daydreamingarts

learning new approaches to art

2011-05-19T20:23:00.001-07:00

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!

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net
http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

April is a busy month!

2011-04-06T11:39:00.001-07:00

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!

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net
http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

Location:San Francisco

trying again, silk printing

2011-03-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-11T09:30:00.001-08:00

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

2011-03-08T15:48:00.001-08:00

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

2011-03-07T17:02:00.001-08:00

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

2011-03-04T09:41:00.001-08:00

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

2011-03-04T09:40:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-03T15:59:00.001-08:00

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

2011-03-01T21:42:00.001-08:00

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.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
kayla garelick, daydreaming artist
http://daydreamingarts.net
http://facebook.com/kayla.Garelick

Location:Berkeley

what to wear for AOC

2011-02-26T13:33:00.001-08:00

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

2011-02-26T08:55:00.001-08:00

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.

2011-02-23T21:44:00.000-08:00

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

playing with black and white

2011-02-23T16:30:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-22T12:58:00.001-08:00

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

2011-02-03T21:54:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-02T12:22:00.001-08:00

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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returning to the web

2010-03-12T16:06:00.000-08:00

i've mostly not been posting here because of the tremendous health issues i have faced since 2008. all my energy went into either healing or making art. i did continue to promote my work and it continues to be accepted in san francisco and berkeley. but my health issues have made my mixed media work nearly impossible. and i felt to tender to be sharing all the details of my limitations.

Probably the most exciting even of 2009 when i accompanied my husband to a old time music gathering in Centrailia Washington. Morey played music to his hearts delight and i had all the time in the world to experiment with some fabric "inks" i found. it was so funny when people passing out site responded to my test patches as though the were art! ok people were drinking alot, that likely explains it.

So now that it's 2010 (don't you just love saying "twenty-ten"?)" i'm rapidly recovering from the latest challenge i'm feeling strong enough to share with strangers again.

the image at right is from the campout. we were staying in a sheep pasture and there was plenty of rusting farm equipment throughout the fields. this is me celebrating the sun set while getting up close and personal with a tractor. it was fantastic to watch the light twist and turn while i worked my lensbaby. i was astonished to see the light curve in two or three directions at once!

getting my work out there!

2009-06-28T13:21:00.001-07:00

it's been such a busy time! i'm really getting my work out there and feeling good about the positive feedback i'm receiving. this month my work will be in three galleries and a coffee shop. two shows have been juried by real artists! one by the guy who owns the coffee shop. so i have some smaller works at the intimate Cafe Musica in the Mission at 564 South Van Ness Ave., San Francisco CA. 94110 415-834-5804 - artist's reception to be announced.

the theme this month at Frank Bette Community Art Center. 1601 Paru Street, Alameda, CA 94501 is "What if ..." and the opening is the Second Friday of July, July 10th 7-9 pm - i have a dreamy beach piece in that show.

i'm also very proud to have one of my newest pieces "flying leaf" accepted in the 2009 National Juried Exhibition at ACCI Gallery 1652 Shattuck Ave Berkeley, CA, 94709 Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday, 11- 6; Saturday, 10 - 6; Sunday, 12 - 5. re-read that slowly. not only is it Juried, it's National. that means my work was among a small group chosen among a national wide applicant pool! in fact they told me there were over 900 entries! and a mere 76 pieces chosen! So please come to that opening Also on July 10th - 6-9 pm.

And finally my most exciting news is that i've juiried into the artists' coop at City Art which is also in the Mission at 828 Valencia Street near 20th Street. i will take part in the next show with several brand new pieces. the opening is July 3rd 7 -10 pm be there!

I will post some examples of my new work very soon!

better late than never

2009-05-15T16:47:00.000-07:00

yes i know it's been what 5 months! but better late than never. in case you weren't sure - no Morey couldn't come but i put him there with this van morrison song

big sur

2009-05-13T20:20:00.000-07:00

Morey and i spent several days in big sur a few weeks ago. we stayed in some cabins that had little kitchen and sat right on the river. we had a tiny deck off the kitchen and a skylight in the shower.
i brought my new toys with me and spent some time getting to know how the new anti lenses work. i had a zone plate and a keyhole optic for the lensbaby. these drop into the composer i've mentioned earlier. they are 50 mm focal length; Pinhole: f/177; Zone Plate f/19. these are TINY apertures. you can't see a thing in normal light when you look thru the lens! you must take long exposures. so i used the preview more than usual and took a million shots til i got an idea of what is going on. there is also a color shift because bright colors have higher (faster??) light waves so the light colors hit the capture sensor many more times than the darker colors. for example, it you were shooting a black and white subject the white would hit the sensor so many more times than the black that the white image spills over to the black and it looks ghost like. the color shit comes about when you have colors that tend to occur and certain frequencies, like yell0w tends to be fast and dark blue is very slow. but these colors make up most of the oranges and pinks and have an impact on green and magenta. skeptical? try it in photo shop. just try turning on and off the channels in a color image and see how surprised you are!
actually, i just messed with the channel mixer for several of these and while i'm right there's a color shift i may not be at all right about which way it's shifting!
so i'm still trying to decide if i like the images i captured!

back to work in baby steps

2009-05-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

i have found it hard to get back to work both physically and emotionally. i still don't have quite enough energy and i feel like i really lost ground. not only ground but my camera equipment! yes when i moved back to berkeley i hit a snag - someone stole my camera backpack - which had every last thing in it because of the move. my insurance company found a way to only cover about half of the loss. not even the price of a new Rebel - let alone all the equipment lenses, gadgets, silk clothes, tripod, filters, battery charger, home current adapter and the backpack itself which was a really good one, lightweight with excellent padding and a perfect hip belt.
so even though that was about 6 months ago i have not even begun to make up the loss. economic times being what they are neither channuka nor my birthday were excuses for big spending so it's been slow.
i did get the new rebel and i got a lensbaby composer - thinking i'm still to weak for all the physical challenges of the squeeze box experience of the original lensbaby. and a small tripod. for my birthday my mom got me more new lensbaby equipment, so i have enough to get going again.
the tough work is submitting for shows and getting my stuff organized. both my digital files and my art equipment are a mess. ah well here's something i took a little bit ago it's looking straight down as usual, so i'm not sure if i should display it vertically or not.

Open Studio 2008

2008-09-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

Come to Open Studio 2008 Saturday and Sunday October 11th and 12th (11am - 6pm)!!
2169 20th Avenue, San Francisco, Ca. In the Sunset near Beautiful, if foggy, Ocean Beach!

daydreaming arts is proud to be able to participate in ArtSpan's SF Open Studios after kayla's incredible year of recovery from her bone marrow transplant and renewed creativity!

Come see kayla's All New Art invoking bold, vivid life or peaceful serenity, a look at details of our world reinterpreted through kayla's personal vision. This year kayla all new work includes 13 full sized prints, framed up to 26" x 32"; several all new mixed media found object pieces; and a growing collection of wearable art. Many of kayla's original collection will be on display, as well as work that has yet to be framed and works in progress.

This year's Open Studio is a celebration of Life and Health. In keeping with that theme daydreaming arts is sponsoring free massages to all visitors on Saturday by Sarah who just completed her massage certificate.

On Sunday there will be Musical Entertainment by Morey and from 4-6 we will finish with a gathering of old time-blue-grass-folk musicians answering our open call to jam.

Also on Sunday from 1-3 kayla will demonstrate several of her artistic processes including hands on opportunities to work with the Lensbaby, Photoshop, silk printing and more.

This year Sarah has found her ability to help others through massage has been satisfying and stimulating. On her way to a career as a massage therapist, which can support all her creative endeavors, daydreaming arts is proud to sponsor her debut!

Morey has pursued his interest in music by regularly getting together with various Bay Area musicians. It's so inspiring to be part of such a talented family creating a joyful environment for me to heal and create in!

So it's fully fitting that they should help celebrate my new art. Please come and be a part of this delightful family growth. (Avi is off at college but was home for part of the summer learning to play the banjo and doing my heavy lifting so he contributed to the flow too!)

thanks,
kayla garelick
daydreaming arts
vist my new website at http://daydreamingarts.net
get directions at google: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=2169+20th+ave+san+francisco&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=47.215051,83.320312&ie=UTF8&z=16&iwloc=addr

Open Studio 2008

2008-09-23T08:32:00.000-07:00

Everyone is invited to come to my Open Studio for 2008! Organized by ArtSpan

San Francisco Open Studios occur throughout October, with different neighborhoods open each weekend. my studio is in The Sunset and we are open Oct 11th and 12th 11 am to 6 pm.

daydreaming arts studio is located at 2169 20th Avenue Just off of Route 1.

I have so much new work this year it's very exciting getting ready. I will have 13 brand new oversized abstract photos framed and hung for presentation and a mountain of new prints that have not yet been framed.
You can see these at my new website, daydreamingarts.net

I also have mixed media work including several new silk works such as hand printed scarves, wall hangings and a new "found art" window with a silk montage and beach elements.

for my photographic prints i always use the original capture, but for the mixed media and silk i enjoy creating montages with those images so this work has a surreal impression. The picture on the right is one such montage that i used one my latest window.

Is it attachment or motivation?

2008-01-27T13:49:00.000-08:00

Five years ago i had aggressive chemo for AML and was confined to one hospital room during treatment. the first round was 30 days, the second a bit longer and the last stay was 45 days. throughout each stay i longed to go outside. Morey brought me books about the high country and pictures of the great outdoors. Mom read to me from a travel book where a fellow wandered throughout Kansas on foot.

My longing became one of my motivations for getting better. (my family and art were others.) it combined with memories of the joys of hiking and camping, and my renewed desire to create art and share it.

