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January 2008
January 31, 2008
January 30, 2008
Hump Day Journaling Prompts #1
Recently a thread has been going about the blogosphere about minimum tools for journaling art or otherwise. I’m going to jump on the bandwagon and give my 2 cents as well as add some materials prompts. Each Wednesday (Hump DaY) will feature a new prompt about a material. The prompts will be open ended and deal only with the material, subject and content are up to you wonderful reader but the material is dictated.
The format will be a brief explanation with the prompt at the end.
Ultimately you really only need two things- a journal and a writing utensil; that’s bare bones and I've seen some very smart stuff on Flickr using just those 2 items. Be it pencils or pen you can do some fantastic work.
Prompt #1- work with one material- pencil or pen. Subject is up to you- it could be writing it could be drawing, have fun.
Leave a comment with a link to your blog with pictures of what you've done!
On Etsy
I forgot to point out that the painting "There is Love Inside" is for sale on Etsy. You can find it here.
I plan on putting up some better pictures of it soon, these are far too bright.
January 27, 2008
January 26, 2008
New Hedgehog Moleskin
Immediately after finishing my last hedgehog/ moleskin I started a new one. This one has distressed brown and black sheep hide covers, is 3.5x5.5 in size and was entirely hand made by me. It got kraft paper pages which is something new for me to work on. I used rough wrapping paper kraft paper for the pages too so it has a great texture for drawing and such.
So far it has been taking every sort of abuse I can hand to it, thus far in this book, I've gesso'd pages in clear and white, tinted pages with acrylic, glued in magazine pages with matte medium, sanded gesso off the pages, added layers of magazine, acrylic and ink. I've scraped with a pallet knife and credit cards. I've wiped on and off with a rag. All in all this paper is tough as nails. Unlike the 140lb printmaking paper it does cockle a bit but after drying it smooths out quite a bit. I'm very pleased with the amount of abuse that this book has taken, and to think that this books was one I deemed unsalable because I screwed up and trimmed the cover short. (Note how far the fore edge pokes out from the cover. Looks good with this but not so good when first made.)
After you get done looking at these pictures head on over to my Flickr account and see more pictures. I didn't load them all here because it takes longer but at flicker you can see all the spreads thus far that are in the book.
January 22, 2008
January 19, 2008
Filled Hedgehog
I just filled a hedgehog. It feels good to finally snap the elastic shut on it for the last time. No more blank pages no more thoughts to recourd. It took about 6 months to fill from start to finish. It had 140lb Stonehenge pages, quite a few too. It started out about ½ inch thick and now sits at an inch. I’ve abused it to the point of stress on the spine but the Irish linen thread has held up well as has the sewing style (smythe style). It still opens flats and takes abuse. The paper stayed flat too. No cockling or other unpleasantness.
This last week or so I’ve been really focused on making art. Art for me art for the sake of art. The hedgehog is the perfect medium for that expression. Personal, small private (except, well, I plan on putting up a vid and all the pics are up on Flickr…) and portable. Good stuff all around.
Most of the images use watercolor, gouache, or acrylic with some sort of paper bits glued in. The last few pages are all acrylic in heavy impasto. I’m not sure why but the angry dark subject matter needed impasto effects.
Enough chit chat art pR0n:
January 16, 2008
January 14, 2008
"So It Goes"
I've been a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut for years, since I first read Breakfast of Champions when I was a freshman. I was very sad when I heard that he had died this past year. I commemorated him with a portrait. I've listed it on etsy. Here are a few pictures, but you can see it on etsy here.
Wrap and Roll Pencil or Art Supply Case
My mom kicks butt. She's who I get a lot of my crafting ability from. Growing up she was always crocheting, knitting, cross stitching, or quilting. When she and my Dad came to visit this past holiday season, I suggested she use her crafting abilities to create a colored pencil wrap with 12 pockets for pencils and a pocket for up to a 5x7 inch notebook. She picked some awesome fabrics and made the pockets extra roomy. Here are some pictures:
Heres a little video of one:
January 12, 2008
January 10, 2008
Ellen Van Engelen
This is the most interesting artist website I've looked at. The set up is great, the drawing are fantastic. Excellant all around. Take a look at her sketchbook pages here. She uses ink in a moleskine notebook.
