Bodie Ghost Town 2012 Series

This heat has been so bad this past week - but this morning's coolness is a nice reprieve.  At least I can come into my studio and sit down for awhile at my PC.

I did complete my inventory for High Hand Gallery.  Haven't heard back from the administrator, so I'm assuming it was okay.  Next step is he will print out the labels and I will affix them to each piece of artwork.

Yesterday I finished matting and framing two new 8 1/2 x 11 (full frame) size images of Bodie Ghost Town.  These are for the Marketplace Gallery in Auburn.   I had planned on taking them down to the gallery, but I think it was closed for the holiday.

Last night I was trying find an image to match the theme "VIVID" for the Large Format Show coming up on the last day in August and runs thru October 6.  Vivid, I guess I don't really do vivid since I'm pretty much looking in black and white.  However, once in a while I shoot some colorful shots.  I need some opinions from some other people.  I asked my husband, but he didn't want to be the only person being asked.  I think I'll send out some images to a few artists and see what their opinion is -- eesh, do I really want to do that? ;)
Whatever I am going to do, I need to do it fast or I won't be in the show at all.

Here are the two images I just framed:

Photo Transfers on Water Color Paper

After working on the instructions for the matting and framing and being bored out of my gourd, I moved onto another photo transfer.  This time it was an image of a red hibiscus in the sun (taking inside the house) with a black background.  I have to say, I think it's the best one yet.  Not all images work in this medium - and this one is really awesome.  I barely added some water color to a couple of areas.  I think I'm getting the process down a little better:  soak the 140 lb water color paper in warm water for 30 seconds, increase the ink saturation to 'heavy', and I only pressed downward with the palms of my hands v. rubbing the palm of my hands across the page.  I find that tends to leave more blank spaces in the image and it pushes the image around to much.

After that I moved on to selecting four images from my European trip that were digital and changed them into black and white images, increasing the contrast a little more, printed them out at 3.5 x 4.5.  I had purchased some small antique frames last year and was going to put darkroom prints in them for sale at the gallery.  However, I decided to keep these little babies myself and I have to say they came out rather nice.  The frames are a light maple color and I used the same aged mats that were in them.  I arranged them with an etching of Venice that is framed and 11x14 that I already had hanging in the "Paris" guest room.  They look tres chic!  I love making art!

Photography Supplies

Every now and then I go back to my images from my European cruise. That sure takes a long time to go thru and see what you really have as viable pieces of artwork! I just finished Croatia the other night. I didn't think I'd ever get done with those. I have to say there are a lot of good ones. I just love the architecture - it's so old and mysterious, and the streets are so worn and smooth - the doorways, well each one is inviting. I guess that's why people like doorways and gates - they're inviting and in Europe they are just plain quaint. Next folders I'm moving on to will be Corfu in Greece. I keep thinking if I ever get thru printing images from each folder it will definitely be a miracle. And to think those are only the digital ones. I still have my black and white film images!! Speaking of black and white, here's one of some kayakers in the bay at Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Yesterday I sent out an email to the High Hand Gallery artists that I will be taking photographs of the artists for the gallery use this coming Sunday at the gallery. So last night I started receiving responses to sign up for a scheduled time. I'll be at the gallery pretty much all day for that project, plus it will be our Artful Sunday. What is Artful Sunday you ask? This is our 2012 version of Third Saturdays which used to be held in the evenings. I think this new change up for Sundays from 2-4 p.m. will be more successful since people will already be out and about at the gallery. Looking forward to the change.

This morning I started working on my list of supplies I need from Delta Mat & Moulding. It's getting long which equals $$$!! But I feel like I'm getting a lot accomplished this past week. My studio needs some organizing - AGAIN! Doesn't take long to get that overflowing look!

Epson Ultra Premium Matte Paper

Yesterday I was able to get some Christmas shopping done, and then today I worked out in the yard all day! We've had such great weather I had to take advantage of it.

I did continue to finish up with some more cards, so I got that accomplished. On Sunday I also printed out some digital black and whites on Epson's Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte. Not every photographic image looks good on matte, and other papers I could say the same thing too. However, I did print out two black and white images on the matte paper and loved them both. This one I'm posting today is again from Burano. I tended to switch over to my programmed black and white function on the Canon T2i when I saw more of the 'still life' types of scenarios. This one was shouting out to me when I was there. It's just an image of ordinary everyday life there - the laundry hanging out to dry, the bikes left at the front yard - simplistic as it was, it was worthy of capturing. It printed out fabulously on the matte paper and I'm very happy with it. I'll mat as many as I can with the amount of mats I cut not long ago, then whatever I don't have, I'll cut.

Just to touch again on the ICC profiles for all papers, I have to admit years ago I would just do trial and error kind of printing. I mean, it was new to me and I guess I just loved wasting paper! Hah! But I learned that one should read the instructions for the settings - I mean it's all right there so you don't have to go thru all that wastefulness. So read the cheat sheets, that's what they're there for.

Brookings, Oregon

Well I'm back! We went out of town on a week camping trip to Brookings, Oregon. When we planned the trip we thought we would be beating the heat here in Cool. However, it was low temperatures here. Oh, well! We had three sunny days with some happy little clouds, and then on Friday it was cloudy but dry, and on Saturday it was drizzly all day. Then it was a repeat on Sunday.

We had a great time walking down on the beach twice a day with our dog Chica. Cruised the town and checked out some galleries - not that many in town. Met some great folks in the RV park - one of the women was also a photographer who sometimes showed her work right there in Brookings. I carried my cameras down to the beach in Brookings Harbor. We also drove up to Gold Beach, and we also visited Harris State Beach a couple of times: one of them at sunset.

Read some more of my Canon T2i manual, and programmed it to also take B&W photos, so I could switch back and forth between black and white and color. However, I was also taking black and white film photography when we were there - always gotta do that!

On Saturday was the Kite Festival (that we didn't know was happening until we got in town) and that was a lot of fun. We thought it was just about keeping a kite up in the air, but no, it was more than that. They flew the kites to music! That's right, choreographed to music! Dancing kites! Sweet! We were there for a couple of hours in the morning and got soaked, but I did get some photos. We also had great clam chowder in a bread bowl - nice and hot and delicious I must say. Ron wanted to go ask the vendor for his recipe!

I just uploaded about 150 photos to my PC and am sharing some with you today. Before I left I ordered some books on alternative photography processes from Barnes & Noble. Received the big one titled "Alternative Photographic Processes" by Christopher James. Really am anxious to delve into that one!