Archive for the ‘digital marbling (TN)’ Category

Sometimes a piece of marbled fabric just begs to be used more than once – or find rebirth in a new form. That’s how our Digital Marbling (TN) was born. Playing around with the fabric and Photoshop leads to some very interesting effects. One thing I am hoping for with all this playing around is the development of some fabric lines, so I’m working on the idea of repeats right now.

Over the last decade or so there have been several runs of marbled fabric designs among some manufacturers. While the patterns are bold and colorful, I think there is a missing element in designing marbled fabric. A variety of colorways, bolds and subtles, and patterns that look like they would be easy to work with. I know when I started making fabric in 1993 it seemed like I was only comfortable putting the bold colors with blacks and whites. I want more flexibility, and to a certain extent I have found it.

But as I work toward designing fabric, I’m using these new artistic creations as my learning. In our newsletter, I posted a pic of “Alaskan Whales,” a piece my digital partner Suzan and I had entered into a show at the Cordova Historical Museum in Cordova, Alaska. It was our first really successful digital collaboration, and I’m going to pull it apart for you.

Here’s the original piece of fabric. I am amazed at just how blah that piece of fabric was, yet there was something appealing…if just means you have to do a lot of playing around to see what happens.

This is the same fabric with a duplicate copy and some adjustments added.

Now it’s approaching the water effect we were looking for. Then we looked for a graphic to use. We liked the whales, just rotated them a bit. We also added some adjustments: bevel, outer glow, some transparency. It looks like there are extra colors added, but it’s a transparency with some curve adjustments that adds in the extra colors. There are a few more things done to this piece, but I have an old version of Photoshop, so it doesn’t show.

Here’s another version, saved from the layers we chose not to use…never know when you will come across something unusual with stuff you didn’t throw out, but just left “invisible….”

All in all, loads of fun!

Who’s manipulating fabric digitally? I’d love to hear from you!

Don’t forget to become a subscriber and be entered to win some marbled fabrics. Check the box at the top right.

GiveawayGiveawayGiveawayGiveawayGiveawayGiveawayGiveawayGiveaway! I’ve done 400 Blog posts – who knew I could keep going this long! I hated journaling as a kid, but with the advent of the computer, my writing took off. Now I love keeping track of and processing life.

When I started, the blog was solely a place to record my Photoshop work, as I was taking an online class and needed a place to dump my work. I started January 20, 2007, and I was so pleased with my ability to even set up a blog to begin with. And…if you’re interested, you can see the very first thing I actually created with Photoshop here. I periodically go back and look at the earlier posts to remind myself (when nothing seems to be working in Photoshop) that I really have come a LONG way.

These are some of my more favorite posts:

Quilting Like Crazy

Ansel Adams Exhibit

Left-Overs

Absolutely Fabulous Glorious Day

My Wonderful Seventh Grade Art Class

The Spring Art Show

Over the years I have met some wonderful folks through blogging and the accompanying social media, for which I am very grateful. Staying in touch with other creative souls is such joy. So to say thank you, hubby and I have put together an assortment of goodies, most related to marbling, but the occasional nod to the math geek in me.

Now to be eligible for the giveaway – you need to subscribe to our new newsletter. I am exploring a brand new format to our monthly newsletter (which has been “yearly” for the last three years), complete with pics and video about marbling. Subscribe and I promise you won’t be disappointed (and if you are, you can unsubscribe…). Just fill in your email on the box to the right of this entry. You have till July 13 to subscribe, and then I will use the Random Generator to choose a subscriber. Feel free to let others know about the giveaway.

Giveaway Goodies

Now let me explain what you could receive (and the pic is just a sample – not everything is photographed):

* A remnant package of 100% pima cotton, hand-marbled with assorted colors and patterns – 6 pieces.

* Three postcards for mixed media collage of digital marbling (TN).

* A few pieces of marbled papers, again for collage.

* A 10% Off coupon for anything on our website.

* A Polynomial Quilt Pattern, which would make a great present for the math teacher in your life, if not for you!

* 14 small pieces (about 2 x 5 inches) of some heavy-weight colored (not marbled) silk, again for collage or some crazy quilting or piecing – it’s all for your imagination!

* A set of digital marbled notecards (four cards, with envelopes)

So – it’s up to you now – the count-down to July 13 begins….sign up and spread the word!

