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Color Instruction Drawings
A notable feature of Tanaami’s artistic process is his preliminary determination of composition and colors through the creation of a color instruction drawing. This entails assembling a collage that combines scaled-down black-and-white copies of drawings with DIC color sample chips, all affixed to layout paper to form a master proof. Once this is complete, an assistant scans the drawings into a computer and generates data. Reflecting Tanaami’s origins as a graphic designer, this approach enables Tanaami to envision the final work from the moment the color instruction drawing is produced. The drawings, which are at times repurposed in subsequent works, add to Tanaami’s vast and growing archive of source material.