Retro Carousel

And now, another blast from the past.  Back when the Pony Express delivered my college acceptance letter...  um...  When my parents helped me load up the model T...  er . . . .  We didn't use computers back when I spent my waking hours in the graphic design room...  Seriously.  Designing and production was done sans keyboard, touchpad or monitor.  Shocking!  I know!  A young friend recently told me she didn't realize there was graphic design before computers.  Yeah, I'm old.

I also worked on campus creating graphics.  My boss bought a Macintosh computer during my senior year.  The original Mac.  I learned the incredibly brilliant MacPaint and MacDraw.  It was amazing!  Stop laughing.  It was.  Prior to that, my lone computer experience was a few weeks of BASIC programming on a clunky computer in high school.

Though the office had a Mac, not a single computer was available in the art rooms.  T-square, airbrush, frisket film, color paper, rapidograph pen, non repro blue pencil, registration marks, x-acto knife, burnished lettering....  No computer.  We were also required to purchase a set of design markers.  Double-ended bright colors that did not come cheap, especially for a college student.  I still have mine, but hadn't used them in years and years - stashed in the basement with the tackle box.

48 Prismacolor markers saw the light of day this week.  Testing time for the 27 year old fine points and chisel tips.  First three?  Fantastic.  Nice clean colors.  Then Warm Gray 20% scratched across the paper leaving no color whatsoever.  Next two were good.  Then Cold Gray 40% - dry dry dry.  My old set was shrinking.  However, the next one was fine, and the next and the next.  One after the other, both sides flowing nicely.  Only two were kaput.  A pleasant surprise.  Time to add vibrant color to the sketchbook!