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!