventured into Etch A Sketch art in 2010, later purchasing the toy to entertain her young son during a snow tempest. He was more than interested in Legos, so Tilden began experimenting with the drawing toy.
After a few frustrating early on starts, she was hooked.
"I kept improving and I figured out how to get dimensionality and form and shading into my prototype," Tilden explained.
Paradigm COURTESY OF ANDREA TILDEN
As her work improved, she wanted to preserve it. To do and so requires an understanding of how the toy works.
The glass plate of an Etch A Sketch is coated with gummy aluminum dust. When you shake information technology upwards and down, tiny plastic beads eolith this dust on the glass. The Compose A Sketch's knobs control a stylus on a caster system. Equally the stylus moves, it scrapes the dust off the glass, producing nighttime lines that create the drawing.
To prevent her art from being erased or drawn over, Tilden disassembles each Etch a Sketch, removes the cartoon mechanism and carefully vacuums out the plastic chaplet. Then she puts it back together.
As she delved deeper into the field, Tilden connected with other Etch A Sketch artists via social media. Some of the more well-known artists include "Princess Compose" Jane Labowitch and "The Etch Man" Christoph Brown.
Jeff Gagliardi, one of the pioneers of Compose A Sketch drawing, describes it as "a quintessential American art form, where the medium truly is the message. I honey creating works that y'all wouldn't expect to run into — similar a reproduction of a Renaissance master's work, or the corner of a five dollar neb. It'southward a totally familiar subject, but it at present has an element of disbelief."
Tilden's Etch A Sketch drawings are almost entirely of the human body. She did practice a series on Barbies, inspired by the dolls her daughter used to have around the house. The dolls brand good models.
"Barbies will sit at that place for me for 70 hours straight and not complain," Tilden said.
Epitome COURTESY OF ANDREA TILDEN
She'll sometimes work on the Etch A Sketch alongside her at present 12-twelvemonth-old son William Thomas as he plays the video game Minecraft.
Her involvement in art began growing upwardly in Ellsworth. Among her mentors was Surry artist Cherry Kinney.
"She was a prominent influence in my art early on and taught me a lot about form and line and other things that have served me well in this career," Tilden said.
Tilden, who owns hundreds of Etch A Sketches, plans to go on her drawings.
She said she hopes to one twenty-four hours create a large-scale multi-console Etch A Sketch installation, perhaps with the assist of Colby students.
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Cyndi is managing editor of The Ellsworth American. The Ellsworth native joined the staff of The American in 2007 as a reporter.
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Source: https://www.ellsworthamerican.com/living/arts-a-living/etch-sketch-artist-finds-niche/