Altered Book/Journal

This week I've been working on prepping pages in three old books to use for journals. More pictures to come...

The quote (from Sarah Tarleton Colvin)  "Unfulfilled desires are dangerous forces..."

Journaling to follow!

Playing with Photoshop

I've long been a believer that we learn best by playing--look how easily babies learn to walk and talk! I've been playing with Photoshop for the last year or so--reading, asking questions to my VERY PATIENT BEST FRIEND KELLY JO, and playing.

Today I haven't felt good--my ear aches (I'm going to the doctor tomorrow) and I feel yukky--but I escaped to the studio and played with some photos. This is the only piece that seems finished, so I thought I'd share both the original photograph (Katie and her friend at Halloween) and the tweaked version. Posting on my blog is the grown-up equivalent of sticking something to the refrigerator--looky here!

Lazy

I don't feel as though I've been getting much accomplished, tho I'm sure if I made a list, I'd find I've done a lot. I fixed the fountain under the kitchen sink, today, since the plumber we called on Friday hadn't yet called back. I was tired of not being able to use the sink...

And I designed a blog for Jessica, which you can see HERE if you'd like.

This afternoon I cleaned the studio some--Katie helped and probably did more work than I did. I found a stack of old photos, all doubles, and decided to play a little bit. These were altered using some of Karen Michel's techniques. I rinsed the photo (to soften the emulsion), then used sandpaper to scratch some of the emulsion off. Rinse, dry, and then work in some oil pastels--I use the cheap Crayola Portfolio ones. Sometimes I stamp on these, or glue something down on top of them. But aren't they purty just the way they are? I love the colors, and it's especially nice since these were doubles of poorly exposed pictures of Yosemite--just sitting in a drawer waiting for something to happen to them.

I have an earache, can you imagine? So it's off to the house for me--hopefully an early bedtime...

Illustration Friday Paradise

I love what I wrote--

I'll live under the sea
in a forest of anemones
where I can feel the ocean's gentle swells and
ride the furious waves,
where the cold of the depths balance
the heat of my heart's desire...

But I'm not happy with any of the ways I tried to incorporate them. I'm looking for help, folks! Any suggestions are welcome...

More SX 70 pix

Here are the second and then third scans, adjusted w/PS. I rinsed the film between scans--it appears that I lose the blues and greens with each successive rinse...

SX 70 Manipulations

I recently purchased copies of Polaroid Manipulations: A Complete Visual Guide to Creating SX-70, Transfer, and Digital Prints by Kathleen Thormod Carr--one for me and one for my best friend (an artist/photographer who lives in Michigan which is way too far away but that's another story)--wonderful book. I've had my eye on it for quite some time, but then suddenly it went out of print and wasn't available through Amazon anymore, just used through Amazon Marketplace. Of course, the price went way down, so I bought it, and WOW! So much cool information. I bought each of us a Time Zero One Step Land Camera through Ebay last year, so now we both have the tools and the information we need.

In the book, it talks about peeling apart the integral film and scanning the inside of the back of the print while it's wet. Interestingly, what looks very bland has lots of color and texture when you manipulate it with some adjustment layers in Photoshop. The first square is the scan, the second is the scan with a Hues Adjustment Layer, and the third is a Curves Adjustment Layer on top of that. Very cool, huh?

I'm just beginning to experiment. The book recommends re-rinsing and then re-scanning the film--I've just done my second and third scans but haven't manipulated them at all. I'll post more when I do.

On a side note, velcro-girl is back at school today and I'm alone in the studio! I love my kids, but it sure is nice to be able to work alone. I have a school board meeting tonight--there's a rant coming on that, soon, whether this is an appropriate place for it or not. I see things out in the world of parenting that appall me, and you're all going to hear about it...

But for now, back to art.

another postcard

Here is another of my altered postcards from today. Of all the vintage postcards I've collected, this is one of my favorites. I only use photocopies of the original; I just can't bring myself to alter an original. It breaks my heart that there is a family out there somewhere without this picture of their great-grandmother or father; I can't destroy the original.

A Day in the Studio

Not a terribly productive day in the studio--I've been working on a small collection of altered postcards, adding acrylic paint, pieces of pages of vintage books, copies of people's pictures from old cabinet cards and some rubber stamping. Lots of fun, this was inspired by Try It Tuesday's last tutorial. I've done inkjet transparency transfers before, but I'd forgotten how much I love the imperfection of the resulting image. I feel bad that this hasn't been a terribly productive day, but I guess that has to be okay--I can't just produce on demand, and the biggest point is to be here and keep working. I sold "Road to the Beach" a couple of nights ago, so I have to say goodbye to that piece. One of my goals is to become less attached to my projects. I have to be willing to let them go and share them with other people.