Archive for the ‘digital marbling’ Category

Welcome to the world of marbled fabrics, creativity and Photoshop, and the occasional comments on life. Most of the posts revolve around these topics. I’ve broken them down into categories, along with some of the keys posts in each. Feel free to browse, and come back, for I have been really increasing my design productivity.

Photoshop:
Orange Blossoms
Photoshop Transforming
Creativity:
The Digital Generation
Artists, Creativity, and Depression
Organization Queen
The Importance of Art Education
When Art Class Works
Marbling:
Adventures in Marbling
History of Marbling
History of Marbling – Part 2
Top Ten Lists:
Boo on You, Martha Stewart!
Top Ten Inspirational Books

I’m going to start out trying to document the process I am going through to create some of these “garden fantasy” images. You have a basic stone wall, much more interesting in person. I have been fascinated with walls and the interplay of textures, so I want to see what I can do to make this a more interesting image. I usually start with basic adjustments, and what you see below is the application of shadows and highlights – which I only discovered a few months ago. You should see that the cement mortar holding the rocks together is now light enough to see.

From here I usually look to balancing any color issues. I ended up with adding to the blue tint, as it makes the rock wall have some more depth. PLus, it’s more appealing to me, and it seems more like the actual wall on the day we were at the gardens.

This next is intriguing – I tried a hue filter, and it looks as if a few of those rocks are bottom-lit – it’s somewhat intriguing.

I love gradients. When I finally started to work with them, I discovered interesting effects. This one looks like underwater, with bioluminescence on the rocks – or are they shells of some underwater life form?

This is another gradient that reminds me of satellite imagery from space. I can see snow, and the popping up of land forms – which seems like it should be reversed, but now I feel like I’m in the “definitely intriguing” area.

Oohhh, dinosaur eggs! Looks fairly menacing – from yet another gradient.

Now I feel like I am really in the realm of fantasy. I added a marbled pattern after selecting the rocks and adding them to another layer. I also cropped out the grass at the bottom. I used a stroke in a fine orange, and now this wall looks like a volcanic eruption, with the magma just below the surface. This is where I’m going to continue.

Comments welcome – what else would you suggest?

And – check out our contest!

I will preface this by saying I have never done this – either contest or gallery show, so it’s all new! But as you can see from a previous post, I m in need of a title to unite all our work. There are three (and possibly a fourth, who is a photographer) of us putting this together. The only restriction from the park gallery is that the focus has to be Southwestern, which is not a problem at all. And – I want something more exciting than “Southwestern Art.”

That said, we have fiber art from marbled fabrics, digital manipulation of images, both with and without marbling, and some great stand-along photography of the Southwest. You can see some examples here, and you can scroll through older posts. Plus, The Art of Fabric, our website, has examples of fiber art. The image at the top of this post is an example – and the drama is lost on this size! The show isn’t just about marbling, which would simplify our title tremendously, but in the directions some of the marbling is taking us, as well as digital experimentation with Photoshop. We are trying to be unique in the marbling niche, and the digital work seems to be providing that.

But – we also don’t want the show to be exclusively digital marbling. Consequently, we want suggestions. And to the winning suggestion, you will get a four-pack of note cards with original digital marbling images. You get to see some of our new work before too many others do.

So comment away – if there are several title suggestions that are the same, the one submitted first will be judged the winner. I’ll keep an ongoing commentary as we develop the show, piece by piece – even if it is 4 years away. We will be ready!

Additional examples of art work – scroll through the past posts – there is usually some art work that is included in each posting.

I knew, early on in marbling, that once I saw Photoshop and some of its possibilities, that there would be much more I could do with my marbling. The problem was learning – both improving my marbling skills, my quilting skills, and figuring out Photoshop. I am just now beginning to feel like I can make a mark in digital marbling/mixed media. I am looking forward to creating more this summer and getting a specific website up, getting CDs out to galleries, and just having fun with Photoshop.

That said, check out the Cordova Museum in Cordova, Alaska. I have two pieces with Suzan that were juried into the show, so more for the resume, as well as some validation. There are some very interesting pieces in the show. No fiber, so I really need to continue with the Glacier piece for next year.

More coming……

Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way suggests taking a day each week to just enjoy art. Well, hubby and I did that today, as the weather will be mid-seventies. We went to the Tucson Botanical Gardens to see the butterflies.

We brought along the camera to get shots of plants, flowers, and of course the butterflies. We need to add to the shape library (and if I get good shots, I think I can turn them into shapes), as well as our own stock images to use with the digital marbling. We rambled through all the different gardens, marveling once again at how many different cactus there are – still amazing! Some of the wild flowers were spectacular, but nothing quite caught our breath like the butterflies!