All art is property of the artist.
January 09, 2008
January 08, 2008
18% Gray Card
One of the things I wish I had taken in college was a basic photography course. My understanding is that the basics of photography translate well to digital. My only purpose with a camera is to take nice shots of my work. I’ve learned a lot about shooting pictures from various friends, one of whom is a photographer. 3 years ago Eric taught me how to set up my camera in “custom” mode, evaluate my white balance and to use mostly manual settings and to use my timer settings. I’d been using a tripod for years and had been getting decent shots but Eric’s help really took my product shots to the next level.
Then I changed cameras and it all came crashing down. I stepped up; my new Canon had about 12 different settings. I did everything that Eric taught me with my old camera to the new but forgot about evaluating my white balance. Not a huge deal. My photos were never the right color, except for when we were in our old place- that place, you couldn’t get a bad shot, the light was so perfect. (Seriously the studio had north facing windows, 2 of them and was filled until sundown with gloriously bright light.) So moving into our new place pretty much put out the death bell on my photos. I was editing, highlighting, fill lighting etc. Each photo that had once taken me 2 seconds to shoot and 2 seconds to crop now took 3 or 4 steps to get ready for the internet.
Until I did some reading, I rediscovered the “evaluate white balance” setting on my camera and everything popped into place. I found some info online about an 18% gray Card. This is essentially a flat gray piece of card or cloth that is 18% red, 18% green and 18% blue. What you do is set this in front of where your subject will be, use the evaluate white balance setting while focus in on only the card and like magic the camera sees the colors pretty much right. It’s seriously amazing the difference this makes, in both video and still shots. I bought a 8x10 card from a local photography store, but these things are all over eBay and the internet. Mine cost $3.50. I cut an end off and have one in my video camera and regular camera bag, the large piece sits next to my photo set up. There are some videos on YouTube showing how to use one. I’ll track one down and post a link. I also found numerous websites discussing the gray card and it’s virtues as well as a few debunking it.*
Before getting the 18% card using the manual setting on my camera for evaluate white balance also produced pretty good results. I used a white index card, focused in on it and then used the EWB setting on the video camera and colors popped and looked more true. I also tried it out with my camera and same deal. The 18% gray card though, the results were startling and pretty amazing.
This photo was taken with my camera AWB or auto white balance. This is the Devil.
This photo was taken after focusing in on the white card and using the Manual White Balance setting. Markedly better. You can see in the fore ground how it's a touch dark, but it's nothing that that fill light in Picasa can't fix.
This is after using the set white balance setting while focusing in on the 18% gray card. Remarkably better and even significantly so over the white card. Still the white in the fore ground is a touch dark but the colors are all true.
I checked out the histograms of all the images in picasa and the difference on the graph is what you see in the pictures. Picture one is a mess, picture 2 is a ton better and picture 3 is very good indeed. I guess that the next step for me is to get another light and clip it to my tripod as well as a few filters for the lamps so that the light is slightly defused rather than direct.
*I’m not going to go into much about the debunking it theories, most of the articles that I found with a negative view of the 18% card dealt with specific brands of camera and what specific amounts of RGB their sensors could read. In my application a different between 18% and 14% isn’t going to make a huge difference. Not to mention that most of the articles dealt with Nikon cameras and since I shoot with a Cannon and a JVC it doesn’t matter too much. I suggest that you google 18% gray card and see the hits you get and read a few of the articles.
January 05, 2008
January 03, 2008
Drawing on Nature
I'm a big fan of sketchbooks and what goes into them the blog to follow has a great selection of scans and text about the sketchbooks she uses. Great little drawings and great color. She uses my favorite mediums- ink and watercolor combination. Awesome stuff.
As always all art is property of the artist.
