learning new approaches to art

Process. This blog has sways been about my process. and for a long time i've been wondering if I could use a printing press in my process. Once at Frank Bette Center for the Arts in Alameda I saw an incredible series of photos that had not been printed in the darkroom but had been made on a printing press. they were marvelous! wish I remembered the artist's name, but he only showed that once. for years i've been following the folks involved in digital negative and photogravure like the fellow I just took a workshop with, Mark Nelson and Jon Lybrook .
But there's alot more to my vision than a monotone print, as beautiful as they can be. I want to add color in a subjective way, from my own imagination, and I want to play with textures and layers. this is why I started with transfers and printing on silk.
but i've never been happy with the look of my transfers, they don't have the depth of an intaglio print
so i'm taking a series of classes to reveal the process to me as I plan to create my own.
this is the first in series which is an attempt to explain what I can't explain to myself: where my art is going!

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kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net
http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

April is a busy month!

April is a crazy, exciting month for me and many artists in San Francisco. last weekend was Open Studios in SOMA, the south of Market district. i went to two HUGE studios with so many artists my head was pleasantly spinning! i saw 17 artists at Arc Studios, 1246 Folsom St. @ 9th. this place is very active, more than just artists studios they regularly have juried shows, workshops and classes. i will be taking a silk screening class with Mike Kimble, a fantastic artist I know from City Art.
i also saw 35 artist atSOMA Artists Studio @ 689 Bryant St @ 5th. wow were these incredible artists or what. i seriously was inspired by the quality of work and the diversity of media. both of these deserve a post of their own cuz now I want to talk about all the artists I met!
Now i have many exciting events coming up. Thursday April 7th (yes that's tomorrow!) we're having an opening at Flax Art and Design, http://www.flaxart.com/ @ 1699 Market St. for top artists in the Mission. and my work is among them! here's the details:
Mission Artists United Exhibit, Artists Reception
Thu, April 7, 6pm – 8pm
Flax Art & Design
1699 Market St., San Francisco
howardflax@gmail.com
Come see samples from Mission Spring Open Studios artists at the first Mission Artists United Juried Show. Show runs from April 1 to May 1. http://www.missionartistsunited.org/openstudios

Flax has been really active lately in supporting Mission Artists, including live artists painting events. Mission Artists United is a new artists group that has come together to organize open studios and other events.

But before the Mission Artist United Open Studios, which includes art studios throughout The Mission, I have Open Studios organized by Art Explosion, wherein my studio resides! this event is this weekend!!!! April 8 - 10th.

we are open Friday 7 - 11PM, Saturday and Sunday 12 - 5PM. there are 2 locations, my studio is at 744 Alabama St. (19-20th st) studio #379, that's on the third floor all the way to the big windows!

then next weekend, April 15-16th we again have Open Studios with all the Mission Artists United. you could come to both and see different work because after this weekend i'm delivering 8 super favorite images for the Serenity Spring show at UCSF. and I plan on making a load of wearable art in-between. that's all the work I planned on getting done this week!
And there's more! part way through April we are hanging the Serenity Spring show at UCSF WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER on Floors 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7
2356 Sutter St (x. Divisadero) SF, CA
the Opening is April 27th or you can contact @ mckinleyartsolutions.com to schedule a tour. Matt McKinley curates these shows and others for emerging artists. check out all the great things he does for the San Francisco artists community!
http://www.mckinleyartsolutions.com/home.html
http://www.facebook.com/mckinleyartsolutions?sk=wall
and all month long you can see my B&W work at City Art 828 Valencia. if you want to go when i'm there i'm working April 20-21 12PM to 4:30PM.
City Art is a cooperative artists' gallery which is worker owned. we take full responsibility for the gallery, including jurying in new members, operating the gallery and even painting the walls every month for our new shows!
http://www.cityartgallery.org/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/City-Art-Cooperative-Gallery-San-Francisco/73192019817
you're probably gonna have to copy and paste all these links til i get a chance to fix up this post!