Every now and then nature pulls one on you and you end up crying at the beauty. That’s was this was like. You walk into an enclosed rain forest-type environment and you are surrounded by butterflies all over the place – landing on you, in people’s hair, hiding in plants – absolutely beautiful.

So in honor of a gorgeous day, I am going to spend time on these pictures instead of doing lesson plans (that’s a whole ‘nother story….).

Last night I was working with one piece and came up with an incredible background (if I do say so myself). Sent it to Suzan, because I just couldn’t get the pot working, but I loved the background. One thing I am discovering is the need for a stronger story in the fabric, through shapes or other pictures. I don’t have much of a picture library, but Suzan managed to create some amazing stuff. The other thing I am discovering is the need for the fabric to show through as an integral part of the piece – so you can see the marbling background. Here’s the original background:

That said, here’s what Suzan did with the pot:

Certainly interesting, but this is where I realized I want to fabric design to be a stronger part of the piece.

Then Suzan did some mind-blowing manipulations:


And some even better stuff:


And finally, the piece de resistance….Marbled Canyon….

It’s a nice, lazy Saturday, and I am cleaning and sorting, and generally playing with Photoshop. This time a year ago I was probably into week four of the first Photoshop class. What a difference a year makes! Thanks to MyJanee
I have been able to zoom with my Photoshop skills. Her courses gave me a strong set of basics, so when I started getting creative, I had already learned a lot.

There are a lot of questions now that need answers, now that Suzan and I have developed a body of work in digital marbling. I need to think about the website, and that needs to be done soon, as Eric Maisel’s blog writings are going to start happening in March, and I want our site ready for additional traffic.

Things to do:
1 – plan the new pages
2 – go back and review Cafe Press to see what has to be done for prints
3 – decide on framing possibilities
4 – decide on pricing of prints and originals
5 – continue to produce new work
6 – revise digital portfolio for submission to new galleries
7 – decide on some new galleries – anything available in Tucson?

That should keep us busy for a while.

It’s snowing up on the Rim, so we ended up having to cancel our trip north – which gave us more time to try some new work via email. The purple flowers from a few entries ago got Suzan’s expert advice, and now we have a new one –

Then I was playing with a new piece, trying to use a Native American pot shape. Great background, lots of possibilities. I was able to get some nice texture to the pot, but nothing really was happening overall.

I tried using some of the whispy brushes for the background.

Then I decided to just do away with the pot, added a gradient, and the background was amazing – very stormy, tornado spinning…..

The last couple of designs have all been from the same piece of marbled fabric, as is this one. What follows with the green shades is interesting, but it needs lots more work. Very agricultural….

These next two are variations of the same, with the hue and color balance changed. In the blue, I was able to “twirl” one of the circles, and I really liked the effect. I wasn’t able to get any of the other circles to do as cool an effect, but I do like it in purple.

It does feel good to get back to doing work with Photoshop – pretty productive weekend, and I still continue to learn lots. I have been experimenting with additional shapes in the library – definitely need to add more. But this is a great way to work with layers and see how everything interacts together. This piece has as its original, the same piece from the purple flower below, but this time tinted with a yellow hue. In this one, Spring, you can see the original shape I used on its own layer.

I tried to do more to get this idea of spring/summer across, without making the shape look too much like a Photoshop shape.

Then I just started playing around till I got what I’m calling “Asian Fantasy.”

Here are two other iterations (that seems to be my word for the day!!) –

After a great workout at the spa and a nice lazy afternoon, I decided to get involved with some new Photoshop stuff. I am anticipating a visit to a gallery next weekend – sent the letter and DVD off in the mail yesterday – so it’s time to continue making some new work. What follows is the original – and I had a lot of fun adjusting hue on this for a variety of looks.

From here I started with the purple.

Then I wanted to look at some shapes. I am still not happy with the shape library, but I was trying a couple and ended up with a nice stylized piece.

And the final version – at least, it’s final until Suzan works her magic. I tried several others first today, and I wasn’t really happy. This one is close to being a “wow.”

I have an incredibly talented student in art class this semester, and I want to do right by him. Most of the types of assignments I am doing are for students who have had no exposure to art. I offered him a solo show at the art show in May – he would need to create 20 pieces of art. I wanted him to think about it.

He asked me on Friday if the pieces all needed to be pencil drawings, and I said no. It never occurred to me they would all be pencil, but evidently it did to him. So I am thinking now about some ways to expand his range – like getting him markers for a different medium, having him study an artist and try and create a work in that style, getting out paints, India ink and pens, oils – maybe even clay and other three-dimensional tools. I want him to experiment and really grow in what he does.