Marbled Fabric

While on vacation, hubby and I had plenty of time to talk about our marbling business and how we wanted to proceed. Readers of this blog know we went through some very difficult times as we had problems with marbling: nothing worked – water, paints, fabric finishes – nothing. Prior to this time we had an active business, with a mailing list of about 300 people, and a list of products that sold each month fairly well. Once the art problems hit, at the same time I changed jobs, and time became a real premium.

Fast forward to now, and I am spending lots of time reading and researching how to build our business. About two weeks ago, on the road in Tennessee, I had one of those “2 by 4 on the head” moments, when I realized that everything the internet marketers tell us we have to do to build an online business we had been doing years ago. So I have been spending time updating, revising, incorporating social media (which wasn’t around when we went online in 1998…). I have learned a HUGE amount, I have loads more to do, and most importantly, I am having fun, as well as meeting lots of new and interesting people. I am glad that I am on summer vacation right now, and I don’t need to take classes or teach any remediation, because building this business is taking a lot of time.

So what does an art business need? We have a website that has gone through several versions since 1998 when the learning curve was EXTREMELY steep.  It has again been updated by our amazing web designer Suzan at Saltwater Systems to reflect new fiber work, some of our digital work, and some new products to be released within the next two weeks. It is now easier to sign on to follow our work through our newsletter.

We did a lot of work off the website way before blogs, but blogging makes it a lot easier to update and refine offerings. Plus, I like being able to write about and reflect on new work, especially as our digital marbling (TN) increases. Now on our blog, Marbled Musings, you can follow updates to the blog, as well as sign up for our newsletter.

Social media has mushroomed. I’ve been on Facebook for about two years, and I have loved getting back in touch with former colleagues and students, as well as meeting and reconnecting with other artists. I am learning about Fan Pages and am just beginning to experiment with one. If you are interested, sign on to follow Marble-T Design on Facebook. Pretty soon we will have a button you can just click.

Now Twitter….this is really interesting. My students make fun of me for being on Twitter, but I tell them I am way ahead of them in this piece of technology, especially when it comes to business.  I am not always logging on with information about what I am doing, but I do enjoy the resources that are posted. Following the NY Times arts columns has led to some great artists. If you’re in to Twitter, you can follow me @ArtsyLindaMoran. (And there wil soon be a button….)

Have I made any art lately? No, and that is by far the downside to building a business and doing the necessary marketing. I worked on a few pieces before I left for vacation, and there is time next week built in for working on art. My goal is to have the business running smoothly within the next four weeks, and then I will carve out the art time throughout the school year – a tough task as any artist knows who has to share creativity time with the job that pays the bills.

I am very interested in what all of you do. Comment about how you’re building your business, what you have found that works, and anything in particular you know HAS to be done. Love to read your comments.

AND….giveaway this weekend with Blog Post 400 – I promise you it’ll be a good one!

PS – a popular post about Martha Stewart and her “marbling” – this ran a year ago as we were just coming out of our hard times marbling, and I was incensed at how she tried to put her spin on this ancient art!

What a perfect ending to the year – we started at 7:30 this morning getting ready for a photo shoot for our small group of mixed media artists. Got the table set up, brought out the easel, found the black velour bought 8 years ago to make pants to cover the table, and we began the first round of photos. We needed to take individual photos of work, plus a group photo that would represent what our group booth might look like as we prepare the paperwork for a show entry in March. Three hours later, after our combined efforts, we had some great shots. It was such fun, taking everyone’s input, rearranging our work, commenting, making suggestions. Our pictures are better for the group effort – once everyone got comfortable, each jumped in with suggestions, leading to some nice arrangements of textures to show off all our work. While on the one hand we are hoping to become business-like, on the other we don’t want to lose the camaraderie and encouragement we give each other.

This is a sample of the work we will bring – marbled fabrics, stationery, marbled papers, fiber art, marbled scarves, and digital marbling (TN) with Suzan.

Brenda is a weaver and just getting into silk painting. Her scarves are so incredibly soft.

Karin is our water colorist, and we fell in love with her fairies. Those should definitely sell.

Betty is our author and digital artist, and Suzan is one of our potters and another digital artist.

Alison is our jeweler, and she works almost exclusively with semi-precious stones. Her work is really unique.

Yvonna is our other clay artist, with a very unique style.

And finally, the group of us….

We then went out to lunch and saw “It’s Complicated” – and laughed till our sides hurt. I wonder if Apple realized all the details about their “product placement”….