Likewise the restrictions on fresh fruits and veggies, created a longing to be strong enough to enjoy these normal everyday pleasures.

the restrictions kept me healthy by keeping me safe from germs, fungus and viruses, but also served to deepen my appreciation of a healthy life. this longing was part of my fight, i longed for green grass between my toes more than i longed to lay peacefully in God's embrace.

i’m wondering about this longing as a positive motivation in contrast to longing which is unhealthy, little green monsters of envy, disruptive attachment. what is the difference. how do i know when my heart pulls me toward the light or toward the dark when i don’t know what direction i am facing?

according to Pema Chodron who has written some wonderful books like “the places that scare you,” the difference between positive motivation and negative attachment or desire is completely discernible by us mortal. Each of us is capable of listening to our heart. staying with the longing long enough to determine it’s true nature and weather it’s positive or negative.

when i first read this about three or four years ago i felt betrayed because i wanted a clear cut answer! but after all the work i’ve been doing getting in touch with the base of many of my obsessions, i feel that i too can tell the difference. for me one clue is listening to my body. if my jaw is tense, even a fraction, if there are butterflies in my stomach, then it’s likely a little green monster is near.

i also listen to the child’s voice in me. is she resentful? feeling cheated or deprived? or is she feeling joyful or sweet satisfaction when imagining reaching the goal?

i think i can react either way to the same situation. locked away from nature i could be an angry and resentful child counting the days, dreaming of breaking the rules. or i could be a joyful child imagining the freedom to run on the beach, reaching into physical memories of fun in the sun to create a moment of imagined pleasure. which amounts to pleasure when you are stuck in a hospital bed!

Sometimes i can even change the course of this. if i feel the physical tension, heard the resentful child and i can sit with it long enough to really acknowldge it, to feel the source, the base of fear, and sooth that by thinking how safe and loved i am now, then sometimes i can change my reaction overall.

so now when i think of being deprived fresh fruit and lightly steamed greans i think how comforting the over cook veggies of the 50s were, how comforting a baked apple can be (even if’ it’s “baked” in the microwave! while still seeing the raw food as a reward down the road for when i’m health again.

peace
kayla

imagining the future

2008-01-07T19:14:00.000-08:00

I have not posted since the open studio, as that was the last big thing i did in my art career because of my health. I will be having a stem cell transplant, likely next month.

Imagining the future has been so hard that even considering submitting to a show would cause me to freak out. would i be available to bring in the art if i were accepted? Something else less well defined is tearing at my heart. when i got sick again, i suddenly took a look at all the activities i'd engaged in as part of marketing and entering the art world and as i looked back i felt i'd gone astray and i wanted time to think about my direction. all i wanted in the beginning was to share my work and have people appreciate it. but then so many materialistic concerns began to pull and twist till i was beating up my mind and body working too hard for a goal that had become so unclear.

Being sick has really put a damper on my ability to work. i'm too tired to manage the physical challenges of a shoot, i've only done two small ones in all these months, and i don't have the will to work on any mixed media stuff around the house.

Today something weird happened. I was talking with my girlfriend Julie who had been such an inspiration to me last winter in admiring my work and encouraging me to submit to the TV of Tomorrow show. We were talking about everything under the sun as we usually do when suddenly she was talking about my immense talent and how galleries should be representing me. She starts rattling off the names of galleries she thinks i'd do well in and how they can get prices that i don't even imagine. I was floured by the complement that she thought my work should be in galleries. I thought i had i long ways to go.

The idea of galleries representing me fills me with tingles! I've been concerned about ways in which i can share my work when i don't think i'll ever be able to hang my own show again. but if i was represented by a gallery i'd never lift finger! well ok it's not that much a cinderella story but still, ... she's got me imagining a brighter future!
thanks Julie!

Kayla's Open Studio Oct 13 & 14

2007-10-07T19:54:00.000-07:00

To all my Art Lovers and Friends:
Yes it's been a whole year since the last Open Studios here in San Francisco.

Next weekend The Sunset and surrounding neighborhoods will be having Open Studios. Come see my most recent fine art photography, which focuses on the spiritual in the material world. I also have some handmade books, and wall & window hangings that utilize my photography.

Kayla's Open Studio
Oct 13 & 14, 2007 at
2169 20th Ave., San Francisco, Ca, 94116

Part of the fun of open studios is seeing works in progress. I have been experiment with many forms of mixed media and going through and exploratory and playful period with working with encaustics, polymer clays, incorporating real objects of nature into these works. Feedback on these experiments is very valuable to me so come see the process and give your opinions.

Because i have been diagnosis with a second serious bone marrow cancer and will have to go through a bone marrow transplant soon, i feel a strong urge to share my work this last time before i undergo this procedure which will likely keep me busy for the next year. I feel that the work that I've done will be complete when it hangs in homes and spreads the joy! I will continue making art - it brings me so much satisfaction - but i will not have the energy to have open studios or continue to submit to galleries for quite some time.

So please come by. Prices are deeply discounted to facilitate spreading the deep connection with nature that i hope my work creates. 10% of sales will be donated to the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/ who do so much to support research and public understanding of bone marrow diseases, while providing practical assistance to patients and family. I love this organization!

Go here if you want information on my disease (MDS):
http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/all_page?item_id=55442

My Heath Story and more information on MDS and Bone Marrow transplants:
http://daydreamer.pnn.com/2713-health-and-wellness
See some of My Art: http://daydreamer.pnn.com/2103-the-art-page (explains spiritual connections and http://daydreamingarts.blogspot.com/ discusses process

October 13 - 14th 2169 20th Ave., San Francisco, Ca. 94116
use google maps to get directions: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&time=&date=&ttype=&q=2169+20th+Ave,+San+Francisco,+San+Francisco,+California+94116,+United+States&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=71.064097,111.972656&ie=UTF8&lr=lang_en&cd=1&geocode=0,37.747299,-122.477098&ll=37.747355,-122.476251&spn=0.008908,0.013669&z=16&om=1

Noe Valley Show at Gallery Sanchez Opens

2007-07-15T08:41:00.001-07:00

The opening at the Gallery Sanchez in the Noe valley Ministry yesterday was a very nice event. I really enjoy working with this group of artists from the Sunset, we are an interesting mix of ages and life experience. The space is really lovely, hi ceilings and loft feeling with out being overly religious. Although The Noe Valley Ministry is a church with crosses etc here and there, it's also an active community center where various groups meet including a Jewish Group and the have regular musical performances. I also really enjoyed having time to talk in depth with the other artists about our plans and dreams.
This piece, One Leaf, is part of the show at Gallery Sanchez. It was taken on a drizzly / foggy day at Fort Funston. It's special to me because of the subtleties in it. The smooth shading indicating the shape of the leaf in the softened background and the intense yellows and oranges on the leaf edge as the plant reacted to the pressures of the weather on the bluff. The part that clinches the deal for me is the curve of the edge and how seductive it's path through the image is.

hanging the show in Noe Valley

2007-07-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

today we are hanging the show in Noe Valley Ministry, Gallery Sanchez. hanging shows can be a long, complicated process and it'd be great if i could do all this faster. i will be helping to hang the Altered barbie show and i can't be this methodical, i will have to think on my feet as artist bring in last minute changes.
my current belabored process started over a month ago when i got the dimensions for my share of the space in the gallery. At that point i was submitting my work to a couple of shows and planning on submitting to a few more so i made a master plan of what was going to be where. i had to settle all this in my mind before sending out my image to be included in the publicity for Noe Valley.
so i thought about the themes for the other shows and then thought about coherence for this show. i decided that certain pieces were definitely going to other shows and could not be included in this mix. decided the Yosemite image was the anchor for the Noe Valley show. I thought it made a good publicity photo because it's hi contrast, recognizable even shrunk down, and people had responded so well to it at the Art on the Avenues show.
next i did the math to figure how many framed images could fit in my Noe Valley space allotment. I had not yet unpacked everything from the Art on the Avenues show, so i started pulling out pieces and sorting them. propping them up around the house (my studio was too small for all this visual thinking). finally the idea of green/blue tan and blue came together and i started selecting sand, ocean, and greenish blue plant images, mixing vertical and horizontal work.
next i began to draw layouts of the famed pieces on my section of wall. my first layout was just six pictures, but it looked sparse when i used my graph paper to put things in scale. so i tried other combinations. i stopped when i had a fairly settled idea.
yesterday i took up Debra's suggestion and measured out the 5x7 space on my floor and laid out the actual framed images on the floor. good thing too because some of my frames are a tiny but bigger than others and that made a big difference in my little plan! i tried moving them about but eventually found it too physically demanding to avoid stepping on them and bending over so much (i've been a bit under the weather). so i went back to drawing on my graph paper. I should have used a pencil because i changes my mind so many times and made a bit of a mess with my pen. this morning before i pack them up to take over to the gallery i will clean them and lay them out on last time.
so i could improve by:
being organized through keeping a folder or searchable database of images of what's in frames now so i can sort thru the images on the computer to help me choose rather than moving them about the house;
deciding faster through confidence in my decisions;
being more accurate, through knowing the actual dement-ions of my work and using a calculator;
being sensible by using a pencil and good eraser when drawing plans;
learning to use the computer for layouts (so that it's faster than drawing on paper which it's not now cuz i fumble through it) because designing on the computer will be more accurate and give me more visual feedback than my sketches on graph paper and be physically less demanding than laying the framed art out on the floor!
the reason for exploring process is to see where you can make changes and help others think about there own process.

"Patterns, Portions, and Pieces"

2007-07-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

Patterns potions and pieces opens tonight at the Frank Bette Center for the arts in Alameda. I'm not even sure if i'm in it because ii was bad and forgot to call in yesterday. I hope folks can come to the First Friday Opening Gala July 6, 7-9 PM tonight at 1601 Paru Street Alameda, CA.