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kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net
http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

Location:San Francisco

trying again, silk printing

having run out of paper I decided to give the silk printing another shot. the set in the software up is critical at 55 inches, see the notes below the long entry about these settings. in addition to the document size and the image size, because the Epson software is so picky at this length that you need to be exact when you choose the paper source to pick the plain banner roll settings. it's easy to forget because my custom paper is misnamed bourderlessbanner. So I took extra care with pressing the scarf onto the freezer paper. and I added an extra 7 3/4 inches as a leader and loaded it in. I have no idea how i'm going to control this: the printer added another huge margin and started in the middle of the scarf again! maybe it thinks some shadow on the silk is the edge of the paper? with my old R2400 the tape at the beginning was enough of a signal.
even tho I did an impressive pressing job the first thing the printer did was push up a little wrinkle on the edge of the fabric, and things snowballed from there! this is the first time the printing was a total waste! I had to stop it even though it wasn't jammed it was making a huge mess! so still no pictures of a successful scaft :(

my set up for printing on silk

Here's a photo of the way i set up my work table:

it shows how i put down some cardboard cuz the table is rough and then i layer graph paper so i can have straight lines for reference. the first thing to do is to wash the silk. i purchased some professional but environmentally friendly soap from Dharma Trading when i purchased the silk. then it really should be fully pressed before you begin attaching it to the backing (i skipped this and paid in the end!). You should do this on a hard surface which can handle the heat.

here's a photo of my favorite papers to do this with:

The parchment paper is to use on top so your iron doesn't mess up the silk and the freezer paper doesn't mess up your iron. You can use what you like for this, but be warned that regular wax paper will melt and ruin your silk. i like so see thru to the silk so i don't use a cloth for this. The freezer paper is the star of the show for me. I know of no other brand or sizes available. around here only the Safeway seems to carry it.

in this next photo i'm using the closest thing i had to a "T" square to insure that i am laying out the freezer paper very straight.

if the paper is at all not perfectly straight the printer will go crazy.
In this next image i am using the wide masking taper to measure out the amount i have to cut off the width of the paper so that it will fit on my 17 inch printer. darn paper is 18 inches wide.

in this photo i've laid out the silk.

i wonder why i stopped to take this photo? i probably knew darn well i should have pressed this silk before i laid it down on the freezer paper. the day before i'd washed and pressed it and then folded it up in a hurry to do something else.

these next 2 shots show the whole sandwich. the shiny freezer paper, the silk scarf with it's tiny hem, and the parchment paper on top. see how you can see through the parchment to the silk?

these show how you can even see the edge of the freezer paper through the parchment paper as you press the silk to the freezer paper. What's going on here? the coating on the freezer paper is some kind of silicon or plastic. when i set the iron all the way up the coating gently melts and holds onto the silk.

You can also see the blue artists' tape that i made meticulously straight and at right angle to the uncut edge of the freezer paper. this is what makes the whole thing work for me when i insert it into my printer. the edge is slightly heavier than to too light freezer paper and it lets the printer know exactly where the front edge is. the printer can become confused if it sense the edge of the paper and the edge of the silk.

Please note that i should have looked at my old notes at this point. the way my printer works in the banner setting is it creates an extra leading edge. it rolls the paper 7 3/4 of an inch too far before it starts printing. this is easy to fix when you anticipate it. simply use a larger piece of freezer paper than you need and back the silk up so that it starts 7 3/4 inch (or what ever distance your printer adds) from the front edge of your carrier paper.

Although everything looks smooth a beautiful in these close ups it is not! check out the bumps i left in it! DO NOT DO THIS.

Here is the chute i build with chairs and boards and things i found around the house. i laid an old piece of freezer paper down over the whole thing to make a nice smooth slide. The paper goes over the cover for the roll paper which has been removed and down into the roll paper feed.

and the printing has begun! you can see the lively colors, the 7 3/4 inch gap (arrggg) and the beginnings of trouble in the form of black smudges on the edges.