And on the way out of the theater, we were treated to a spectalular moonrise – sunset turning the sky orange to the west, and the moon slowly peaking over the Santa Catalina Mountains, a beautiful yellow-orange – took our breath away!

Happy New Year everyone!!

While I haven’t kept up with the zentangles each day, I have managed to do something with art every day this month – mostly sewing, as I am taking an existing pattern from Judy Neimeyer and adding my own twist. It has made for a great bunch of days – I am so enjoying creating after work, and I hope it will continue.

That said, I picked up a book last weekend at the quilt shop called Piecing with Pixels. I am very intrigued with doing more with my own fabric in digital imaging. One of the chapters is on taking your own images – in my case fabric – and using Photoshop to create a texture library. Which is what I did tonight – lots of fun, and all I did was take one piece of quilted marbled fabric and try a bunch of filters.

The photo above is of the original piece which I did about 6 years ago – I did some color changes through Photoshop at that time. What I discovered tonight was a totally different approach – in the past I have been trying to turn a piece of fabric into a design that will stand on its own. Now I realize what I want is lots of textures that could go together. Playing was definitely fun:

Dry Brush filter

Halftones filter

Clouds

Charcoal

Find edges filter

Extrude

Extrude

Glass

Glass

Glass

Glass

Notepaper

Neon glow

Mosaic

Ink Outlines

Halftone

Reticulation

Polar coordinates

Plastic Wrap

Palette knife

Rough pastels

Rough pastels

Ripples

Ripples

Twirl

Sponge

Solarize

Shear

Zigzag

Wave

Underpainting

Twirl

My task tomorrow is to try and actually design a couple of quilt blocks just to see what happens. I welcome your comments – which ones do you really like?

I wanted to play with Photoshop this afternoon, as it has been a crazy week, had a half day today, went to lunch with hubby, and finally felt healthy AND relaxed for the first time in several weeks. So I started with a piece of marbled fabric in a stone pattern. I then went looking for one of my pics from the Tucson Botanical Gardens, as I wanted to work on texture as part of my Garden Fantasy series. The pic below is the original.
This is it cropped. It’s a little out of focus, and sharpening didn’t seem to help, so I started looking at basic shadow adjustments.
I like the way the background just faded away, and the flowers took on a nice light and delicate pink. Then I started thinking about adding the marbled fabric as a new background. Here’s the first attempt, with the background the original colors.
It’s a little dark, but I do like the way the veining in the stone pattern shows up in the background. Here’s the second, after I changed the colors of the marbled fabric to some blues. Very misty, very Asian – to my way of thinking.
These next are all playing around with the order of the layers, to see what I get for different effects.
I like the lighter background – I want to play with this one some more.
What you can’t see in this one unless you click and REALLY look with the additional texture in the veining that makes it look like it is raised off the paper. It also looks to have water droplets on it, which is kinda cool!
On second thought, the “droplets” are distracting – may have to “erase” them. Fun to play again – amazing how much you can do when you feel good!

Open to suggestions!

‘

Cool, huh?!?!?

I was hoping, when I started a regular pattern of blog writings, that I could do some marketing on Saturdays – hence the “Saturday Special.” This has not been my most successful day because I can’t keep up with changing images, especially since Cafe Press isn’t as “intuitive” as I would like it. I did set up a friend’s store – The Edge of the Sea of Cortez – and you will see some really cool sea creatures, many of whom are endangered. Betty Hupp is the co-author of “The Edge of the Sea of Cortez,” a book about the sea creatures you will find tide-walking. Check out the store for an indication of some of her products, with more to come.

I really like this image, created a few months ago, and part of the “Indigenous Images” series I am working on. I put this on a t-shirt for this week – limited time only! I also have this image on a small ornament – looks really cool.

Digital Marbling (TN) is unique – I take a piece of marbled fabric – or two – and manipulate it to other intriguing images. Loads of fun to do. I am learning a lot about photo manipulation – what an amazing field. Were I younger, I think graphic design would have been my career field.

About a year ago I created a great background, and my digital partner Suzan used a shot she had taken of the Grand Canyon – makes for a very dramatic image. You can find this on notecards this week. The image is also available on a small magnet.

Also over a year ago I started my “Fossil” series, again from a traditional marbled stone pattern on fabric. The background has loads of possibilities! It’s available as a small poster this week and as a small mug.

Have fun exploring! If you are interested in Betty’s book on the Sea of Cortez, here’s the Amazon link.