I have to explain the process of submittal and acceptance at FBCA so you can understand the previous statement. FBCA, like alot of community art centers, has many open calls. Every month they have a Theme which artists use to guide them in selecting what to bring in for the show. There is a drop ff day when we all bring in our work. there is no jury for these open shows (unlike Alameda on Camera), rather the pieces are selected as how well they all fit together to make a show. the process of the gallery is to go through all the pieces and begin to plan the hanging and as they do that the way the whole show will look gels in their minds. Then they hang the show. The artists call toward the end of the week and determine if they have something to pick up. Because we often drop off multiple pieces, we usually have to pick something up even if we are in the show. this process tends to keep these shows local, but it helps me to make it to the opening because i make one trip to pick up art and go to the opening.

Altered Barbie getting ready

2007-07-05T11:19:00.000-07:00

Photo depicts "Barbie's Hood Ornament" by Leigh Radtke.
Well the Altered Barbie show is coming closer. I'm running like mad to get organized. the press release went out, the post card is at the printers I actually had some input, but mostly i fixed the issues with the logos for the sponsors in the press release.
this is just the sort of thing i'm good at. problem solving on the fly.
the first acceptances went out. there are actually some artists who don't have email and that makes it hard to contact them, snail mail is well, ... slow! so i won't publish all the names yet.
I actually made a spreadsheet - yeah i know!! this is tough for me of course with the dyslexia and all but i have to get some skills in this area. i need them for Frank Bette Center for the Arts too.

I went out and purchased the domain name for altered barbie and set it up with a real life server. there were lots of little bugs at first, several caused by my inexperience! but i worked it through with tech support.

So now i really have to update the Altered Barbie site and blog and our pnn.com interactive news site cuz so many details have firmed up. I also have to start adding artists pages and gather artists info for the book and website. Oh and the sponsers! (of which daydreaming arts is one!)

I love working on this show but i've been doing it pretty much non stop for two weeks now with just a short break to help with intake at Frank Bette last Sunday. Boy was that demanding!!! Also I did my shots but have yet to print them cuz my printer still hasn't arrived (another crazy story) and i've been working hard on helping Sarah with her dioramas. getting Barbie to stand up is really hard!!! Oh and Sarah and i were at the mall yesterday and we started planning what we will wear to the Barbie Ball, it's getting so exciting!!!!!
so i'm heading over to the blog right now.

Sunset Artists Noe Valley Show July 10th to August 18th

2007-07-05T09:30:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to announce that I will be part of a group show of local San Francisco artists in the Gallery Sanchez of the Noe Valley Ministry 1021 Sanchez Street, near 24th St. San francisco Ca. Our artists reception will be Saturday July 14th from 2 to 4 pm. The other artists whose work will be hanging in the show include: Roger Thoms, Ann Eby, Kelsie Tinker, (who will also be in the Altered Barbie Show the end of this month) David Grote, Susan Grote, Voula Sideris, Kate Salenfriend, Kyla Johnk, Steve Dehlinger and Kate Dopheide two more Altered Barbie artists!!! small world huh?

The artists in this show are all part of the Sunset Artists Society which puts on the annual Art in the Avenues show at the County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park.

I'm looking forward to this show because I will have a large space to fill. Instead of just one or two pieces in a group show of many artists, we will each hang several pieces in a show with a small group of artists. I will have a section that is 7 feet wide, so the show will be more focused than the Art on the Avenues show where i hung over 30 pieces from the last year.
I'm also looking forward to the process of us hanging the show on Monday. I've planned the pieces I want to bring and I know I'll get lots of help from this great group of artists. Planning and hanging shows is an important thing to learn. Each time I feel more in control. Debra at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts in Alameda taught me to do my layout on the floor in the studio first!

Please come to the reception Sat July 14th 2-4 in the afternoon! I want to have a good turn out of friends and admirers to help fill the huge gallery space.

Capturing Light

2007-07-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

i keep promising myself that i will post more often and get back to the real use of this blog which is to talk about my artistic process and teaching.
but first this commercial break. I have several shows coming up. in Petaluma at the Aurora Colors Gallery i will have my piece "Hooks" (from the Alameda on Camera collection) in their show: Capturing Light - Photography. it runs July 21st to August 18, 2007. the opening is Saturday July 21 6:30 -8:30 PM at Aurora Colors Gallery, 145 Kentucky Street, Petaluma, CA 94952. PLEASE COME! To contact the Gallery, call Vangie Pullins at (707)762-0131 or email events@auroracolors.com

"Hooks" is not the piece's real name, but the name is a joke and i didn't think it would be appreciated outside of the context of the Alameda on Camera show. the real name is "disappearing hooks" because of the crazy story that goes with the taking of the picture and it's aftermath. this is a story of process so i will share it here.

the Alameda on Camera event, you may remember, was a challenge to photographers to reflect their vision of their little corner of the City of Alameda. 40 photographers reached into a hat and grabbed 1/40th of the map of Alameda. they then spread out across the city to grab their visual impressions of that little corner of the map. we had but 48 hours in one weekend to capture the essence of our piece of Alameda.

i was lucky enough to draw a map piece that represented a part of Alameda that was mostly off limits! the Coast Guard, the Navy and a private community all posted signs making it clear i could be arrested for being there. So i was lucky to be forced to mostly focus on the few public areas available.

one public place was a short path by the canal where huge container ships come and go. at the end of the path was a dry dock where much smaller ships and boats we being worked on. between me and the work was a high chain link fence. so i began shooting all the junk that was hanging on the fence - you know i love junk. there was all sorts of stuff, paint roller minus the covering, parts and piece of things - - and then there were these fantastic hooks. i was drawn to them like love at first sight. but the footing was horrible and it took me forever to get into a secure position. the light was low, it was raining and i had a long lens on so i really needed to steady myself against a fairly long exposure.

finally ready to shoot, i'm interrupted by "ma'am can we help you?" from a couple of guys in hard hats and dusty work clothes. i back up from the work and turn on the charm, explaining all about the Alameda on Camera event and the Frank Bette Center for the Arts. i show them my ID around my neck and take out my little piece of map showing where we are and finally seem to make them comfortable. they tell me the hooks are illegal because they are broken and then move on. i return to the hooks, working to get myself positioned securely. the ground is uneven and muddy (it's still winter) and the angle of me, my long lens, the fence and the hooks is difficult.

right as i settle in, it happens again. i went through the whole explanation again. again they tell me how the hooks are illegal and finally moved on. i reposition myself, really getting to it as fast as i can. by now my back is killing me and my legs are quite put out. but when it happens a third time i manage to keep my humor and charm and go through the explanation all over again. this last pair (why are they always in twos?) took particular pains to explain why the hooks were illegal, pointing to the failures of safety features and insisting that they were not used. that's why they are on the fence you see. cuz they're broken and no one uses them. so i explain that i really like the colors and the textures of the peeling paint, and that i like that they are old and broken. they look at me like i'm nuts! finally, when they move off i move really fast (for me) and zero in on the hooks. then i move on to some mushroom growing nearby.

the next day i came back to the same spot before dawn and took some great shots of these folks working in the rain long before you could see well. when it was finally light enough, i left the path and went back to take more of the hooks, hopeful that i will be better able to take my time and make sure i have the shot. but look! they're gone! all the other junk is still hanging on the fence but the illegal hooks have disappeared! despite all my charm they did not believe for a minute that i was an artist, i had to be from the Government catching them with the illegal, disappearing hooks.

"Peaches and Cream" at FBCA

2007-06-11T16:44:00.000-07:00

So the latest show at Frank Bette center for the arts is Peaches and Cream." I submitted a classic of mine (read not made in the year since i moved tothe sunset district). I call it bite because it integrates the natural "imperfection" which is nature getting along fine, bugs gotta eat!

Hall of Flowers show a great success!

2007-06-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

I really had a wonderful time at the Hall of Flowers "Art on the Avenues" show. I really hope it's not the last one - it went so well! I sold some small things and one of my silk wall hangings so that i covered the money i spent on new frames for the show! not exactly a profit but there was so much more than money that i profited from. It's an incredible learning experience to Put together 32 new pieces for the past year and see how your work is developing. and then to spend two whole days looking at my work and the public's reaction to it. WOW. I can see where i will be heading next - but alas there are no words for what i saw!

Hall of Flowers Show this weekend!

2007-06-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

June 2nd and 3rd from 10 am to 5 pm, at the "Hall of Flowers" in Golden gate Park which is on the corner of Lincoln and 9th Avenue. It's the Annual Art on the Avenues Show by the Sunset Artists Society, I'm so excited I have over 30 new pieces - all made in the last years since i've moved to the sunset. It seems like I've been so productive since i moved here and i wasn't finding time to frame everything so this forced me to! All week I've been matting and framing and this morning i finally got them all in boxes to take over and unload later today. I'm so excited! Everyone should drop by and see my new work!! Oh and there are 18 other Arts whos art iss pretty good if you ask me! it's a juried show after all.

