Need I Say More?

We all wear the hat....

Falling Behind

It will soon be the 20th of January (which is a great day I've been waiting six years for) in a few minutes and I've only posted 13 posts this month, so far. I'm falling behind my commitment to get at least one post per day. However, I am doing the art every day. It's just the posting that I'm not getting to...

Yesterday was spent doing my 2009 vision.

Here's one page from it. There are five in all. I'll post the other four as I get them done.

What's Next . . .

 . . . : : : This speaks for itself : : : . . .

Goofin' Around at the Apple Store

Ceebs and I were waiting for her laptop to be repaired.  We had my laptop with us, replete with it's built in camera. So the funnin' began. The tech (aka "genius") must have thought we were wacky, but it's the Apple Store, so they really can't say anything. 

And I Fall Asleep Commissioned Painting

And I Fall Asleep, Lulled by the Noise of Paris

I did this commissioned painting in June 2008 and it was a happy story. Good experience for me, client was happy. But, I never posted a picture of the complete piece, so here it is. Someone I was talking to asked about seeing it, so now I can direct people to this blog entry.

The completed piece is 30" x 40" and is mixed media: acrylic, found paper, and other found objects d'art.

The writing reads, in French:

This old house
I feel its russet warm
Comes from the senses to the mind.

Enjoy!

More Paint Chip Cards

Here are some more paint chip cards I did using the Go Make Something recipe (see the post on 1/8/09). For these, I used the same punch as the others. I punched from a strip along the edge of the large paint chip (4 colors to a chip), on the side with the labels. Then, I cut back the chip to remove that piece and glued the paint chip and flower punched pieces onto the front of a white cardstock card I bought at Michael's. The cards come in packs of 25 or 50, with envelopes and pre-scored to fold at the right spot for only $2.99 (25) or $4.00 (50).

On the yellow and lime green cards, I used a small square chip and cut 3 flowers from the middle. I didn't care if some of the flowers weren't fully punched. I also punched out a hole with the same punch on the front of the card and pasted flowers on the inside of the card to peek through that hole. I like doing these because I can do a bunch of cutting and punching, then pair up the stuff to be glued on with the cards. I put the items inside the folded card and put them all in a ziplock baggie to keep them clean and so everything doesn't go flying around. Then, I can pull that baggie out with some glue in a small glass jar I keep (I use Elmer's) and a small paint brush and just whip out a bunch o'cards in a pretty quick time. Good to do when I have just a few minutes on the weekend in between chores. I think I might bundle up 6 cards to a pack to use as gifts. I have to remember to print out some labels with my name and website/blog URLs for some free advertising.

I love these cards. There are so many possibilities. I'm going to use the square and very small postage stamp punches I also bought at Michael's to try some different cards next.

Art every day. It's what makes life bearable!

Hot Winter Nights

Not sure if this really qualifies as art, but here is a photo I took in my car last night at 7:28 pm in Half Moon Bay. Note the balmy temperature of 74F. Just a few days ago, it was a good 40F cooler at this time.

Unbelievable, and weird.

Today's art is a photo I took near sunset at the Hayward Burger King parking lot while waiting for my daughter Ceebs.

Paint Chip Cards

Tonight, I finished up four paint chip cards using the tutorial on Go Make Something (link).

I'm not sure how happy I am with them. I can't seem to do anything "straight." I always want to mix it up from the clean, simple lines shown in the instruction example. My watercolor paint borders and fill-ins are delicious to me, but one thing I have a really difficult time judging is how these sloppy presentations land on others. Interesting? Sloppy in a bad way (poor artistic skills)? How's an artist to judge oneself?

Musee Mechanique Project

Here's one of the 35 photos I took at the Musee Mechanique on Ceeb's birthday. I'm finding it very challenging to get any art done during the work week!

Art for Monday 1-5-09

I actually did this art over the past several days while up in Washington, but thought it would be a nice arrangement to post today and take credit for as my Monday art. I took a photo printed by a friend (11x17) on her Canon Pixma printer and cut it up and used the sections as backgrounds for doodling. I did the doodling mostly in watercolor, with some in colored pencil. This is a great way to use up beautiful scraps of paper that are too nice to throw away.



Last night, I arranged all the faces from Musee Mechanique with frames. I should have taken a pic of that, but didn't. Now I have to get the photos in shape to have them done at the Costco Photo department and buy the matting material. Here are stacks of the photos as promos, printed with the proof sheet function from my Canon Pixma printer. The proofs are somewhat striated and printed on regular paper.


The final photos will be much more beautiful. Here's an example of one.



There will be 35 in all. Ready for a show somewhere.

Cute Idea for Cards

I haven't finished them yet, but set up now to make about 12 cards using this great technique I saw on GoMakeSomething.com: start with paint chip cards (I used the large 4x6 size that have four colors to a card, perforated). Then use a nice punch to cut out shapes. Adhere these to a piece of folded cardstock and voila! a new and fun card you can use to send thank you notes for holiday gifts.

I still have to assemble mine and I think I will probably be embellishing around my little floral do-hickies with watercolor and/or fine tipped pens.

Hopefully I will have some results by tomorrow.

Study for More Art - Jan 3 2009

I did this variation on a photo I took of the Columbia Gorge yesterday, but forgot to post it. So this is art for 1-3-09, in keeping with my 2009 resolution to do art every day.

Quick, Before I Depart Portland

Two Hundred Days Without Art

I see that my posts for 2008 in my "daily" art diary totalled 164, leaving 200 days that I didn't post art.