I worked with Photoshop for a while this afternoon, and NOTHING clicked – no tutorials, no playing with filters, nothing. The photo at the left is one from a while ago – I was working with blending modes, and added a background of marbled fabric for an interestng sunset effect. Rather than push it and get more frustrated, I put the work away (saved, of course – ya never know…), and started getting caught up with some favorites on Twitter. What an amazing source of great articles and ideas!!

Katydid Designs is offering an e-course starting September 7: Multiple Streams of Income. I’ve taken a couple of Photoshop classes on line and had a great time. I took a blogging class on line (31 Days through Problogger)) and learned a huge amount – so much so, that I have spent the summer really working on some marketing ideas, getting a support groups together, and of course creating some new art (marbling tomorrow and doing more paper – yay!).

My art is my stress-reliever, since I am still teaching full time, but this year, with Arizona ranking 50th in the nation for support of education, everything about the job, paycheck, hours, and class sizes is up in the air. After being able to spend the summer creating art, I am really concerned with the lack of time come next week Wednesday. I still have a number of years before I can retire and work at my art all the time. So I am looking for other opportunities, and I learn really well on line!

If you answer “yes” to any of the following, you might want to consider checking out this course.
* Are you struggling to make a living doing what you love?
* Do you feel like you are working all the time and getting nowhere?
* Do you feel overwhelmed and confused about all the ways artists and crafters can make money?
* Are you always jumping from one idea to the next without following through on anything?

Laura Bray, an artist with an M.B.A., will teach you how to create income by doing what you love. Specifically designed for the creative personality, this online course will teach you how to develop a successful business and how to have fun while you do it.

* Learn that creating multiple streams of income is the fastest way to reach your financial goals while making a living a doing what you love.
That has been my goal all along, but I just can’t seem to get it together. I am interested in hearing from those of you who are having good luck with this.

* Learn how to leverage your artwork and projects to make money for you over and over.
I have an idea about this, and that’s how I got into digital marbling (TN), as a way of getting more mileage out of a great piece of fabric.

* Learn how to create passive income. You can be independently employed, go on vacation, and still make money!
I am so intrigued by this idea….

* Find out the many ways an artist or crafter can make money from their art. You probably haven’t even thought of some of them!
I know eBay has been okay for us – would love to increase weekly sales. Etsy seems stagnant… what else is there?

* Learn from experts in creative income areas such as; online selling, art licensing, children’s book illustration and craft shows.
I want ideas!

* Create a personal business plan, outlining your income choices and the steps you need to take to make your plan a reality.
There’s got to be more to what I am attempting – and not having any successes!

So think about it…and keep making your art!

I wanted to work with the stained glass images I bought a while back in a Dover clip art book. I chose the one at the left, after figuring out I had to download it a a GIF and then to Grayscale, to RGB, and then to a jpg to get the size I wanted. Learned a lot right there! The primary marbling patterned used was the Italian vein, color adjusted for the different effects you will see. I used two other patterns from the papers we marbled:

Here’s the progression to the finished design.

This is absolutely, positively one of my most favorite digital marbling (TN) pieces. Suzan and I stumbled on this as we were laying with a deconstructed piece of marbled fabric. Here’s the process: I take a pic or scan a piece of marbled fabric and then play around in Photoshop until I’m happy with the result. With this piece, we took it down to a basic line drawing and then started playing around with gradients. We got a great background, but we knew it needed something more.

So we went through the photo library and found a great pic of a flower hubby had taken from our yard. Voila! That was exactly the focal point we needed.

This brings me to my Saturday Special. In an attempt to market myself and my art more strongly, I am investigating a variety of venues over the internet. This Saturday you can take a look at a few gifts available from Cafe Press. My “store” is quite small, and I look to change a few items on a regular basis. I’ve tried to price items so they would make great gifts for those who either have everything or need nothing! This photo graces a personal journal, making it somewhat mystical for your writings.

This flower image graces a small tile, a perfect gift for a housewarming. The basis of the design again is marbled fabric, this time inserted into flower images. I really like the “neon” effect of the flowers. This image will show up in a larger print down the road, because the detail in the flowers is intense.

I had so much fun creating this image, one of the first I successfully completed on my own. This is part of a “moon” series, and it also started as a piece of marbled fabric, deconstructed to a basic line drawing, with a series of gradients applied. I don’t think I could achieve the detail in this any other way. The piece just glows! This is available as a set of note cards, a nice way to maintain a unique social communication.

I am very interested in hearing from those of you who sell on line. Any tips or hints to share?