Altered Barbie on the web

2007-05-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

in addition to the blog for altered barbie http://alteredbarbie.blogspot.com/ I've made a whole new website for the show: http://alteredbarbie.home.comcast.net/ and a really cool site at pnn.com which is very multimedia and interactive alteredbarbie.pnn.com/ I've been immersed in barbie and pink. Now those who know me may be wondering what's going on here! well it's a fun change for me and i'm learning tons working from the inside out. so check it out. there's some fin videos at the blog and pnn already. go and make comments and let's all do barbie up right!! I especially love the Jack Spicer video "i'm a barbie girl in a barbie world, plastic plastic, its fantastic." "you can brush my hair, undress me everywhere!, imagination that is your creation!" "come on barbie let's go party!!!" the song is by Aqua. go barbie!! the other video just came up with a Barbie search at that video station and it's this very funny bit with a couple of young adults playing with a whole load of barbies. at the blog i have a couple of other videos from uTube. One has a whole country western thing going on. and it's really funny although maybe for different reasons for diff people - but the new "cross dresser ken" ready for the toy shelf is worth wading through the 70''s waitress.

upcoming Sunset Artist Society show

2007-05-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

Once again i have Juried into the Sunset Artist Society annual Art in the Avenues show at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park! hurray. I will have all new work this year!! and new pricing structures. I'm celebrating my first full year living and working in the Sunset with work created since the move. Most work will l be hung publicly for the first time! So everyone has to come and see my new and exciting work. Date June 2 & 3rd 10am to 5pm; Place: The Hall Of Flowers at 9th and Lincoln, San Francisco, this show is so exciting and this may be the final year as the show's organizers burn out!!!!! will others pick up the torch and keep this annual event hopping? will i be here in the Sunset another year???? should i get involved organizing????

other projects

2007-05-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

in addition to getting my art shown i've been working on several projects. one is the %th annual altered barbie show at Market Street and Red Ink Galleries opening July 29th 2007. I'm working as an intern for ChatterBox Gallery which is Julie Andersen's baby. I get to see the inside view or producing and curating a show. So far i've worked on the call to artists, cleaning up and stylizing the pdf file and making a webpage (the beta is linked above). I also went to a meeting with SCRAP, a art and education recycling/ reuse kind of place. It looks like the will be helping out with workshops and providing materials t artists.
I'm also very involved at Frank Bette Center for the Arts in Alameda. I'm working as their membership coordinator and put in hours gallery sitting. once again i'm seeing the art world from the inside of administration etc. I'm updating the data base, wring letters to members and working on additional forms of communication. so much to learn and it feels good, though hectic, to stretch myself.

time flies when you are busy!

2007-05-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

this is an image i love from that raining sunday morning in Alameda.

I have been so busy i haven't even had time to post to say how busy i am!
my work is hanging again in the Aurora Gallery in Petaluma, this time in a show called May Day All Things Bright and Beautiful, again in Alameda at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts in their Earth, Sky and Between exhibition, and i continue at the San Francisco Hall of Juvenile Justice in the school lobby. Plus i have two found art pieces in Brooks College in Sunnyvale. my windows and my cabinets with the silk inserts. frank Beete and brooks College opened this Friday and Aurora Colors the Sat. night before that.
wow!

alameda on camera opens tonight

2007-04-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

the Gala Opening for Alameda on Camera is tonight at the Frank Bette Center for the Arts for 7 -9 PM. i'm so excited to see the exihibit. whe i dropped off sxome of m work I was so impressed withthe quality of everyone's work. thisis going to be an incredable show! the link above will take you to they website where there are good directions. it's at the corner of Lincoln and Paru which is a major intereection. http://www.frankbettecenter.org/

spring at last or Seeing Grean

2007-03-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

i've been so incredibly busy lately and the weather has been so fine, i haven't sat still long enough to write a blog in quite some time! this flower petal isn't even a spring flower! it's from the dead of winter -- which around here is not so dead!

the TV of Tomorrow show last week was FANTASTIC! what fun we had! mostly the techies kept to themselves and the artists kept together, even though we'd never met before. the show was a conference for folks who work in the development end of interactive tv. the idea was to explore the possibilities. in keeping with that theme our art all had something to say about tv and many of us imagined where it might go.

one piece was a robot that was peopled remotely. there was a tv screen with the person's face broadcast live and you could talk to her and she'd talk back. the robot could move around the room because it was wireless. this was created collaboratively by some art students. it became the intersection for the artists and the techies. being so overtly techie as a piece it was easier for the techies to approach.

the was also a student journalist there so i had my first newspaper interview. i wonder if her published anything!

on Sunday i drove up to Petaluma to pick up my art from the Aurora Colors Gallery and had a nice chat with the owner. in the car i switched out frames cuz i hated that Plexiglas and took that piece and two others down to Ben Lomond for the "Seeing Green" show at the Santa Cruz Mountains art center http://www.mountainartcenter.org/

so i will have three rather green pieces there- the show opens friday night with a party and goes for a month. i still have work up at the Frank Bette Center in Alameda. for now it's in their "Green" show and that will be follow by our Alameda on Camera work. all 40 photographer's and our vision of the city!

i'm printing out - for the fourth time - the piece for that show as i write this. it has a great story behind it which i will share when i post the image here. i'm reprinting it to get the sharpening just right. it's very textured and it looked to grainy, then too blurry, and then grainy again.

i ended up sharpening different parts of the image differently. over all used "High Pass", for which you have to make a copy of your background layer because it is a destructive filter and when you are done you blend it with the original layer. I have some of my own tricks that i've added to this hidden gem. i like making the hi pass layer black and white to avoid adding a color cast and playing with the blending modes and opacity.

i made a separate layer for sections of the picture that had unique issues. one part for example, was so deeply orange / red that it was loosing detail when it printed. rather than desaturate (which i'll try if this doesn't work) i put this part on it's own layer and sharpened it in such a way as to emphasize the hidden yellows. this created a more textured look and lessened the orange / red blow out.

it's coming out of the printer now. well i won't decide til tomorrow whether i need to keep working on this image. often the print changed a bit as it dries over night.

matting and framing

2007-03-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

matting and framing has been the order of the day! I know it's not exciting but it has to be done! I had to ready 5 pieces foe the TV of Tomorrow show at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. the show opens tomorrow and i dropped off my work today. I finished all my matting and framing before the weekend so i could relax! i continue to improve but i have issues cutting the mats just so, and more now the problem has been a silly math error in calculating the size of the hole! I know how to determine the size of the margin - i subtract the size of the image from the size of the matte and divide by 2. so if my image is 10 by 18 and my mat is 16 by 20 then i subtract 10 form 16, to get the difference of 6, which is divided in 2 because there are 2 margins on each side. and then subtract 18 from 20 and get 2 divide by 2 is 1. well that would be a bad looking matte if it were 3 inches on the sides and only one top and bottom but you get the idea.
I have started using light mattes. i've always used black, but you can't actually get museum quality mattes that are black because the coloring ruins it's archival qualities. It's still acid free and all, it's just won't last quite as long. so people really expect off white. I'm not sure at all i like the way it looks! but i did it for the show. I got wooden frames so i could put the real eye screw things in it and i even used archival matt on the back and taped up the back to the frame! this reduces the effect of pollution. were i to get better at the taping part it would really protect it well, but I'm still leaving tiny wholes so it's not fully sealed. I guess this is boring but artist have to do many things that are maybe not so exciting! however, tomorrow night i go to the artist's reception for the TV of Tomorrow show and i expect that will be very exciting!

yosemite!

2007-03-05T14:46:00.000-08:00

i took a day trip to yosemite with three other photographers. it was incredible, getting up at 3:15 am, pouring coffee in my gut and driving down to the park and ride to pick everyone else up and then getting off the peninsula before rush hour, through the coastal range across the valley and into the foothills in time for breakfast! we ate at happy burger on rt. 140. It was still early when we got to Yosemite and it was cloudy on and off (and snowing on and off too!) so we could take pictures all day. we left around 4PM and i was home by 7 at the latest. it was 500 miles round trip.

this image is of yosemite falls taken with my lensbaby without the macro and with the biggest aperture.

anyway, hit the link above and you can see so unedited shots that a threw up on the web.

thanks to Thomas, Lawernce and Jen for being part of the adventure!

Frank Bette Center

2007-03-02T17:37:00.000-08:00

I have discovered this great place in Alameda called the Frank Bette Center for the Arts. I love this place! I took part in the Alameda on Camera event last weekend - the show will be in April. And in March starting tomorrow night, I will have a piece in the show called "Green."
the hype:
"The color green and... "green behind the ears," money, lettuce, salads, greener pastures, wealth, grass, parrots, jealousy, new, spring green, green eyes, "eat your veggies," summer green, green eggs and ham, clover, luck, Irish, St. Patrick, Greenpeace, Green Party, bowling greens, Green Bay Packers, field of green, green apples, fried green tomatoes, green hills, green belt, green algae, acid green."

I'll upload an image of the on accepted into the show maybe Sunday! I just saw how late it is so i have to go, but first wish me happy birthday!

i will be in Abstractions show in Aurora Colors Gallery

2007-02-12T10:14:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited! i'm going to be in yet another Juried Show and this one is in a Gallery!
kayla garelick will be in an upcoming exhibit at Aurora Colors Gallery
"Abstractions, Color & Texture"
Feb. 24, 2007- March 24, 2007
Opening Reception Saturday Feb. 24, 2007 6:30pm-8:30pm
Free with Refreshments!!!

Aurora Colors Gallery
145-A Kentucky Street, Petaluma, CA94952
707-762-0131
http://www.auroracolors.com/AC/

Local San Francisco artist from the Sunset District kayla garelick, of daydreaming arts, will be participating in the "Abstractions, Color & Texture" art exhibition at Aurora Colors Gallery. kayla's piece "one leaf" is an example of her ability to use the camera lens to create abstract re-interpretations of the world around us. kayla's work, inspired by her fight with leukemia, creates a sense of awe for the details she sees. Her subjects are the from nearby Ocean Beach and Fort Funston, where Kayla transforms the ordinary to the extraordinary. Don't miss this show!

water water everywhere

2007-01-31T06:55:00.000-08:00

the winter beach is so fascinating, the delicate colors reflected in the surface of the water contrast with the reality dangerous high surf from winter storms. my photo shows the light playing on the thin film of water over the sand as the wave washes out. the link is to the annual maverick surf competition where they sometimes confront 100 foot faces on the waves!
the detailed story of the most harrowing year yet is told by SF Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/31/MNGQCNS3NM1.DTL
in making this final image i had to return to the beach repeatedly to study the colors i saw. the camera, set on automatic white balance, had interpreted the colors differently than i. and when i first attempted to print the blues shifted darker and even more saturated than i intended. by the time the print came out my memory had faded. so i returned several days in a row at the same time of day so that i would not be influenced by the camera or the printer I i finally got the colors i wanted.

