Archive for the ‘art’ Category

It’s been an interesting 24 hours thinking about art. I tried my “fix” yesterday and got it to “kind of” work. I knew what else to do to complete the fix. So I created it – but big deal. I wasn’t happy with it, I was just overall frustrated with it. Now I know rationally that all this is an excellent exercise in creativity and sticking with art. But this was the first time I had gotten “stuck” with Photoshop and didn’t have something that “wowed” me.

Why is this such a big deal? It seems to me that in the past when I have gotton “stuck,” I tend to just stop with art-making for a while. I sense all kinds of “bad” things about my art, about me, that aren’t true, but it becomes a while till I start again. I am thinking this goes back to the fact that I am a perfectionist and everything has to be “just so.” When it isn’t “just so,” then I figure I’ve made some serious mistakes and things aren’t good. I know I am still “learning” through this whole process, but I can’t get over the fact that something didn’t work out and then just move on. However, I will say that this is improving with time. The last three years I have been able to “let go” with perfectionist issues much easier.

So this is a good lesson. I still learned, even though I wasn’t happy with the product. When I am working in cyber space, no big deal – I haven’t spent any money, like working with actual thread and fabrics. Maybe as I ponder this, I will be more willing to get back to serious creating with the fabric. I feel progress in all this….

Who knew I would stay up late last night and watch The Bachelor – I need to get a grip and do art instead! That said, I was thinking today at lunch that I could take the Autumn piece that I really like and change it to be a winter piece. Maybe have a set of four that work with the same motif. So I did it when I got home – I love all the new brushes!

I an enjoying keeping track of all my successes so far this year, and actually keeping a journal of all the work I have been doing. I like the fact there will be a concrete record at the end of the year.

We spent yesterday setting up to marble (which always takes so long, with pretreating and actually setting up the liquid bath), but then today we got to play – marbled about 6 yards of fabrics, and once again everything went really well. It is so nice to be back in the large tray again – we actually feel like we are creating art again, not just little pieces to sell. Yet again today we were talking about how much of a void there was in our artistic lives when we couldn’t create large pieces of fabric. When you define your art this way for over 14 years, it really is distressing to lose the skills.

Especially nice is the fact that we are working with other fabrics. Tried some larger heavy-weight silk that worked wonderfully, as well as some faux suede pieces, and the velveteen also worked. I still need to treat the velveteen to soften it up, but overall extremely pleased. Still haven’t been able to do the chiffon again – those people who bought that two years ago certainly have one-of-a-kind pieces!

We want to marble more often now that things are working again. It is SO GOOD to be creating fabric again! We even are revisiting marketing and revving up the business end because we are turning out really great fabric. The disadvantage is that our bodies have changed enough that we can no longer go for six hours straight, not including clean-up. There was a time four years ago when we could do 60 fat quarters in a day. Can’t do that any more, and we also discovered we don’t like turning out fabric that way – we would just as soon do a smaller amount and have a chance to play on each of the pieces.

We are still looking for a particular fabric that we used for so many of our art pieces – we used a poly-satin that kind of worked, but not to the detail we would like. I found an old piece that we’ll use in checking around fabric stores. All the really great pieces are from bridal fabrics, so we just have to shop around for those.

This piece that I’ve scanned shows the incredible detail you can get on the poly fabrics.

Then I started playing with some of the new tools from the Photoshop lessons. This next is with the Shadows and Highlights adjustment. I particularly like the neon effect on the orange.

This next is playing around with the eye dropper tool and the white space. Each gives a different feel, which is why I have wanted to learn Photoshop for so long. I want to be able to take a really great piece of fabric and use it to create lots of other images, so the particular piece doesn’t have a short shelf life till someone buys it.

And finally – the joy of playing with filters in Photoshop! Take a look at what happens with the emboss filter with the same piece! Reminds me of maps of the Continental Shelf.

All in all, a great way to spend a day off from school (Rodeo days here in the Old Pueblo)!

So I played some more today to try to come up with something that does more with linking and gradients. I must confess gradients are still a puzzlement – I keep getting weird colors. I am pleased, however, with the sky gradient in this piece. And I am having trouble with getting the grass brushes to be the greens I want instead of a series of mottled colors.

With this piece – Ocotillo – an abstract look at the almost dead-looking cactus that doesn’t bloom until rainy season – seems to be a cross with autumn. Oh well, it’s my vision! I linked the veins with the flowers – mostly. I had each flower (mostly) on a separate layer – except for the one falling, which got connected with one of the others. I do have a better sense of how this stuff works. I am enjoying just creating little pieces to work with the tools.

Reminder to me: LABEL LAYERS!!! Here goes –

I had fun last night playing again with the brushes and trying to create different layers and link them – still need to work on that – need to reread the linking stuff. I’m getting better at adding the layers each time I try something new.

I am drawn to geometric shapes – I think in the analysis it’s because they “always look like something,” so I can’t really mess them up. I do need to scan and play with one of my own sketches, to see what I can do with the brushes. But – here’s the new work:

I’m continuing to play around with more brushes as part of this week three lesson. For this portion we were to work on layers, and then move one of our objects. So here we go –

I would like to figure out how to make the shadows of the sun better, as well as crop the sun for the second one. But for a freehand, not too bad. I had watched Sewing With Nancy about landscape quilts, and part of what was included in that episode was tips on shading. So I wanted to do more with the window frame – but it needs to be larger – the scale seems all right for this, but not for more shading.

This just means I have to do more work…ahhh, too bad!