Digital Art & Photography: Just one more!

A Certain Slant of Light

(digitally manipulated photo)

Just finished this one a few minutes ago and am tickled pink how it came out! Maybe I'm crazy but I love doing this digital manipulation. It reminds me of a bit how writing poetry is -- random thoughts and images, memories and sounds, all coming together into a brief, often small expression.

I think I need to stop now. My wrists are aching and I can't feel my "mouse finger!" Time to break open some pinot grigio and head for the deck with a good mystery. Nothing like a good British mystery to take one's mind off art-making!

Art & Photography or Playing in the Heat . . .

Memories of Spring

(altered photograph by me)

After six weeks of cold and rain, now we're in the midst of a humid heat wave -- I have never seen Connecticut like this! Ugh. So, I took a day off to play with PaintShop and fiddle with some photos I took earlier this spring when the gardens were looking great (they now look like something from Jungle Book, ready to grab you and drag you under when you walk by).

I was attempting to work with layers and filters wanting to achieve that old, faded look -- grainy, little color left, maybe a few creases. God, maybe I'm describing myself -- ?! Here's another one from the Palace of Beaux Arts in San Francisco:

Not too shabby.

I'm gearing up for a festival in early fall. I'll be working on creating shibori silk scarves and jewelry. I was at a bead show up near Boston and bought some amazing ocean jasper and other semi-precious stones -- can't wait to work with them! But as the dyeing process is very messy and not conducive to "sharing" space with the oils and canvases, I'll need to take a break from my artwork and painting.

Of course, that's what I say now. In a week or two it may change -- again!

Well, back to photo land -- thank god my computer is in the lower level where it's cool; otherwise, I'd never make it through this heat.

Complain, complain . . .

Chihuly, Sunflowers and Damp New England

Chihuly Drawing Wall

Sunflowers
9 x 12
acrylic, oil pastel and pastel

After seven weeks of (almost) continuous rain and damp, I require a BIG dose of color! Lots of color! In going over some of my photos from a trip to San Francisco last autumn to visit my brother, I found some he had taken at the Chihuly exhibit at the DeYoung Museum. This is one I located on the web, very similar. These works (most on paper, I believe) are his preliminary drawings done in acrylics as studies for his glass sculptures, and it was an amazing experience to stand in front of this wall that probably measured 35' long and about 18' high -- an artist's Wailing Wall!

A couple of months later, in the dead of winter, I painted my sunflowers, my soul craving bright hot colors. I began with acrylics and then added layers and staccato touches of oil pastel and pastels. It was one of the first times I really let loose, just trying to get to that point where the colors were alive, almost edible.

Well, after floods here where I work, slopping mops and throwing out drowned materials, I did this blog entry to share another bright spot at the end of a very damp and dreary week -- enjoy!!!

Playing with Art Redux

Following up on my last blog and another I did for ArtID, I'm continuing this idea of challenging myself to foster a sense of change so as to push those comfort levels just a bit more. . .

This is an acrylic/gouache painting I did earlier this spring on 200 lbs. acrylic paper. Now, sometimes when I stand in front of the easel or worktable and want to do something along a similar theme but with a different palette, I go blank. I freeze. I cannot seem to think of a group of colors. Silly, I know. Afterall, I can do it for when I coordinate my clothes and acessories for work; I can do it for my makeup; I can do it for quilting or knitting. And yet it seems so much more difficult with paints. Go figure . . . ?

So I turn to my computer and my graphics software and begin to play the "what if" game. Here is a small slice from the above work, then altered by using the negative tool and working the hue/saturation from there:
Now what I have is a very interesting nightscape or a fantasy celestial combination of colors, all of which I can work off of. Now I can begin to visualize a new painting. You can see how some of the paint spots turned white and appear to be glints of light or starlight.

I did this exercise with several older works, cropping, flipping, adjusting colors, moving to negative and then adjusting the colors -- all to see how different a painting can appear with a change in palette and/or focusing on a portion of the larger work.

The trick is not to spend all your time on the computer! At some point it becomes "step away from the computer, nice and easy now!"

Playful Artwork

"Sun and Shadows in the Garden"
acrylic on Wallis paper
9" x 12"

Sometimes you just gotta play -- grab that sense of when we were kids and mucked around in the dirt making mudpies or climbed trees and caught lightening bugs in jars (only to let them go at bedtime, of course)!

I did this piece a few weeks ago working on Wallis archival sanded paper, which is used mostly for pastels. But it's a powerful piece of paper coming in at 200 lbs. and can take watermedia and oils. This was a warm-up piece to flex the muscles and loosen up. Having worked with silks dyeing for many years, I also used coarse salt with the watery acrylics and got these marvelous "blooms" scattered around the surface. I left quite a bit of white, too. It just seemed to lighten the whole piece.

I made it a point to step away before I began to "fiddle" too much and let it dry, moving on to other paintings. At the end of the day when I returned to this, it brought a smile to my face. Why? I guess because it reminded me of those summer gardens of childhood with the dappled sunlight and shadows flowing about the shrubbery.

Happy summer and enjoy the weekend! We finally have sun here and about 80 degrees -- thank goodness! This past June here in CT averaged 27 days of rain. Ugh.

Tree as a symbol of tenacity --

"Tenacity"
5" x 7"
pencil on Fabriano 140 lbs. watercolor paper

In response to Vivien Blackburn's Tree Challenge for July -- here's my work -- a quick sketch from a tree I pass every day on my way to work. It appears to be growing out of the cliffside and its' contorted trunk is so twisted and misshapen, it hurts to look at it. And yet it's so beautiful, nature's own sculpture.

I've been fascinated with the Daphne myth for many years and often think of it when I see trees such as this one.

I hope to take this sketch and work it into a larger piece. My fear is that the state department of transportation will someday chop it down and that would be a sorrowful thing.

Thanks, Vivian, for the challenge -- it made me do this!

Fiddling with Bad Paintings . . .

This is not a very satisfying watercolor sketch -- looks almost half-hearted, doesn't it? There are parts and bits I do like (the rocks) but all together it just does not work.

So the question is: do we trash these "almost" paintings? Do we save them to remind us of our failures?

What if -- one of the greatest tools we creative types have -- steps to the forefront, maybe not immediately but certainly at some point. I painted this little piece several months ago and just stumbled upon it on my computer this afternoon as I was attempting to clean up files, etc. I looked at it and "what if...?" appeared, lurking on the sidelines of my semi-active brain.

So, I pulled a copy into a software program for photos and digitally played with it -- here's what I came up with:



Now, this I like!

It's dramatic, an intriguing study for a night seascape painting perhaps? And some of the little "blips" that came through on the scan appear to be stars and constellations. Also, I think this would work better in other media, such as acrylic, oil or perhaps pastels.

I will keep this playful piece in my computer in the "must paint" file. It will spark my creative imagination to try some night scenes, give me a springboard from which to work.

We learn more from failure than from success -- good to remember!