Using Photoshop

2007-01-25T17:04:00.000-08:00

This is another of the images i created for the TV of Tomorrow Show. I thought i'd write a little about the process. it was very heavy Photoshopping!
Each image has three main components the model (guess who!) who crawled through a window multiple times, the monitor, and one of my art images. I first had to made fantastic selections to remove the model from the background. I don't use selections in order to place the image in a new background often. It's much more sensitive work than selecting part of an image to make a mask where the edges aren't critical. So i spent hours on it! In the end the best tool was using a paint brush in quick mask. I used my pen tool extensively and it's so much easier to draw well with that. I also had some frustration with selecting the real black screen out of the monitor. I don't have a steady enough hand for those long straight lines so i'd click the paint tool at one end of the screen, and then shift click on the other side to create a straight line between the points. well alot of the screen wasn't really so straight, it has a slow graceful curve to it!

When i brought all the elements into one image i used multiple layers of the art and the model in different blending modes. I created masks for each layer using a combination of gradients for a slow fade in or out and the pen tool for detailed work. In one of these images i used six different layers just for the model! some would be "color burn" or "overlay" but just letting the blend happen on her foot and hand, letting it slip over her shoulder a bit.
finally the forth element is the background. All of them are other art photos of mine. in this one i used a very new early morning blue waves shot to contrast with the deep orange poppy.
So it was fun, great exercise for the OCD side of me!!

I will be in the TV of Tomorrow show!

2007-01-18T12:18:00.000-08:00

I'm very excited to announce that my images will be part of the TV of Tommorrow show (link above) being presented by Tracy Swedlow's InteractiveTV Today [itvt] http://www.itvt.com/
I created a series of images for the show about the future of TV. These images tell a story of the future TV which will provide immersive experiences including touch and smell: the breeze on my face, the perfume of the chaparral! Remembering a family photo of us kids staring open-mouthed at the boob tube, capturing the passive TV experience of the 60s, I created the family photo of the future, capturing the immersive experience drawing us into a complete environment!
The TV of Tomorrow Show, March 13th - 14th (Tuesday-Wednesday) in San Francisco, California at the famous Yerba Buena Center for the Arts http://www.ybca.org/ . The event will present the most thorough examination yet of the emerging interactive multiplatform TV space, will also include [itvt]'s inaugural Awards for Corporate Achievement in Interactive and Multiplatform Television. The event will focus exclusively on the delivery of interactive TV on multiple platforms (e.g. cable, satellite, telco TV, wireless, Internet TV, DVRs, handheld devices, iPods, game consoles, etc.). My work will be projected as part of a curated exhibit of contemporary artworks that exemplify the theme, "TV of Tomorrow."
OMG!!! i just checked and the early registration fee is $744.12!!!! Therefore i expect that all of my fans, friends and family to attend. order tickects early!

interactive TV

2007-01-09T06:59:00.000-08:00

i recently heard about this show about the tv of the future put on by an organization that promotes interactive tv. my daughter had give an image of mine as a gift to the parents of her girl friend where she stayed over christmas eve. the friends mom is the organizer of the event and the have a juried commutation that results in your art being available for sale at the show. so i submitted a few pieces. now i know how come i don't think of my self as a conceptual artisit! the piece had to be about the future of tv, and had to have a tv or computer monitor in it. so this is one of the pieces. and this is what i said about it:
The future of Interactive TV is more than recording a show and watching it later or playing along with a game show. Even with PS3's technical advances, and even with Nintendo's Wii new motion-sensitive controller, I dream of more! I daydream of immersive experiences including touch and smell: the breeze on my face, the perfume of the chaparral! Remembering a family photo of us kids staring open-mouthed at the boob tube, capturing the passive TV experience of the 60s, I created the family photo of the future, capturing the immersive experience drawing us into a complete environment!

the winter beach

2006-12-22T14:52:00.000-08:00

this is the first winter i've been this close to the pacific. I can go every morning just to watch the waves. It so exciting the way that the sea rises and reduces the beach. there's really no place left to walk, even at low tide you can get cut off. I went down from the bluff at fort funston through the beach access and followed a young fellow as he scampered over some rocks to the next section of beach. by the time i'd picked my way over the rocks, he was long gone to the next section. then the waves were coming fast and high and the rocks i'd just climbed over were under water! now i'm not so agile any more and i got kinda scared as i climbed over a higher section of rock and slid down the other side on my tush. with the seat of my jeans wet and sandy i saw that a cement protrusion was about to become a major roadblock if i didn't hustle! the tide was coming in fast so i jogged down the beach past the cement ruin to the safety of the bluffs! fewie! so this dizzy shot is fitting cut that's how i felt as i worked my way back up the bluff.

time moves faster when the days are so short!

2006-12-22T14:19:00.000-08:00

I just can't keep up when the daylight hours are so short!
But i did make it to the beach and got some wonderful flowers before it got too darn cold. this one is a more delicate yellow. others that i took were so deeply yellow that i could not get a good shot, it must be a limitation of the digital format cuz it's maxed out on the yellow and all detail was lost in much of those petals. This one was much more delicate. and i call it follow home because i feel like i could crawl right up in there!

show at Adath Israel was a great success

2006-12-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

i was so busy getting ready for the show at Adath Israel, my local synagogue.
it was a great success!
i donated my latest mixed media project (pictured here) to the raffle. we raised over a hundred dollars through the raffle and more through sales. i donated 10% of the proceeds to the shul.
this was such an exciting event for everyone involved. the new Rabbi, Joshua Strulowitz, is revitalizing the community by starting educational opportunities, bringing in families with young children through a play group, and creating more opportunities for socializing - this show being the first of many events to come.
i was thrilled with the feedback about my work and having a chance to sell a few things - to know my work is out there. the toughest part was the artist's talk. I spoke directly about the spiritual connection i feel in my work and that's hard to talk about. i don't have words for that. everyone listened and i got through it.

the wall hanging is made with a lovely gold material i got in and India Saree shop in Berkeley (but it is much heavier than a saree). the image of a flower was printed on silk - a luxurious silk with some texture -and the hebrew words were printed on silk as well. the Hebrew says "east" in English because it is to be hung on an eastern wall so you know which way to face when you pray at home. The silk is from colortextiles and it's called silk lines.

now i know how Jackson Pollock got his start!

2006-12-06T11:55:00.000-08:00

now i know how Jackson Pollock got his start!
he discovered that the paint companies were ripping him off by making it seem like the paint cans were empty when in fact there were gallons of paint left inside. but the only way to get the paint out was to poke holes all over the cans and whack them, throwing paint every which way in his studio. some of it landed on a canvas and he kept it a secret cuz he figured punching holes in the paint can was probably a copyright violation for reverse engineering them!

similarly i now have Pollock-esque scarves having discovered that those "empty ink canisters from Epson don't have a few drops left when they tell you it's empty. there's the whole Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in there!
i started out all controlled taking little drops of pigment out of the holes where the air locks are on the bottom. but soon they were leaking everywhere - especially that crazy cyan. soon enough i was feeling my anger boil and my sense of humor take over and i started whack the so called empty canister onto the silk scarf i was working on.
talk about abstract!

well it won't sell but i will wear it proudly to proclaim that i did not reverse engineer it, i got what was rightfully mine!

in this drawing (from MOMA's website - follow link in the title to this post) Pollack has discovered that the black and sepia ink containers have hidden reserves of ink the company never intended he be able to use. just pay for.

Jackson Pollock. (American, 1912-1956). Untitled. (1951). Black and sepia ink on mulberry paper, 25 x 38 3/4" (63.5 x 98.4 cm). Gift of Lee Krasner in memory of Jackson Pollock. © 2006 Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

fort funston

2006-11-21T15:31:00.000-08:00

at the south end of Ocean Beach in San Francisco is some beautiful dunes that rise suddenly out of the beach. at the top a fort was once built and garrisons were dug in and we were safe all during WWII. of course the army sort of tore the place up, but it's been turned into a park and many areas are being restore - with native plants and protecting nesting birds. I love to walk up from the beach, winding through the dunes and turn around and go back before it get crowed with dog walkers and deserted army structures. This is where i've been taking pictures on my morning walks.

do you shot like a fashon photographer?

