Blog

I decided to take the original watercolor I painted into Photoshop and play around with it. Initially I was going to redo his snout. Instead, I decided to see what type of funky things I could do with it. In the above, I brightened up the colors.

I changed him to black/white.
And then gave him more texture.
Here he has half tone dots going on.

And here a warp glass look.

Here’s I amplified the colors, making him computer dog.

I like this one.

Here I duplicated the image, reflected and overlapped it.

Here I duplicated it, flipped it, and repeated a couple times.  Yes, it’s has a hokey kaleidoscope effect. Even so, I like it. I thought I might print it out. Upon closer inspection, some of my overlaps are a bit off and messy. If I do anything with it, I’ll need to redo the steps and take more care.

Here’s the latest of Bud-Z. I started this one yesterday, but I could only work on it so long as my back was still bothering me. I’d paint a little, leave it, return a few hours later, and so on. At this point, I’m going to call it finished.

I photographed Bud-Z while he was outside on the deck. Something caught his attention, and he looked like he was ready to pounce into action. My hope was to capture that feel. It was also very sunny out, so the deck looked bleached out and there were lots of shadows.  The above is how I started — that is, with a pencil sketch and then working on the background and some shading. It’s what I mainly did yesterday.

Today I added more detail, but I also managed to change the angle of his snout which was annoying/disappointing, and I was unable to correct it. Frustrating, but so it goes. I also ended up using gouache in areas of his neck fur because I struggled to get it as I saw it.

While I am enjoying the process, I have a bit of a dyslexia issue which can be a source of  frustration/aggravation when it creeps up. It’s something that doesn’t just happen with groups of letters, but I notice it can happen with shapes and shadows. I can get stuck as I wait for my brain to process something because I just don’t see it as I should. It’s humbling stuff. I try to recognize if it happens when I’m tired, trying too hard, or what. I cannot find a pattern to it. Rather, it just happens and it leaves me like I’m stuck in a record scratch and need a shove to push the needle forward (I’m dating myself with that reference). The good thing is that, at least for now, I’m being patient and not beating myself up too much about it.

Tonight I did yet another drawing of Bud-Z. This is watercolor, but I made a mess of it so it’s now a hybrid with acrylic paint mixed in. There are some areas I like. For example, the fur coloring on his back, which ended up close to his actual coloring (happy accident). There are other areas, like the white on his face or areas on his hind leg, that I’m not crazy about. However, before I go right through the paper in trying to fix it, I’ll stop. I could digitally fix it, but it’s just a sketch (I keep telling myself), leave it alone (I keep telling myself), move on. I can get so crazy obsessed in fixing one more thing, one more thing, one more thing.  Oh the stories I could tell about stitches put in and stitches taken out. No wonder I like Photoshop so much, with all of the multiple un-dos (and painting on the iPad has un-dos, too!).  Even now, looking at it, I want to fix this and that (eyebrow isn’t thick enough in one area, face is. Nuts, I know.

Jerry’s Artorama in Lawrenceville, NJ is having a sale tomorrow and Saturday. 30% of brushes and paints. I should get some new brushes. The majority of my brushes are for painting fabric. They are wide, not particularly good quality, and I go through them quickly to cover large areas. While I have a some good brushes, I find myself struggling with getting a fine enough point to do things like putting a hairline curve of a highlighting color on his eyeballs.  Yes, I think I’m going to get some new brushes.

I seem possessed with drawing/painting lately. Here’s yet another of Bud-Z. This time watercolors on 140 lb cold-pressed watercolor paper.  I generally like the smoothness of hot-pressed, but I thought I’d play around with the roughness of this paper.

Another watercolor that I did of Bud-Z. It’s painted on a base of acrylic and gesso on paperback book pages hand sewn together (part of The Hours journal below).

The new cover

This is an extra copy of one of my favorite, albeit somewhat depressing, books, The Hours by Michael Cunningham, that has been used as a kind of sketchbook/journal. Many of the pages are stitched together to give more support for paint.  Other pages are left alone.

Although I started this book some years back, I haven’t worked in it for a while. However, a few weeks back I rediscovered it and (as my bad back is preventing me from doing anything too much these days) decided to work in it again.

I made a new cover for it that’s based on a digital collage I made using a photograph of a clock I took in London and a drawing. The image seems particularly appropriate being the book’s title and my ever-awareness of time ticking by. I scanned the collage, recolored it (the original close is blue), printed it on fabric, added some paint and stitch to it, and collaged it onto fabric/paper to make the cover.

The following are some of the pages in the book.

Some of the pages are plain, some painted, many are stitched together using either a running or a blanket stitch and perle cotton thread.

These pages are dated 2007.

Also from 2007. This came with me on a trip to California, hence the bag from In N' Out Burger.

Recent sketches of Bud-Z

Another recent sketch of Bud-Z

He looks like a cutie here, but ...