Here's the printer hard at work. i watch for trouble through the smoky lid showing the print head laying down the ink.

the trouble did not get out of hand completely, where the silk lifts completely off the carrier paper, but here's two close ups of how a small weakness grows:

printing on silk: reflections

quick notes on the printer set up, photos to follow.
w/ Epson 4880 & my mac I need to create custom banners to print huge. the IMAGE width must end in .34 (17.34 for a 17 inch wide print) if you want retain size not auto expand as I do. the custom paper size must add .1 for the length and .23 to the width. this will cause a warning about clipping to come up every time you print. just say ok.
up to the 52 in long scarves I was able to print borderless, w/ 0 margins all around in the custom paper and "borderless roll retain size" in the Epson printing dialogue box. but yesterday the printer refused to print borderless so I ended up adding a margin in the custom paper size and changing the paper source in the Epson printer dialogue box.
note that the printer itself kept defaulting to a cutting state, even tho I set no cut in the software. need to change the default setting on the printer for now cuz cutting in the wrong place would be a mess!
also, the current image can be about an inch narrower and i'll get less spillover onto the paper.
need to attach scarf with 5 inch lead of paper because in the banner setting the printer pushes thru extra at the beginning.
I set the ink density to +20 which was clearly too hi. I had used a +10 setting on that silk on a roll I used last and that had been to low.
the image blurred a lot. it looks good but i'm wondering if I can get the detail back when I want it buy reducing the ink density or need I get the digital ground Heidi recommends?


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kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net
http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

fabric fun

Ok so i checked in my order last night and this is what i have.

CDC14= Crepe De Chine 12mm, 14 x 72 count of 5. ooooh, smooth and shiny and , well, silky! these are in a narrower package. the lable on the bag says CDC14, but the label on the scarf only says 100 % Silk.

CDC15= Crepe De Chine 12mm, 15X60 count of 5. same material, diff. dimensions. same label.

SWCDC both 14 x 72 & 15 x 60= Stone Wash Crepe De Chine at 16.5mm. 5 count ea. this has a kinda muted texture, more satiny and more depth. same issue with label.

I also have some tee shirts etc. more on that later.

should I really wash them in hot water??!!! well the silly instructions say to wash in hot water but I just can't do it. instead I wash the first 5 in warm with the detergent I bought from dharma, a new more Eco friendly product they have.

then we cleared off the big table and I covered it with paper and ironed them dry. well sorta pressed them but I always end up ironing when I press with an iron. my back is very unhappy! I need a taller table and one of those pressing machines!

the silk is beautiful! much nicer than the silk Scarves had before and I like those fine.

next time I work in my home studio, I will press the scarves one by one to the freezer paper and prepare that to go thru the printer. I know from last time I have to press it and print it the same day. I think I still have to cut down the freezer paper so it's the right width. does this sound fun? this is the hard part for me.

designing the scarves in Photoshop is fun!

so next post will be about that. stay tuned!


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kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net
http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

I just received my shipment from Dharma Trading and I realize I need to keep notes on the process because if things turn out I want to be able to repeat. so I ordered 3 styles of blank shirts, one is organic cotton, un bleach, nice creamy white. soft, well made. I got med., lg., and XLG. these are clearly guy sized so small would probably fit a medium woman. Dharma stock #OCT. made in USA.

I bought white tee shirts styled for women "feminine fit softee" Dharma stock #FFS. these are well constructed somewhat fitted, sized for women. the Small would be a little loose on Sarah. very soft, cute sleeves conservative neck. Sm, Med, & L. made in USA.

then the asymmetrical tunic, Dharma #ASYMT. also white. much light fabric, thinner seams but well sewn. cute as hell. Sm, M, L look a little big but I bet they shrink when I wash them. made in USA.

more on the scarves tomorrow.

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kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net
http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

this is a shot that shows the recording of movement over time.