2006-11-16T17:51:00.000-08:00

recently someone asked me if i shot like a fashion photographer. They pictured me clicking away rapidly. i guess there thought was i'd be more likely to get the shot that way. It really gave me pause because i think it told me something about how my abstracts are perceived, or at least by this person, who seems like a regular person. I thought that the idea "photographer" for most people is a glamorous one, seems like an easy job capturing beauty. I know that even fashion photographers work very hard, i'm not saying i think their work is easy, i think it's perceived that way.
I think this may be because the average person taking a picture has a light weight point and shoot. they take pictures holding the camera in one hand, with out getting down on their knees or climbing up a ladder to get the shot. and they don't fuss over focus or aperture.
also for them it seems that the final shot must be due to sheer luck, because that's how it is for them. if the shot comes out they were lucky.
My work is not glamorous, easy, or a matter of luck!
I take a moderate amount of pictures very, very slowly. I usually have to hike to my subject, get up before dawn or go out in the rain, fog, windy storm to get the light and wetness i want. i get down on my hands and knees because the most interesting stuff is way down low, or it looks better that way. My cameras used to be so heavy, with my arthritis i could never do it now! I love digital for lightening things up, but still what i'm wielding weighs three or four times what the point and shoots do, what with lenses and all. So my wrists really begin to ache.
Some of my process i think is interesting. when i do macro i focus by moving my body the minutist amount. if i breathe the focus is lost. so i end up holding my breath alot. So i'm down on my knees in the mud or the damp sand curling up with a plant or rock or whatever, holding my breath and swaying tiny, tiny bits! Every now and then i exhale really hard - cuz i got the shot, but then that fogs up the camera's viewfinder. (then you may see me lift the camera over my head and wave it to clear it while i freeze the rest of my body to hold the place.
for me, getting the shot is not luck. i plan every shot i take. i take variations because it's hard to tell what exactly the shot will look like - how to best communicate what i'm trying to say. I compose the shot; as i teach my students, i look at everything in the viewfinder to make sure i have the subject where it should be and there's no distracting elements or relationships that will look weird in three D. (like a telephone pole coming out of someone's head!) i track the light so i know i need to change my f-stop or speed, and then i focus.
yes even with those blurry abstracts i spend a very longtime focusing. it's really hard to get just the edge of the leaf in focus! I work with an extremely small depth of field (which is why breathing can blow my focus). and with the lens baby i'm not twisting the nob i'm squeezing the bellows toward the camera, which takes more hands than i have to hold it perfectly still while i squeeze off the trigger.
I guess this explains why i get self conscious when i shot with other people around. I look strange working!

working with Hebrew letters

2006-11-06T16:18:00.000-08:00

I with now that i had a Hebrew word processor on my computer. I've always relied on the very simple set up on my Mac to write in Hebrew, but now I am struggling with it's quirkiness. I have these cards that i want to add Hebrew test to, and it should be simple enough to write it up, print it on velum and put it on the card. however, even tho i have Hebrew fonts and a computer capable of typing backward, i'm pulling out my hair as it does weird things. mostly textEdit refuses to leave the punctuation where i put it and it messes up when ever it starts it's own new line. At one point i tried to see if i could use illustrator (it couldn't find the Hebrew fonts) or Photoshop. Photoshop is ultimately the right program to use because it doesn't even think about moving the test to a new line, it leaves that to you. but i'm going to have to retype everything i typed today, because it can't think in a reversed direction. so if i copy and paste a line of Hebrew text into it, the letters are all facing the correct way, but every word runs backward. I think it's because it took the sentence and ran it backwards.

in English it would look like this: !taht pots uoy yeH
so you can see that's a problem!

I've been want to make these cards for a while and now i have a show in my synagogue for Chanukah, so i have to get them done!

my biggest transfer yet!

2006-11-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

this work still in progress. yet i really wanted to share because i feel it's going so well.

it is on a 16 x 20 canvas board with the transferred image on top of handmade paper that is very textured. the ink has been transferred from an image printed with ultrachrome K3 pigments onto Epson's enhanced mat paper with Golden's Soft Gel Gloss. additional technical aspects of this transfer are discussed on an earlier post, the link above (in the title) will take you there or click on "doing transfers again" in the side bar.

if you look closely you can see areas where the image is very clear and other areas of "distress". i hope i sharpened the photo i took of it enough so that you can see what's going on. there are several different kinds of distress. i have to decide what part is effective and therefore should leave alone and what part is distracting from the effect i want and therefore i should continue working on those areas.

When i'm done with that i plan to continue layering media. i have additional handmade paper, natural elements, and perhaps a cyanotype or cloth elements. i can't describe the final work and i'm not fixed on one result yet. but i want the viewer to feel as though they are standing under that mimosa tree in the rain with me!

Transfer Technology Workshop for Photographers and Artists

2006-11-03T07:36:00.000-08:00

daydreaming arts' announces another
Transfer Technology Workshop for Photographers and Artists

Whether you are a fine art photographer or an artist who would like to incorporate photographic images into your work, transferring photography and other images to unique surfaces will awaken your creativity.

At this workshop you will try several methods of transferring inkjet images onto canvas, watercolor paper, wood, glass, cloth, and found objects. We will take a look at the methods that work best for photographers and mix media artists, preserving your color intent, creating archival works of art, and integrating transfers into your current work. Some processes require heat or water: some need a great deal of rubbing and some need none at all. You can mix media to create different effects on different surfaces.

You will learn the how transfer technologies work, what media and processes influence the results - and why. A process can retain a sharp image, or create a distressed look or even a stretchy emulsion. You'll gain information about the properties of the media and how too experiment in ways that work toward repeatable results! At this workshop you'll create several projects using different methods.

You will come away from the workshop with several completed projects and the ability to ask the right questions to develop a unique process that meets your artistic needs.

Come ready to experiment in a nonjudgmental atmosphere designed to inspire and motivate!

This workshop was developed at the suggestion of many visitors to kayla's show in June. During the October Open Studios this came up again. It's essential to keep the workshop small -- so sign up early! the workshop is likely to fill up fast!

Workshop details:
Cost: Early registration by Novemeber 10th fee: $65.00; materials fee $10.00*
When: Sunday November 19th: 11 am to 4 pm
Where: daydreaming arts studio in The Sunset district in San Francisco.
How: e-mail kayla at: kaylagarelick@mac.com

You will receive an e-mail with payment options and a list of tools to bring. daydreaming arts provides transfer materials and receiving surfaces. You may bring your own ink jet prints, use my images, and if you sign up early, you may send images that will be printed onto special transfer papers for use during the workshop. You may want to bring some surfaces with which to experiment.

About the workshop leader:
kayla garelick is a self taught photographer and mixed media artist who has shown her work locally in San Francisco, Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito, and Richmond. She has experience teaching adults, teens, and children. She has a Masters in Education from Bank Street School of Education. For more information please see her resume at: http://home.comcast.net/~daydreamingarts/resume/artistsResume.htm
kayla believes in experimentation and problem solving. She shares her explorations in a running record in the blog: http://daydreamingarts.blogspot.com/ . Her mom is a scientist who has taught her the importance of record keeping and patience!

kayla garelick
kaylagarelick@mac.com
daydreaming arts
http://daydreamingarts.home.comcast.net
http://daydreamingarts.blogspot.com/

*a separate materials fee in necessary for retail tax purposes.

dizzy on the beach!

2006-11-02T10:35:00.000-08:00

one year on Blogger!

2006-11-01T19:46:00.000-08:00

i just realized that yesterday was the one year anniversary of my blog here! boy what a long year!

Walking on the beach with my lensbaby

2006-11-01T19:16:00.000-08:00

I guess i'm feeling subdued. the weather is turning colder and the wind is picking up at the beach. each day the chaparral; changes. I don't think most of the plants loose their leaves, but they turn colors and die back. It's really beautiful. getting down on my haunches and sticking my camera and nose down into the low growing succulents too see them as we normally wouldn't, it's a magical feeling; like being inside a secret. with the lensbaby it's even more like fantasy. i see the lens breaking apart the light that the plants are reflecting back at me. I'm ever aware that what i capture is reflected light but when is see it being stretched and the light positively glowing i really feel that my subject is not the plant on the ground but something completely without material substance. the reflected light interacts with and is changed by the direct light and then i mix them both inside the lens as i move each element's position relative to the other. I've always wondered why the lens is a baby. i suppose the inventor simply thought of his creation as "my baby" but i now think that the lens is birthing the baby of the new manipulated light.

doing transfers again

2006-10-31T13:04:00.000-08:00

I had stopped doing transfers for a while, i was so into printing on silk and so on. I did a few small one in my cloth book, including my first successful tape transfer - wow so easy! for a tape transfer you start with an image you can destroy, this is usually something out of a magazine, newspaper, or something you've made a copy of. I took an image of a toxic waste sign from a catalogue. So i cut it out of the catalogue and laid down a big piece of packing tape over the image. smooth it and burnish. then drop it in water so you can rub the paper off the back, leaving the ink from the image imbedded in the tape's adhesive. when i was done there was very little stickiness left so i used some acrylic gel to glue the sign to the cloth.
it's alot nicer than cutting out the paper and gluing the paper picture to the background, especially if you want to take advantage of both the shininess of the tape and the translucency. when i was done you could still feel the flexibility of the cloth. but is was very small so it had no big affect on the cloth.
Another transfer i did was with an image from my R2400 that had a tiny flaw in it. (the tiny ray of light is not a flaw but a feature of the way it was shot, in person it's cool) it's the image posted with this update. I took a 16 x 20 canvas board and used soft gel gloss to adhere a hand made paper to the surface. then, with plenty of gel on that surface, i laid my print face down onto the gel and burnished. then i ironed it! my poor little travel iron got such a beating these last few weeks. I was worried about the amount of work they was ahead of me because i know the next step was to get rid of the paper. because it was supposed to be a fine art print, i had printed on think paper. So when i peaked under to see if my burnishing and ironing were working i saw that the ink stayed down and the paper was lifting up smoothly! wow. i go very excited but unfortunately this did not last through out the image. I'm not sure what the variables were but there were big patched where i had to wet the paper and rub it off. my fingers got tired so at one point i employed a rough rag, which worked well. but it was easier to press to hard with the rag. I'm not sure about the result, where i like it. I'll try to take a picture of the canvas and post it soon.

silk panels

2006-10-29T11:41:00.000-08:00

these were printed onto blumethal silk and suspended with wire inside two discarded kitchen cabinets that had their middles punched out when i found them. I love using found objects in my art and the contrast of the new silk with the old discarded wood cabinets is fabulous. you can't tell from the picture but the wood is smooth with a lovely grain.