First time visiting Marbled Musings? Get an overview.

I’m working on week 2 of being sick…it’s the usual viral thing that settles in my chest and makes me miserable. DH has already had it, and I’m hoping it doesn’t go on beyond this week, as the record for this bug has been two months. So for 4 days no blog entries – and did I ever miss recording my thoughts and progress. There wasn’t much except for the commission, which was due yesterday for the 80th birthday party, and it was half done – lost four whole days, and it would have been completely finished. I’m quilting as I go, and then piecing the quilted sections together. It’s really looking wonderful, but I’ll save photos until more is done.

Marketing Monday – Two weeks ago I posted marketing plans, and now it’s time to check and see how I did. The main one was to set a calendar for the blog and continue postings….which I did – sort of….

Marketing Monday – this is my second posting, and I think it’s going to keep me on track.

Top Ten Tuesday – did two posts – should be interesting, staying on topic.

Work-In-Progress Wednesday – two posts, this week I should have pics of the commissioned quilt.

Thoughts for Thursday – missed last week – too sick to move…

Photo Friday – made one of the posts, should have new pics this week.

Saturday Special – nothing yet, but I have plans…

Sunday Sampler – again, nothing yet, but there are plans….

Another accomplishment – get entry ready to mail to Alaska – went in the mail last week. And – last Friday I heard that one of the two pieces submitted made it into Ft. Collins Fabric of Legacies show, so that will go in the mail beginning of next week – and I think we will be able to make it to the artist’ reception.

Nothing on the tutorials, as I’ve been sewing so much – nice to know I can get as much done in a short period of time – bodes well for new pieces this summer.

Haven’t ordered anything from Vista Print, but that’s on the agenda for this week.

In terms of Etsy and Cafe Press, nothing yet, but Kimberly Baxter Packwood had a lot of suggestions on her blog and Facebook about successful Etsy stores, so I am pondering that. I think I can have my Cafe Press up for this week’s Saturday Special, with some of the digital work.

So – goals for this week:
* entries each day on the blog
* Cafe Press set up and ready to go
* Low Tide mailed to Colorado
* commission just about finished
* check for some new shows to enter for Fall

First time visiting the blog? Check out this overview.

I’ve decided to keep myself on track and do a “Photo Friday” to stay focused on my Garden Fantasy idea. This shot of a hibiscus was in the butterfly exhibit at the Tucson Botanical Gardens this past January. I’ve never seen a two-tone hibiscus, and I’ve loved the flower since living in Hawaii. I’m amazed at the number of plants in Tucson and the desert. The detail and layers within this flower are amazing on their own. I love this photo, but I decided to try manipulating, mostly to practice with Photoshop.

I’m getting pretty good at selecting portions of a picture to put on a new layer and just work with that. This layer makes the flower look like there are more layers to the flower than there actually are. I played around with some of the options, most of which I didn’t like. But I did finally fnd a gradient I liked….

The details on this flower are just amazing. The center and the stamen are so clear – I particularly like what happened with the gradient to add the blue into the center.

Finally I decided to look at changing the background, which I had already lightened from the mostly black original. I liked it lighter, and now that I know how to manipulate filters for a background, I am quite partial to the sponge effect.

Not a wow, but I’m enjoying the practice.

I talked about how I created this piece, and you can read about it here. But for the last two weeks I have been thinking about that light background and I haven’t been really happy with it. The eye went to the light and kept going back to the light – and I didn’t want that. I wanted focal points to be the interior images. So I decided to see about a darker background, and Voila! I’m not sure it’s finished – I think I need to look at it on a couple of different monitors – plus I think I’m going to have it printed on a tote bag from VistaPrint.

I am so enjoying working on these – some of the pieces just fall into place. I have started scanning some more marbled paper to expand the number of patterns I have. I’ll post those when I have them all scanned.

In the meantime, last weekend I worked with another native image:

I am really taken with many of these indigenous images, and I like the use of the marbled fabrics to add a huge amount of texture. From here I started adding marbled patterns for colors. I didn’t do anything with texturizing until I was happy with the colors. What you see here are the filters and blending modes after all the colors were in place.

More color –

The background was where I really started to learn a few new techniques. I finally figured out how to apply filters to just the background, as opposed to elements within the design. What I particularly like about this background is how it makes the shadows (that look clear) turn dark and look like cording.

I would love to hear your views on how these are shaping up! Feel free to comment.

First time at Marbled Musings? Check out the overview.

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)!