Darkroom Day 37 and More Scanning

This morning was all about putting up the FRP board (the material we are using for the back splash on the 'wet' side). Ron cut it out and then we glued it to the walls. He also cut the hole in the formica top for the sink! I didn't want to be in the room when that was happening. But it all went well - no problems. I ran into town to pick up the trim material for the back splash - picked up one wrong piece to use for the corners, but Ronnie made it work! Cleaned up the mess and tomorrow the carpet is coming at 10:00 a.m.!! We still have to put down the tile in the darkroom, hang the doors, put up the last workspace - but all this has to wait for the carpet.

This afternoon I delved into more SCANNING! I'm really getting quite good and the prints are coming out excellent. Seems a little ironic that I've finally learned the scanning business - right when I get a darkroom! But now I can do both and I love it. I have a feeling I'll be spending alot of time out in the new art room and darkroom! I'm posting a scanned photo I did today.

Historic Bodie Ghost Town

Yesterday I was able to complete putting the printed photos together - matting and framing them. They came out GREAT if I do say so myself! I am framing just five 11x14s and will have some matted 5x7s and 8 1/2 x 11s for sale as well. I also printed out 4x6s for the greeting cards of Bodie since I hadn't made any cards of the Bodie series yet. Yeah, I was busy.

I'm posting a photo to give you a preview of what to expect with the first Second Thursday Artwalk in April in Auburn at the Kerry Terese Salon & Gallery. I will also be sending out an email to all those in my mailing list and I do hope you can come out and support the local arts. Old Town Auburn has a lot of offer. Take the night off and have dinner and then come see the show.

Darkroom Day 35 and 36 and Scanning

Yesterday Ron decided he was going to paint the moulding/crown moulding in the new hallway white, to keep in sync with the artroom. We also went into town and bought the back splash material for the 'wet' side of the darkroom. We stopped by the carpet place and if all goes well and it comes in on Monday, they will be out to install on Wednesday. Today I think he may put the second coat of paint on the trim. I'm posting a photo of the new garage hallway and the actual color is that of the far wall with the door on it (putty). The digital with the flash tends to make it look green. And it's NOT green. This is quite an improvement for this area.

Yesterday while he was painting, I hunkered down and attacked the scanning of the film. I used to have a lab do it for me, but now I think I've finally (and I won't say mastered, because it's still a mystery to me and I wouldn't be able to give anyone else advice!) gotten quite good at scanning the 35mm film. The scans were so much better (scanned at 3200 pixels) and I was then able to print out some much improved 11x14 prints for the April show. Now today, I'll clean up some old stock of 'good' frames, mat them, and hopefully get them all put together so I can relax or something like that!

Darkroom Day 33 and 34

Yesterday was kind of a day off for everyone. The boys went to start another project for my step daughter. I was off gathering up supplies for my art exhibit for next month. Didn't have to buy any new frames as I still had some in stock, and I decided to buy the mats this time instead of me cutting them, as I wanted double mats and they are a real hassle to cut. I only need five so I figured I would splurge - plus I'm kind of tired. ; )

Today I ended up taping off the moulding and doing the touch up and wiping down all the walls. Touching up around the moulding, doors, and inside the darkroom. It took a couple of hours, but it really looks nice. Ron will cut in on the crown moulding as I didn't want to mess that part up. He has a steadier hand for that than I do. Hopefully we'll hear from the carpet place - it should be coming in any day now. We're READY!!

Darkroom Day 31 and 32

Yesterday Ron and I spent the day working in the art room: me - cleaning and vacuuming up all the cabinets and the floors; Ron - taping off the cabinets and ceiling and walls so they could start priming the cabinets. Ron also finished off the caulking and puttying.

Today the boys finished taping off the cabinets and it took them only two hours to prime all the cabinets and shelving! A lot less time than if we had to hand paint them. So that was a good time saver.

Today while they continue to work out there, I am working on printing out five film photos for my upcoming show in April which is just a little over a week away. Then I'll need to mat and frame them. My show will be at the Kerry Terese Salon & Gallery in Old Town Auburn. I will be showing my Bodie Ghost Town Series, as well as some of my acrylic paintings of Hawaii. Auburn holds their Art Walks on the Second Thursday of the month.