working with silk some wall hangings

2006-10-29T11:13:00.000-08:00

earlier this month (follow the link) i posted an image that i was working on to create silk wall hangings. i finished 4 variations. two were made from silk scarves that i printed on my R2400 and then hand painted. they became wall hangings because i painted heavily with the acrylics. even tho i had thinned the consitancy with acrylic medium i couldn't stop paintting it was so much fun. they are now too stiff for wearing -- but sturdy enough for the walls.

you can see my husband's vinyl collection behind the scarves!

my cloth book

2006-10-29T11:07:00.000-08:00

this is the cover to my autobiographical cloth book. you can see the whole thing by following the link to my site.

a new window falls in my lap

2006-10-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

i was coming home form shopping and there were more broken windows in the back of the truck where they're renovating the house a few houses down. I often look and see what they are dragging out of there. Usually things a re too busted up. but i could see at least one of them was in great shape. So i went and asked the construction worker if he was throwing out the windows. so he let me have the one that wasn't broken. It's huge! with two beautiful old handles.

at first the guy gestured like i should climb up there on his oversized pick up truck - you know the kind you can never see around when changing lanes on the bay bridge in a wind storm - and get it myself. so while i was looking for a way up there, he climbed up and started pulling it out from among the broken ones. I saw that the window frame was about to catch on the handle of the one next to it so i reached under the window as he lifted it and tried to push the broken one with the intrusive handle up and away. but there were so many other broken windows and doors that it was too heavy for me. so i called out to the worker "the handle!"

he kept yanking,

one of the broken windows broke some more! he started twisting the window to get it unstuck from the handle and the other window broke and glass fell all over the truck bed. I was pretty scared that he'd break the main window by now. he has it swaying over my head at a 45 degree angle - i moved fast! then with a great crash the offending handle let go and fell with it's window frame and glass into the truck bed shattering yet more glass. Now all i can say is "Oh my goodness!" (sounding too much like little orphan annie).

he swings the window over the side of the monster truck and hands it to me - and i'm grabbing it while the bottom edge is above my head! I was so scared he was just going to let go - assuming that i was as strong as he. but he moved it gently down to where i had it under control. I thanked him profusely and carried the treasure home having to stop 3 times to rest on the way.

how exciting.

this thing is 5 feet tall, comes up to my eyes!

finishing!

2006-10-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

I finished all three windows, the cloth book, one more small handmade art book, and four silk wall hangings as well as some 15 new note cards, 5 new 11x14s, and 10 new 16 x20s, that's alot of work.

I solved the problems with banner printing on Epson's R2400 on my mac and ironing onto freezer paper and it seems easy now.
the trick with ironing onto freezer paper is to encourage the silk to be still and straight with pins or fabric tape or something. then lay the freezer paper over it and encourage that to stay in place too. i leave a two inch lead of freezer paper on the front edge to compensate for the apple/epson driver problem mentioned earlier of starting to print two inches after the beginning of the paper.

To get the banner printing to work on the R2400 with my mac OS 10.3.9, i define a custom paper sizes (in page set up) using 13.14 as the width and putting an extra couple of inches on the tale end to properly position the paper. (Note, be sure to actually select your newly defined paper after creating it cuz, at least on my set up, it doesn't automatically do that.

Then when i go to print, cuz my silk is not 13 inches wide, i'm sure to un-check "center image" in the first print dialogue box and give it a small margin because of the edge of the silk is not exactly on the edge of the paper when i'm done.

when i send it to print i make sure that the banner options are available and check "save banner" (or what ever it is) so that it won't draw a cutting line at the end of the image. I set it for thick paper which reduces smudging and black streaks form the stiff silk touching ink pads and what not. I set the ink density to =10% because my tests were light.

Then i feed it through the manuel roll slot. I brought over a chair that was slightly higher that the slot so that the silk when up and the headed down into the slot at a good angle. on the exit side i did not want the silk to drop down too quickly as this causes the stiff paper holding the silk to bow back up into the printer and increase the chances for dirty smudges. So i brought out the little arms in the exit slot and i built a soft slow bridge of scrap paper and books up and over my scanner. nice set up.
pictures soon

art by the beach

2006-10-16T20:29:00.000-07:00

taken with my lens baby
i really enjoy the abstrations - makes it about color and form and they way i feel when i'm there absorbing the wind and waves and sand and the fog - let's not forget the fog!

my windows are almost done!

2006-10-16T19:56:00.000-07:00

I 've been working like mad to finish my windows in time for the Open Studio. here's a picture of the first one completed. Sorry it's hard to see but what's there is a big beautiful old window that someone through out (they through out 4!) to which i have adhered silk on which i've printed and image leaves in a stream.

each of the for windows was to have a slightly different version of this image taken in wonderfully peaceful Laurel canyon in Tilden Park in Berkeley. But i no longer have four!

the other day i was working on what was to be the second window. I was doing layout , leaving tape as marks of where the panels should go. forgetting that i was working on glass i leaned to hard and POP CRACK BANG the window cracked right down the middle in a beautiful diagonal. bummer.

the good part is that i probably would not have gotten all four done on time anyway and instead i will have three - the complete series - done to present at Open Studios.

an another installment for the long list of sh*t that can and does go wrong.

2006-10-16T19:34:00.000-07:00

mostly i have fun telling the tales of all the stuff that goes wrong. but sometimes it bugs me. like the other day. a clear example of the scramble my brain took from the chemo and never fully recovered! I had these wonderful brochures to go out about the open studios coming up. they were specifically for artists in the Sunset district of California - calling attention to how easy we are to see. I personalized them by circling my house on the neighborhood map, circling my contact info and securing a little insert about my new work. I spent hours putting this together and then dug up some stamps i had. They were lovely, each with a different building famous for it's unique architecture. I stopped and wondered, was the postage correct? I couldn't remember when i'd bought them, or when the last time postage was raised or what the postage is nowadays. So i had a brainstorm, i rifled through the mail that had come the day before. most of the mail had stamps that said "First Class" and not the amount. then i found one stamped with a meter that said 37 cents. Great! my stamps are 37 cents! So i stuck them on until i ran out and skipped down to the corner (OK I don't skip anymore what with one thing and another!) and happily deposited my first bundle of advertisement for the Open Studios. Whew glad to have that done it think - clueless as usual. well it came out the next day when i was sending my daughter to the post office to get more and i said to her - get a hundred 37 cent stamps - No my husband says 39 cents. 39? your kidding right??
well of course he wasn't and there was nothing i could do about tossing all that time and effort and money in the trash - cuz you know i won't get them back til after the open house and they will have ugly stamps all over them about how i have melting butter for brains.

But i noticed that i have a really different attitude about these things than i did when i was young. I used to have such a hard time with my art because i would visualize it and then things went wrong and it never came out like it was in my head, which meant i had failed to express myself and i likely tossed it out. Now i see that it's part of being in the material world that manifesting your vision is full of twists and turns and unexpected bends in the road. it's from these challenges that the art really gets made: in solving the problems, trying a different way or actually liking the way the materials took on a life of their own and created something maybe even better than your original vision.

I figure most of those people in that first mailing didn't really want to get the mailing so it all turned out for the best! Today i sent out over 100 more - with 39 cent on each one!

working wtih silk the saga continues

2006-10-16T18:19:00.000-07:00

It's not the silk that's difficult it's the darn mac printer driver for my lovely r2400 printer.

it's not apples fault. the driver is made by epson and they were just plane lazy not including basic functionality that's in the widow's version of their driver etc. so the issue in this case is printing banner prints - and getting the printer to act nicely.
the driver does not include predefined banner sized paper. so you have to "define" your own paper. I made one up and ran a test print using my new silk scarf ironed onto the freezer paper (see below). it started the print in the middle and stopped after about 11 inches of ink. bummer!
so i did a little research and found this really helpful personal website called convolutedbrian (http://www.convolutedbrian.com/epson-r2400-custom-roll-paper-sizes-macintosh.html). The fellow is

I used his advise to use the specific width of 13.14 for my custom printer and then asked for 44 inches.

I cut up a roll of plain paper for the second test, rather than make a mess of my silk. based on his experiments i made the paper longer than 44 inches because the printing always starts 2 inches into the paper with this method.

And my test went very well - except that it never fully ejected the paper and attempts to force the printer to spit it out caused it to pull the paper back up into it's innards and spew it out the slot for the exiting of very think materials which one feeds through the front. this is not ok cuz it rumpled it and put smudges on the paper. so i guess that's another step to research cuz mr convoluted doesn't mention this problem, he's working with rolls that he cuts off as the prints come out.

I will not be beaten - i will get this printed as i want it!

(BTW it looks like I'll need to pump up the saturation to get the colors i want on the silk.

SF Open Studios in the Sunset featuring kayla's daydreaming arts

2006-10-16T18:17:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone:

I'm very excited to announce the upcoming SF Open Studios run by Artspan http://www.artspan.org/open_studios.php

Each weekend different neighborhoods participate in this city-wide event so that you can plan a tour of studios near each other.

October 21 and 22 is the weekend for The Sunset where my new daydreaming arts studio is located, so I want to invite everyone to come for a visit.

It's worth the trip to see my new work (http://daydreamingarts.home.comcast.net/) as well as some of my classics. My latest work has taken an excited bend in the road toward more abstraction in my photography while utilizing more mixed media
work. In addition to framed art in 16 x 20 or 11 x 14 sizes I will be showing handmade books, cloth books with handmade dolls, image transfers with mixed media, note cards, tiny framed art, works on silk and on found objects -- including my pride: silk and acrylic on several beautiful windows.