The other piece of news – we may have our first major teaching gig – in Hawaii! It would be so cool to get back there, and have our expenses paid! The logistics would be amazing, and we would have to start planning now, but I would love the opportunity. I have also offered to do a presentation on marbling – historical, as well as the new digital direction we are going. I wouldn’t be surprised if we know something by the end of January, in which case we start making fabric! Yee-hah!

We had another good session for marbling – a lot of remnants, plus a couple of good pieces of silk – and another good piece of velveteen – which we haven’t done in a while. Three hours, start to end of clean-up today, but that’s not counting the two hours of prep yesterday, plus the hour Dean spent getting paints ready for today. Nice and relaxing, everything worked. As we get ready to think about doing a new preferred letter, we have to look at how much product we can do with tight space and my not always being available. As we don’t do as much fabric any more, we don’t have to worry about taking one whole day of the weekend for the actual marbling.

I can feel myself getting depressed today, knowing that school vacation is almost over, and I still need to get ready – which I’ve allowed time for before Sunday, but I still have enjoyed the days so much, and I really don’t want to get back into the grind. I’ve started walking again, relaxing, getting my nails done, and I am SO looking forward to eventual retirement. At least I can “retire” periodically through the school year and then all summer.

I need to finish my Photoshop class, but the projects really aren’t interesting me, as I would rather look at the tutorials on NAPP and work from there. But I have learned so much from those lessons and developed a lot of confidence in what I am doing. There’s no big deal to finishing, just that it’s a loose end that I would like to take care of. I have discovered that I am really not into photo retouching or restoring per se – I like the original creations.

That said, I need to go read a few tutorials and work on a new piece tonight.

As the new year starts, it’s always a time of reflection for me. I have two times like this during the year – one in January as I look ahead to the next calendar year, and one in August when I look at the coming school year. One of the newslists I get is from Education Week, and there was a link today on Steve Jobs and creativity. This was his commencement address to Stanford in 2005. Some very interesting things – never knowing when something you have done in the past (like his taking a calligraphy class that eventually led to the fonts for the Macintosh) will be the key to what you will do next in the future.

Do what’s in your heart, never feel regretful, because everything you experience builds who you are. A lot of what bothers me about teaching these days is that I have all these experiences from the past, and I would like to be able to have these skills utilized. It gets me angry, but then I realize that I am bringing all this to the students, and I never know when something from the past will be the key to reach a student.

Those words really resonated with me today, as I need to hold to that to get through the remaining years that I am teaching. If I can maintain the momentum from this past week, I will be able to draw on the digital marbling as a creative outlet for the spring. I think what’s really working for me with Photoshop is that I can see definite progress in a piece, whereas when I am quilting, the progress is always much slower.

Speaking of skills I have developed, a few years ago when I was looking for another job, I interviewed with Drive Time to set up their business partnership program with local schools. The first thing the CEO of the company asked me was, since my resume was so full and so diverse, just how much of it was true. Well, I guess, once again, I am determined to be a Renaissance woman – everything is true, continues to be true, and I guess I keep adding in other directions.

Suzan and I have done a couple of really amazing pieces over the last few days. This one is based on the original piece in yesterday’s blog – but you would never know it! Dean wants to call it “Tapestry Secret,” which I like.

A very busy morning – did lots of shredding of old IRS stuff, old business stuff – several bags for recycling. Did some cleaning (still have a very long way to go….) And I got a walk in – the weather is nice and breezy. We burned sage in several of the spots around the house – get the good energy flowing.

As I reflect back on 2007, it was a good art year. Not so much in terms of actual fiber created, but we were able to finally solve our marbling problems, I started on Photoshop, and I finally got into doing digital work from the marbled fabrics. We sold an art piece (Night Eyes, from some of our first framed attempts), had some good ebay custom orders, and felt like we had momentum with Marble T. Now it’s time to look at the coming year and what we would like to accomplish. Which I think will be our goals for this week – we definitely want to reactivate our Preferred list, so we get more hits on the website, as well as add more fiber work. I want to get a fiber portfolio completed, and I would like to enter a minimum of five different shows this year.

Lots to think about, and trying to balance the momentum with school with be interesting – as usual. I completed most of my art plans today – looked through standards, sketched out the semester projects, and developed the rules for art class – which I think are pretty good. One of the things that amazed me as I was working with the art standards is how much my kids were actually in the intermediate set of standards, between the various discussions and projects. I feel really good about that.

Math – that’s another thing to think about over the next few days. I’m avoiding it because teaching to the test really is morally and ethically against everything I believe that makes a good education for a child. Heard from Kathy in Vermont that the new principal is even thinking about doing away with their exploratory classes in favor of more academics. Who was it who said a society is judged by its art? The Bush years have not been good ones for civilization…..

I’m working on another piece off a freeform pattern – here it is in original, black and white lines, and then as the genesis of a Rainforest piece.