Darkroom Days 29 and 30

The last two days have been devoted to finishing up the cabinets and caulking the crown moulding and you can see both of these areas in the photo I've posted today. The room is coming to an end. The remaining items to do are: prime and paint the moulding and cabinets; install the lighting and fans; lay the tiles in the darkroom; have the carpet installed when that arrives; and after the carpet is installed, the 10' long desk area for my PC, printers and scanner, will also be installed.

After that I'm sure it's going to take another good month to move in. I keep looking at all the stuff I have in my current office, and then I still have to order the remaining darkroom items from Freestyle. This room is going to be awesome! We have so many art supplies all over the house - we can finally free up some room.

On another note, last night we adopted a rescue dog. We won't be able to pick her up for another week or so as she is going to be spayed first. We are going to name her "Chica". She is a wire hair Terrier/Daschund mix and is really affectionate, only 6 months old. So life will be changing around here in that respect too! It will definitely get us into a regular routine of exercising - like walking her -- and us!!

Darkroom Day 28 and Doiron Gallery

The boys continued to hang the crown moulding yesterday and the room looks absolutely AMAIYZING, as Heull Howser would say! Countertops arrived yesterday as scheduled and I believe they are going to start putting those up too.

Last night I received an email from Joyce, the owner of The Doiron Gallery, which opened in 1997. She was the one I went to in 2001 with matted and framed photos in hand, to talk with her and obtain input on 'presentation', as I was venturing out for the first time with my photos. I'll never forget what she said that hot afternoon in 2001 when I showed her my photos, "Well, I can tell you that I want these in the gallery now! They're beautiful!" That was my induction so-to-speak into the art world. I was lucky and grateful to have my photography on display for about 3 years in her gallery.

So getting back to her email I received last night, she stated she is finally retiring (I believe for the second time), and the gallery is having its' 'Last Hoorah!'. She was inviting me to hang a couple of photos for her final event. Of course I told her I would be honored and delighted to share in her final event. I thought I would post one of my earliest and most requested photo today. I used to put it on my business cards also!

Darkroom Day 26, 27

Saturday and Sunday Ron and I worked in the garage. In order to build the art room and darkroom we had to move all the 'junk' over to the other stall. It's amazing how much stuff one can acquire, collect, glom onto, hold on forever for memory sake, I mean I even have a box labeled "Maria's life in a box!" It's filled with trinkets from grammar school, junior high, high school. Remember how they used to origami gum wrappers and make a chain?? That's in there too - Doublemint! So we took EVERYTHING out of the garage and then very methodically moved the stuff we really needed back into its' proper place. I mean we were out there both days from 9:00a.m. to 5:00 p.m. To tell you the truth, we are whipped. But we got it done, and the good part is that alot of the 'stuff' on one whole rack (that has 3 levels) goes into the art room (i.e., photography supplies, frames, packing material, art supplies, furniture, etc.)

Tomorrow the counter tops get delivered and the shelves for the cabinets continue to be made, as well as crown moulding getting put up!

Darkroom Day 25

Today the boys continued putting up the baseboard and crown moulding. The cabinets are all done, and after they putty the holes and caulk the cabinets, I have been notified that I am the painter of the cabinets. Great! I finally get to do something. I did go into town and put the deposit down on the carpet so they can order it. It will take about a week and will deliver WHEN we ask them to!

I recently went thru the B&W photos I took of the four missions we visited in San Antonio. Actually, there are five - the Alamo is also a mission. However, those that I took of the Alamo were lost. They were digital, and I think the color digital files - I had so many - that I think they just didn't get put on disc and I cleared out my camera. Oh, well! So after looking at the photos - I wasn't as pleased with them. Most of the background was a grey dismal sky (it poured rain for four days) and I just didn't like the results. So I just took the best of all four and will be posting one gallery of the San Antonio Missions. I'm posting one of Mission Concepcion for you to get a sneak peek at! Enjoy.