One of my very small handful of resolutions for 2009 is to post something every single day, starting today - 1/1/09.

Here are two photos from today. The first is a tree I spied through Angus' window. I'm up in Washington, on the Columbia Gorge.



The other photo is of a barge that was going down the river, mid-morning.


Enjoy, and Happy New Year's!

Better Pics of Pics

Here are some better photos of the matting work I've done over the past few days.

These are the two photos of Madrid - the skyline of amazing architecture, and a single building in an office park just outside Madrid.

Close up of the office building:


Here are some up close photos of the small box framed photos I've done. My favorite is the red one.





And finally, here is one of the 5x5 photocollages I made with the fruit stand background (see post on Strawberries and Pomegranates). This is a promo just to see how they look matted and framed.

More Matting

Christmas is over and I have time to get back to doing art-related things. I've finally got my Canon Pixma printer working well - they seem to have fixed the software glitch that had all my docs printing out at 1/4 original size. The new interface software for printing photos renders the colors nicely, so I printed out a bunch of photos I took on my last trip to Europe in small size - roughly 1.5 x 3 in. I matted them and popped them into these cool shadow box type frames I got the other day at Cheap Pete's for $5 each. They'll make nice gifts.

Here are all of them


and a close up of one of the Eiffel Tower.



I also matted and framed these two architecture themed photos I took in Madrid on that same trip.

Matting Day

Thanks to a lesson from Kati, I was able to mat four of my black and white photos. These were flowers from a beautiful bouquet someone sent me when I had knee surgery back in September.

I used a white, slightly textured mat board (4 ply) and cut the openings with the 45 degree bevel cutter. The whole thing went really well, except for when the cutter dragged and marred the surface on the last mat I did. Kati came home right about then, and told me I should be cutting with the mat face down so that any boo boos like that are on the backside. Live and learn!

Mat Board - $16 for the whole sheet which would have done six 12x12 pieces.
Black frame - $15 at Cheap Pete's
Photos - $1.39 for all at Costco.

Total cost for this project: $78. If I'd had Cheap Pete's do them, it would have easily been $150-200.

I like my mat cutter very much!

Prints in Hand

I got my photos back from Costco today. The 5x7s came out great. I also got two 12x12s. The only issue with them was that I hadn't sized them as 12x12 before uploading them to the Costco Photo website, so they were cropped right at the center by the auto-cropping software. Still, they were only $2.99 each, so I can't really complain. I can always use paper for something art-wise. I think I will redo these at the 12x12 base size and resend for printing. Only by getting these proofs can you really tell what works.

Day 90. Namaste.

Art Project Plan

Here's a graphic summary of my current art project:

Starts with 40-50 photocollage images created on Photoshop CS4. (Have I mentioned how much I LOVE PSCS4???!!!) These images are combined in iMovie to make a 2-5 min video/slideshow accompanied by an appropriate music track. Uploaded onto You Tube.

Step 2 - pick the best 5 of these images and create high resolution 5x7s. Send these to the Costco photo link to be printed. Also order one of the images (the best of the set) as a 12x12.

Pick these up at Costco on Wednesday afternoon. Get some mat board for matting them.

Mat the smaller photos; take the 12x12 and make it into an encaustic diptych. One half of the diptych will be the photo with an encaustic overlayer treatment. The other panel will be placed right up against the first and will be an encaustic that mirrors the colors and textures of the first panel.

There are four themes in the works for this project:

Day 59 - Strawberries and Pomegranates - You Tube completed; prints ordered.

Day 56 - Cherries and Grapes - You Tube completed.

Day 55 - Pumpkins and Bananas - You Tube completed; prints ordered.

Day ?? - Salmon and ??? - Not started yet.

Pumpkins and Bananas, Day 55

Cherries & Grapes - Day 56 and Counting, Down

I really like how this turned out. This is another fruit stand sign I'm using as a background. I took photos of them along Highway 92, then cropped just this part for the sign background.


I used photoshop to add a transparent gradient in blue (think glazing with a transparent paint). Then, I added the grape graphic as a second layer, and in a third layer that I brought forward, I used a graphic paintbrush of a mechanical drawing to "stamp" the collaged image. I re-sized the brush so taht the dimension lines running horizontal lined up with the top and bottom of the grape cluster. See, now wasn't that easy?

Then, I did about 20 more of these variations, and made them into a You Tube video (slide show), accompanied by my brother in law's band Avant Gardeners. The accompanying cut, Walk It Down, is from their self-published CD Untilled (1996). Thanks Art!

PS - I did the Strawberries and Pomegranates as a You Tube too. Click here to see it.

Fruit Signage and Victorian Ladies

Pretty Kitty

Pomegranate Madness - Day 59 and Counting Down

Another Hot Sloppy Border Around Hector Bean

Hot Sloppy Borders

Cool Borders Using Sloppy

I downloaded a program that provides a script for borders on photos that make it look like you spent day-ze in the darkroom. Cool, huh!

Thought for the Week....

Make it Mondays Challenge

from www.gomakesomething.com. Here is my photoshop piece, following the topic of "angels."

Favorite Holiday Card Design

Holiday Card Design Night

I have been wanting to do a holiday card this year. Here are a couple of ideas that I worked on tonight. These are 6" x 6" individual pieces that I collaged together just for ease of viewing and comparison.

I did them on photoshop using xmas colors and icicle brushes I downloaded free from the internet.

As always, you can click on the image and it will display with a lot more detail in a new window.

Happy Saturday evening,

Laura

Mac is Back!