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kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net


http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

Understanding Depth of Field in Photography

I think I was fairly incoherent in discussing depth of field yesterday so I m going to refer everyone to the illustrations in this article Understanding Depth of Field in Photography. there are way too many words in this article but the images are helpful. first scroll down to the three images of a statute. if you look carefully you can see that in the first example more of the faces are in focus than the next and the last one has the least amount of information in focus before and after the statue. look at the label. it says f8' f5.6 and f2.8. these are referring to the size of the aperture or opening in the lens. the smaller number is actually the bigger opening. I think this is because like some speed settings these are fractions, so 1/8 is smaller than 1/2.8. I never have to think this through when I shoot. it's automatic and so it's always hard for me to explain. back to the article, scroll back up to the image of the light going through the lens with some of it converging on the film/sensor and some of it converging before or after the sensor. this basically illustrates focus. now zip on down to the bottom of the page where there are two purple images of differing depth of field as a result of a larger or smaller aperture. this shows why the different size results in a longer or shorter depth of field. so I often combine the effects of different apertures with the soft focus on the perimeter of the lens baby lens. to maintain a good exposure I change the speed of the opening to counter an extreme aperture. if the camera is wide open then I need the lens to open and close fast. so then I have a short depth of field and most of the image will be soft. but I can't record change over time. when i want to do that i use a small aperture and a long speed. so that while more of the subject will be in focus, the movement of me, or the subject or the camera is recorded as swirls or zig zags etc. i'm sure this is still a bit unclear as I have the flu, but I'll be back Sunday.

revealing my process

although i'm home sick today i'm not so sick that I can avoid getting bored! so i started thinking about this blog, how i've used it in the past, how it's changed and then, really how do I want to use this platform? I started out just learning to blog, emailing pictures and upload pictures, and getting it to look right. because I was teaching elders i used it to teach in a way. and my posts were about my process and my many experiments with transfers and mixed media.
but then so much of my time was involved in promoting my business, learning marketing etc. that I ended up using this for little more than announcements. boring!!!!
so I want to go back to discussing my process, and what i'm working on now. some people say an artist shouldn't reveal too much. it takes away the mystery or someone might copy your work. but when I explain my work at an art opening or something, people are really interested. and I don't believe my work can be copied as I have a u Kaye view of the world!







like this shot, currently on display at City Art, was taken while looking straight up, weaving with the light morning breeze to try to stay with the leaf.






and this one, also currently hung at City Art, is looking straight down while on my hands and knees in the gutter. it too is a leaf and they were both taken with my lensbaby but with many differences.

the one on top, called "weekend away" was taken on a clear, bright morning which creates more contrast and makes a work seem exciting. I also set it up for a short depth of field, or at least more than the second piece called ancient way. ancient way was taken on an overcast day, so the light is more even, often called wrap around light, and it was taken at a greater magnification, so we feel inside the leaf as distinct from looking at the leaf from the outside in weekend away.

Some people think that the lensbaby is doing all the work here, but i have added the experience of my years of macro photography to the mix.

so if you go to the lensbaby site you will see that the original concept was to have a lens with a sweet spot of focus surrounded by soft focus in a lens that was mounted on a device that focused by squeezing an accordion box. this set up also allowed the sweet spot to be moved off center by squeezing the lens unevenly.

when I use the lensbaby I attach various adapters to work at the micro level and I set up the speed and the aperture to create different results. the speed and the size of the opening in the aperture are two settings that control the amount of light coming in to get the right exposure. if you use extreme settings you will get different effects. it is the effect of time and angles. if I had a very small aperture I would need a slower speed to give the light more time to expose the same amount of light as if I have a wide open aperture and a faster speed.

the effect of the first can be imagined if you think about truly long exposures where the camera records the location of light over time, resulting in beautiful streaks. at a less dramatic setting that is what's happening in weekend away. the exposure is a little long so the movement of both the camera and the leaf paint the passing of a little extra time. compare it to ancient way which is very still.



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kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net
http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

Location:Berkeley

productivity

Today was a very productive day. I made the "contact sheets" for the Alameda on Camera event which is a simply record of our captures this last weekend. I burned them to a disk and labeled it for delivery.

with help I hung the show at City Art in SF and came home to find in my email an acceptance of 8 of my pieces to the next Serenity Spring, a revolving show at UCSF Center For Women’s Health.

the work is due mid April, between the two open studio weekends, when I will have a new show at City Art. hum, I think I need to but some frames!

on the personal side I got my daughter a new phone, took her out for both lunch and dinner, and went grocery shopping.