This expression gives a hint of how he can be a handful.

Some of the pages are stitched on the top and bottom.

Filmaker David Shiyang Liu created this typography-flowing piece from a video entitled Ira Glass on Storytelling Part 3.  Be it storytelling or quilt making or artwork or music, the message is the same … to be creative, you must do the work. Let’s get busy!

At a Wells Fargo bank

Washington, D.C. building

Washington, D.C. building

Washington, D.C. building

Notice the reflection of the Washington Monument in the bottom row of windows.

Washington, D.C. building

Metro station

Metro station

Metro station

Metro station

Union Station

Union Station

Union Station

I like the title, Reflections and Perspectives.  It sounds like a good name for an exhibit or a book.  Hmm … mental note to self.  In any event,  I’m hoping that some of these photos provide inspiration or even end up in future artwork.  We’ll see!

I took these pictures in and around The National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.

The White House

The Jefferson Memorial

The Courtyard of The National Portrait Gallery

The Air and Space Museum

The Potomac River

The Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

The Butterfly Pavilion at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum

The Washington Monument

The Washington Monument

I’ve been away in Washington, D.C. to attend Photoshop World. I’ve been going yearly for more than a decade, but it’s fun. I’ll talk more about Photoshop CS6 in a future post.  Derry and I arrived by train early on Thursday, when the weather was very warm (in the 80s). The pre-conference didn’t start until Friday afternoon; thus we had all day Thursday and a good part of Friday to take in the City. Over the weekend, while we were busy taking at the conference, it rained and was windy. By Monday the rain cleared, the conference was over, and we were able to take in more of the City.  However, by then, nearly all of the Cherry Blossoms were gone!

7:50 a.m. and off to the local Target (it’s a much farther drive to the Apple store), making it prior to the 8 a.m. opening time.  There was a line of about 12 or so people, which was sort of exciting (and luckily nothing like the incredibly long lines Derry and I use to stand on for hours and hours waiting for Steve Jobs to talk at a keynote!)  The doors opened, and we all headed to the electronics department where the security guard told us to form a line.  A manager had narrow strips of white paper noting the various models available.  When it was my turn, they did not have the model I wanted. What to do, what to do. Off to the local Walmart. Amazingly, they had it.  Bought it. Back home, and back to work.

I have the original iPad, and I didn’t buy the second generation because I really like the first. I use it every day, and I use it exclusively when away to keep up with business, to work with images, and so on. However, Rich discovered how much he likes it and we often have a tug of war over it.  It’s his birthday today. Darn convenient! I figured if I was able to walk into a store and buy one, then it was time for him to have mine.  And have mine he now does, complete with some car racing apps that I am so glad I didn’t download earlier!  The great thing is he is really enjoying it, which is very cool (this is a man who had any zero interest in computers).

If you’re wondering, yes the image quality is noticeably improved, which is darn surprising considering how good the quality was to begin with. No doubt about it, it is gorgeous.

To illustrate, I used my phone to take a couple pictures of both ipads displaying the same photograph of a butterfly picture I took last year.  The new iPad image is on top, the old iPad image is underneath.  Both are straight from the phone, exactly as it was captured (plus my little url stamp).

from the new iPad

from the original iPad

The device is nothing short of magic.  If you can, treat yourself to one.  It’s incredibly useful, but also fun.  Another option is the iPad 2, which was cut in price or the original iPad, which you can probably find for even less money (and which is still magical). What a cool time we live in!

I’ve been in a journal-making mood lately. In that regard, I bought some very old hard covered books from a nearby used bookstore for 25 cents each.  I removed the pages from one to use as a journal cover.  Then I collected a bunch of stuff that was sitting around in my workroom for too long —  a bunch of watercolor and drawing weight paper that I colored with Procion MX dye and acrylic paints, a piece of painted tyvec, and a piece of pretty decorative paper — and got busy making the book.

I used a machine zig-zag stitch to attach paper that could fold in and out.  To do this, butt one paper along the side of another, but not snug to the edge.  Set the machine to a wide zig zag so that you can catch the side of each paper, and sew up the edge.  I saw that type of fold-out page in a book made by my friend, Beryl.  Great idea.

The book has a really good feel to it, and the paper is hungry for different types of media.  I haven’t decided whether to do anything to the cover.  I like that the cover is quiet.  For now, I’m leaving it.

There are lots of good book binding tutorials on the web.  Sue Bleiweiss has many free, full color, downloadable PDF tutorials on how to make a variety of books, journals, and other goodies.  You can find them here.  She sells some of her beauties, too. There are loads of instructional books.  I have some listed here.  If you’re looking for a good online course, check out Diana Trout’s Rescue Book Journals Online Class.  She shares lots of good information, and the class inspired me to gut an old book to make this new one!