High Hand Gallery's Artful Bra Show - 2013

Been working frantically to finish up the bid sheets for the Artful Bra Show at High Hand Gallery.  So far, 51 entries, but that number will increase after tomorrow.  My husband and I made another bra entry over the weekend and he's actually finishing up with the last touches right now!  I'll post a picture when we get it done.  I know there are other artists that have already submitted additional bras.  The bid sheets entail including an image of the bra on it and the artist's information.  Then printing them out and attaching them to foam core board.  I'm half way done.

Yesterday I gave my first class on photo transfers and it went really well.  It's really not a hard process to begin with, but since I've worked out all the major bugs, it's a streamlined process for newbies.  The lady really enjoyed the class, gave me compliments on my instructions/patience/my 'eye', and said that my class really increased her knowledge on the process.  She learned a lot she said, as she had already made some transfers on her own. She was also going to send other people my way!  Awesome!

Today I'll finish up the bid sheets.  Tomorrow I head back to High Hand Gallery to take additional photos.  I would like to invite you to the Artful Bra Show on Saturday, May 25th, silent auction at 5:00 p.m., with the live auction starting at 6:30 p.m.  There will be wine and hors d'oeuvres and plenty of bras to bid on.  All the proceeds go to the American Cancer Society.

Here's our artful bra creation from my husband and I.  It's called "The Key to the Cure" - a door with old keys hanging off the cups which were made out of wire mesh, and the key in the doorknob is PINK!

Art Shows in California

I am in the middle of an artist deep funk, as I like to call it! ; (  I'm having a hard time getting motivated.  I don't think it's the sunny weather, but who knows!  So after cleaning up some of my messes, although it still looks messy in here, I cut mats last night for the photo transfers I did recently as I was tired of looking at unmatted and unframed paintings.  I think I made a decision, that I'm not going to frame these, and just mat them, put them in cellophane sleeves and sell them that way.  Matted, they are 11x14, a standard frame size, and the buyers can purchase their own frame.  Change it up a little at the gallery.

There are quite a few competitions/shows coming up.  An international one in northern California with a deadline of March 18.  I'm hoping to get in on Auburn's Art in the Park in May, and I'm still contemplating the Lodi National Juried Art Show.  I've got to decide SOON - the deadline is Saturday!!  Placer Artists League (PAL) also has their upcoming 30th Jubilee Juried Show.  I have a good month before the deadline on that one.  So many options, which ones to choose?!

I finally finished up with the High Hand Gallery's Artful Bra poster and related documents.  That's a load off. Now I'm just concentrating on myself.  I still need to complete the documentation I've been working on as hand-outs for the ArtFest at High Hand Gallery next month - March.  Never a dull moment around here, even when I'm not "in the mood".

Color Photography and Painting

Wow!  I feel like I've been sniffing darkroom chemicals!  We got HIGH SPEED INTERNET!  Cowabunga!  Everything is so fast!  I love it.  It's not to say that it was an easy install mind you, but I have to say the AT&T service woman hung in there and got it done despite the complicated wiring of our house, and we are so happy!

Yesterday I did start painting.  I can't really say what it was or is, as someone I know might read this and I want it to be a surprise.  I will say that I am trying this new SouthWest painting style.  Maybe you've seen it.  It's done in bright, primary colors which can be hard for me as I'm in the black and white world!  I'm using water colors and it's progressing very well.  I will go back and put another layer to give it some more depth, and then I still have the background to do.  I worked on that until around 9:00 p.m. last night.  I might have to do a couple of photo transfers now that I'm in the painting mode.

Today I'll go drop off my two new framed images to High Hand Gallery.  And later today I need to update the High Hand Gallery FB page.  I'm behind on that one because I didn't have Internet access on my computer.  And then I need to send off my JPEGS to the Blue Moon!

I know I previously talked about enlarging my work, you know making the images bigger.  And I did do that with going to large gallery wraps.  However, I've calmed down a bit in regards to the 'size' of my images after I came across a few more quotes from the Lenswork magazine:

"Bigger prints are not always better, but better prints are always better."

"It is not the size of the print that counts, but the 'size' of the impact it makes on the viewer's brain/heart that matters."

"To give away ten prints is more rewarding that to sell one.  But, to sell ten prints is more rewarding than to give away one!"

And last weekend I did give away about ten prints to the other artists participating in the High Hand Gallery Shed Sale, and it did feel good!  In galleries and/or museums not all of the photography is large by any means.  In fact, in my opinion, I kind of wonder what truly makes them think some of the photographic images are worthy to be hung in the first place!  But - hey - that's me.  Here's one of the framed images that sold last weekend!  I took this photo of our fall leaves from our fruitless pair trees.  It was taken early in the morning and no adjustments/manipulations were made.

Venice, Italy

Venice is a city of islands, actually 117 of them, and there are 150 canals, which means there are more than 400 bridges that cross each one! It's amazing when you think about it. Would you be able to live on an island, or conglomeration of islands? We did see bicycles as the only other mode of transportation besides walking. Each walkway you come to, each channel or canal is breathtaking. I was so 'excited' about the place that I pretty much filled up one disk on Venice alone. It kind of made me worry what this trip was going to be like for me, picture-wise! Egads Soto, slow down!

For now my computer is working and I finally called for someone to come out on Saturday and help me with this external hard drive. It should be easy - for them! Maybe I'll learn something!

Now I'm getting back in the groove and realized that I need to bring in some new art work this weekend to the High Hand Gallery! I'm not ready. Maybe I won't have to. I do have some photo transfers done but I don't have any frames yet! It's always something!

Back in the Darkroom

After I worked for two days on the photography transfers, I went back into the darkroom developing some of the photos from Yosemite. There were five in a row of Half Dome that I started developing - got to the first two. These five film shots were taken pretty much in the middle of the day, so next round of developing I will need to do some dodging of the trees in the foreground. Or, maybe, just take out that portion and increase the skyline in the upper foreground. There is a shot of some faint lightening in the background in one of the pics.

Once I cleaned up in the darkroom, I couldn't help myself, and I found a recent photo of some roses I took that are in our backyard, and printed one out. Then I proceeded to work on that for a while. Of course dinner preparation got in the way of that. This time, however, I did tape off the sides with painters blue tape - the thin smooth one. I also picked up some more 140 lb water color paper. (I made a mistake the other day by stating I was using 130 lb paper, when it was 140 lb. Oops! Here's a sample of the original photo and the photo transfer so you can see the difference. I think on this one I didn't click hard enough on 'mirror image', so they're not exactly going the same direction.

I need to take an afternoon and cut some mats for the photo transfers so I can have them ready to get juried in on Wednesday. I think I better do that!