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kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net
http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

Location:Berkeley

what to wear for AOC

what to wear? well some of the forecasts I checked still said snow but that's silly because it's been so clear. true it's cold, but... so I layered up especially wearing a winter hat, wool socks with hiking boots and leather gloves. for me it's important to keep my extremities warm! Jeans and tee shirts and several sweaters along with my jacket seemed about right. it was still below freezing at my house when I stepped out but by the time I stopped for coffee and drove to my little 1/48th of Alameda it was above 45. so I left the jacket and gloves. after an hour some clouds had come along and I switched to my jacket again. I meant to bring my rain pants which are great for kneeling in damp leaves, which i've all ready done twice.

taking lots a shots.
more soon!

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kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net
http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

Alameda on Camera

Alameda On Camera got off to an exciting start with the official kick off last nite and the Frank Bette Center for the Arts in the city of Alameda. The awards were announced including the best photo journalism submission from the local paper, best digital art from a local printer, best in show with a solo show in the back gallery ...
then we drew our little pieces of the map from the hat and scattered into the nite to check out our territory.

I picked #25 on the map which is bounded by Otis and San Antonio, Walnut and Chestnut. it's a mixed neighborhood near the mall on the way to the south shore. let's see what I can do!


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Beans: Things are seriously blooming.

Beans: Things are seriously blooming.love all that Yellow! gratitude makes our world turn.

playing with black and white

well i messed with this conversion in Photoshop for about an hour.
is it better or worse than the one below this?
it's less contrasty, which is more the mood of the original color version.
i used the B&W filter that comes with Photoshop, but was not thrilled so i made an extra copy of the background layer and deleted two channels and blended that with the original layer and left the B&W layer ontop. my photoshop is old, CS3, so your milage may vary.

traveling

I just got back from a trip to So Cal with some of my family. altho I diligently packed up my camera I didn't take a single shot!

I would have thought i'd be over it by now but I just can't work with other people around! I can't stand the idea of people watching! weird huh?

this is a killer at popular places like point lobos and convenient places like my neighbors gardens!

speaking of neighbors gardens here's a quick b&w conversion on an iPad version of PS!




moody right?
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openings

going to openings is not easy. I often spend more time looking for a place to park than I do at the opening. and you gotta get out of your paint stained work clothes. but it's always worth it. the art is always interesting and stimulating of your own creativity. because i'm shy, if it's not my opening I usually split after congratulating the artist and checking out all the art. tonight I got to two openings. the first was in San Francisco at 111 Minna, a hopping bar. my pal Mike Kimball had a new series which invokes the romanticism of my youth. fast cars and rain. remember necking in cars in the rain? remember gas at 35 cents a gallon? I didn't meet the other artists in the show but I did have a conversation with a stabbed about the art. amazing! on of the reasons openings are hard for me is because I want to talk about the art and people just wanna talk. so I really enjoyed that encounter. the second opening was RAW in Berkeley. it definitely lives up to it's name. several pieces we propped agains the wall, on the floor or tables, and tall thin pieces hung much high than standard. it was not in the lobby of the Hotel Shattuck, nor in the popping bar, but down a long hallway, passed the restrooms, thru the courtyard into a room you might rent for a book club luncheon. there was more than wall art. there was some jewelry, greeting cards and phone books with art on the covers, a DJ and a fellow using a projector to demonstrate drawing in Photoshop. or so it appeared. but he was projecting it on a wall where someone else's art was hung. I really liked the gal who was promoting it but I was kinda disappointed.
here's some art of mine,




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blogging from my iPad

some things are incredibly difficult on an iPad. doing anything online that's flash based is out. unless there's an app for that.

I usually only download free apps. but the reviews on all the free blogging apps were ultra critical. so I choose to pay for this one.

let's see how well it does



this is a little doodle I made with one of my free apps Atomic Toy.

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