Darkroom Day 24

The darkroom cabinets and half of the cabinets going over the desk area have been built and installed. The other half for the desk area will get built tomorrow as well as the shelves for the storage closet. I've posted a photo of one side of the darkroom cabinets for you to see. After these are completed Gary will start on the crown moulding. This is ending up to be quite the art room.

We ixnayed the Home Depot carpet and are going with Abbey Carpet and we are ordering the commercial carpet. So they came out and did their own measuring. Now we just have to order it and of course everything takes two weeks.

The good news over the weekend was that one of my photos in The Dessert Place in Old Town Auburn sold!! My first sale of the year actually. I went out today to go take some photos, but by the time I got out there the beautiful clouds and sunshine were gone and it was just a gray day! I want to head out towards 193 (between Hwy 80 and 65) because all the fruit orchards are in bloom and they looked so beautiful last Friday night when I drove thru there. And last night we had a hail storm - tonight it's going to rain again - and I want to photograph those orchards now!! It's all the timing ya know. Hopefully tomorrow will be better after the rain.

Darkroom Day 21

Yesterday the 'boys' took a well-deserved day off from the room addition. My husband was wearing himself out -- now that he's retired, he's not used to working 24/7!

This morning the room got painted with two coats, which only took less than two hours. After cleanup, the rest of this day has been devoted to the making of the cabinets and they look pretty fabulous to me. We also received the quote on the carpet and it's way more than what we wanted to spend. I'm thinking we go back to our original thought of indoor/outdoor. And I'm also thinking why not just tile the whole room - it would be a lot cheaper; maybe not as warm though in the wintertime. But the floor has been insulated, so why not? I'll have to re-mention that to my husband.

This afternoon I've been going through some of my previous photographs. I have agreed to do a show in April and I need to get going on that. I'm thinking that I will go with "MY" favorites. Artists don't always get to pick what they show. So I think that is what I'll do, since I already have some of it hanging in my home and/or printed out (just not framed). I'll see if the gallery owner is okay with that.

Darkroom Day 20

Still weathering rain storms out here, so today was dedicated mostly to the building of the cabinets and shelves that will be placed over the desk area, as well as in the darkroom over both counter tops. I have to say they look really nice! I was just expecting like a plain ol' shelf above my desk, but as you can gather I have no control of what goes on in my husband's mind! He calls me, "oh, darling! can you come out here for a moment?" And then he gets my input on how the work space will be utilized and he has good ideas of his own too. He's used to building million dollar homes...so he's having a good time, however, tomorrow they are taking a day off. He needs rest and it's going to be wetter tomorrow than it was today.

In the meantime what the heck have I been doing, you ask? Well, I was finalizing my Dad's photo project of putting together a family album with all the old sepia tone photos of the Jackson family. I went into town and thought I would just copy the album pages to send on to his cousins. No such luck! The size of the album pages are an "odd" size and Staples couldn't do it, so they referred me to another printing place. Well, yeah, for a small fortune they could do it. I'm going to check with another friend of mine who does the same type of work (large format printing, etc.) and hopefully she has a scanner that can take that size page. I knew I should've gotten a larger scanner than the Epson Perfection 4490. I'll have to wait to see what I hear from my ffiend on this one.

Darkroom Day 18 & 19

Yesterday I didn't have to primer the art room as my husband brought out the big guns: the airless sprayer! So he was the one who got all decked out in the white suit, knit hat with the opening for the nose and eyes, booties -- and knocked that baby out in less than 2 hours! And I didn't have to get all messed up! I love it! Of course, I was pulling weeds out in the garden - but that was good 'medicine' for me; gave me time to put to rest some of my sadness about my Mom. I love gardening (that has to be second in the lineup of hobbies for me) and I got it from her I'm sure. She loved to garden and even had a rose garden when we lived in Barstow. The roses survived out there, I know it seems unbelievable, but they did.

Now today, Ron and Gary painted the outside walls of the art room in Pewter - and it looks really cool. The inside was still not completely dry to start painting, so they started on the cabinets and shelving! This room is going to be awesome. It's surreal that this is actually coming about for me - and my husband. He's all happy 'cause now he's back in his construction element. And if he's happy, then I'm happy!