My new studio on 19th Ave in San Francisco has fantastic light and room for multiple simultaneous projects in a comfortable and safe environment. Download this brochure http://www.sunsetartists.com/os2006.htm which shows my studio as #10 on the map: 2169 20th Avenue - just off of Route 1. It is a real working studio so you can see my process, not just my product.

The Artspan website has information concerning the Open Studios event: http://www.artspan.org/open_studios.php ; a search engine to find artists' studios by numerous criteria: http://www.artspan.org/search.php ; and information about the exhibit of some artists' work (including mine) in a SomArts Main Gallery in SOMA: http://www.artspan.org/open_studios_exhibit.php

Come see my latest work and my new studio October 21-22 from 11 am to 6 pm.

kayla garelick
daydreaming arts

kaylagarelick@mac.com
http://daydreamingarts.home.comcast.net/
http://daydreamingarts.blogspot.com/

working with silk

2006-10-12T22:24:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to work with that wonderful silk from Jacquard my friend gave me.

She gave me 2 packages, each with one long thin silk scarf. SO SOFT!

I'm trying to press it before putting it on the paper to print and i can't get the creases out. should i: 1) be more patient and keep ironing; 2) turn up the heat past the silk setting; 3) hand wash the silk to get the creases out; 4) other?

well after extensive use of 1 and 2, i finally I got to 3 and got the creases out by wetting the scarves and pressing them again.

then i ironed the long silk scarves onto a very long sheet of freezer paper. This will allow me to feed the silk through my printer and print directly onto the silk with the paper holding it steady.

boy was that hard. in the end i convinced myself that all the imperfections are what will make the scarf special, not your K-mart reproducible fake painted scarf. but i'm rationalizing in part cuz i really found it so hard! nothing wanted to stay put.

i had imagined being able to iron the silk on nice and straight. instead it wiggles like trying to put jello thru a pasta machine!

I may start all over tomorrow ironing on a table top, not using the ironing board like my friend suggested.

I will do my first print tomorrow.

the image is the one i made for the scarf. it's a composite of several of my images. see how talented i am!

what NOW?!?!?

2006-10-12T22:20:00.000-07:00

for my cloth book I've printed a bunch of images on lazertran so i don''t have to sew quite so much.

the sewing's getting hard. the more dolls and other stuff get sewn on the harder it is to put the next thing on, I've taken to rolling up the dolls etc in the sides of the book like a scroll and pinning them with clothes pins so i can move the sides through the sewing machine without destroying the things already sewed.

i was sewing a doll's clothes on, watching the little thumb twist screw that holds the needle on bumping into the doll's head. I watch carefully, worried that it was going to ruin the doll's head. well it all went fine, i finished that and moved on to sew on the next then when BANG! CRACK! POW!

the sewing needle starts to fall out.

I stopped the machine pronto and nothing got broken but it sure came close!

the little thumb screw had slowly been unscrewed by bumping into the doll's head.

every step is an adventure!

it's so absured it's funny all the things i can stumble accross to break!

i really do love my Mac but this is absurd

2006-10-12T22:13:00.000-07:00

I'm in the middle of so many things at once. like a mailing list! OMG! I have an old list made with Apple Works, a Mac program and a new list made Address Book, another Mac Program.

Can get either to import the data from the other! Of course Not! Can I get either program to export something the other can read? of course not! Just because they are both basically data bases made on a a Mac. don't be ridiculous!

So far i'm just printing out labels from the 2 programs. i also added all the names from the hall of flowers show.

i went to add the names of families who's kids go to SOTA where my daughter goes. but i got overwhelmed - the mailing list is over 43 pages long and in PDF so it won't simply import.

and i really don't want to send out that many!

So i said - ok , just the Theatre students. (my daughter's in Theatre.)

it was still too much, so i'm only 1/3 through the copy and paste. Maybe i'll limit it to kids in her class ...

the Sunset group has a really nice brochure. I'm sending these out to announce the Open Studio. I have such a gold mine in the list of people from SOTA that i think i'll either buy more of the brochures or make a post card of my own. I like the brochure cuz it looks professional and makes it seem like a nice sized event. but the image for my piece is small. they all are cuz that's the way it is with several artists and ads and all that.

I printed labels but could not figure how to do the return labels with the program i had so I downloaded this thing from Avery. what a disaster. i got it done, but it really should automatically repeat the one address. I was probably not paying attention. I also printed out a little blurb about my new work to stick inside. i wish i'd has some nice paper to print it on. But all my good stuff is too heavy.

i love my mac! but...

2006-10-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately Address Book ( a native program on my Mac) just can't get it right. It guesses what i mean to be typing, before i've even hesitated ... as tho i actually want it's help, and it goes right ahead an puts its guess there unless i actively delete it.

for example, I spell my name in lower case letters, but no one else in my family does. but if i attempt to type our last name in a field Address Book insists on making it lower case, even tho i started out with an upper case G. so i try to handle it by back spacing and adding a capitol G . but it lowers the case automatically. So i try to really fool it by adding an uppercase G between the lower case G and the rest of the name (this works with other programs) so i can go back and delete the lower case g after. But no, now it types the whole name in front of the new G so instead of "Garelick" I end out with gGarelickarelick. If i go ahead and leave it, it turns the new upper case G to a lower case.

what a waste of time.

then there's guessing at first names. I have a friend named Jonah. guess what happens when i start an entry for my friend Jon. But do i notice? No cuz i hunt and peck so i'm not looking at the screen to see that Address Book has added info to the field when i didn't ask it to.
and forget it for people named Michael. I have a relative Michael who's married to Gretta (nice gal) so to save time i made their entry say Michael-Gretta. now Address Book adds -Gretta to every Michael i know, just by my action of tabbing to the next field. OMG it did this for a client and sent out an e-mail like that before i noticed that Address Book had added my friend's wife to my clients name!

I hope you all find my examples amusing. I hope even more that someone will say - oh yeah they fixed that in May just go to the preferences and toss such and such file.

getting it done

2006-10-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

In the last week i have been very busy getting realy for open studio. I continue to work on my cloth book, the windows photo prints and i've started work on a silk scarf. I'm fixing the templats for the backs of cards which have the old address and getting a mailing out. here are some stories to share:

I'm bummed cuz i broke one of my windows today. I was measuring and putting down pieces of tape for the layout when i leaned too hard on the glass. the crack was so load!

i'm ok about it i guess. but i couldn't help but think about using it broken as symbolic of my fucked up life - i really do break things alot! But even after i taped it up so i could safely more it, it feels very unstable and dangerous.

the cloth book is coming along, considering how little time i have to work on anything, I'm very frustrated with the Jewsih holidays taking time. but i go through this every year.

I'm wondering about whether i should do the street fair at christmas time again.. i think i'd have to renew my license in addition to the fee for the space..

I destroyed my shoulders the other day. "working out" with three pound weights. caused my arthritis to flare up and it hurt hard for a a couple of days. shish!

open studio

2006-09-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

the artists in the sunset - including me!- have made a great brochure which covers just our neighborhood for the SF Open Studios for Oct 21-22 so use the link above to see it and get the map!

catching up is hard to do

2006-09-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

i realized I have not been posting for a while. so today i posted notes on my work from the last month. i don't think i can fix the dates so they will all look like today. I hope to review these and create step by step details on how to do the things i'm doing. but for now, just publishing the notes is enough.

finished first window!

2006-09-29T10:14:00.000-07:00

finished first window!
well sorta finished the first window. I'll have to put some glaze on it tomorrow to make it consistent all over.
It looks so much better than the transfer from transparencies. number ne is the color. it's laying on the table right under the original and the match is great! it's lighter right now but the acrylic is still wet.
boy my back hurts!
too much bending over my work.

windows - the kind made of glass and wood!

2006-09-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

In addition to working on the cloth book and printing fine art photos to frame, I'm working on this huge project putting images on these four beautiful old windows someone threw out, At first i thought was going to do a transfer with Apollo Inkjet transparencies with Golden's soft gel to the window. but because of the scale i started having problems and because of trying to get it to stick to the glass i started mixing various Golden products. Eventually i made an emulsion by building up layers of gel mix on plain transparencies (it peels right off when you need it) and doing the transfer onto that. I then peeled off the emulsion and adhered it to the glass. but i was never happy with this. 1 i couldn't get a clean enough transfer for the look i wanted - always too much "distress." and 2 the colors were shifting because the transparency didn't react that well with the ink, unstable results again!

So then i came up with the idea of printing onto silk and adhering the silk to the window. I did many tests, worked hard at color correction and eventually settled on silk for Colortextiles. what follows is some of my notes on that process.

I use Photoshop CS to color correct. I have a curve just for Epson's "velvet fine art" paper profile for their R2400. I adjust for the apparent changes i can see on the screen from applying that paper profile. This curve is purely a tonal adjustment: a curve on an adjustment layer in the RGB that adjust midtone contrast and is set to "luminosity." I can transfer that adjustment layer to any image i'm going to print on that paper.

I found that the velvet fine art paper profile works best when i'm printing out using the matte black on a not so matte surface. with Colortextiles, once i apply the paper profile and add the midtone color contrast curve, it matches what's on the screen.

w/ the blumenthal, the paper profile adjustment didn't work. when i was testing it to use w/ the windows (i don't care for projects like the faces of the dolls), i had to apply an additional curve for the difference between what it looked like on the screen and how it printed on the silk. Actually i used selective color because when i used curves i could see the black and white and grays of my test strip were taking on color. when i used selective color, only the color i was adjusting changed.
But it was too much and there was banding -metamerism.

I made a decision about which images to use for the windows.

the original idea was that the images were all different stages of the cycle of earth: rock, sand, rotting plants and renewal in new plants. But when i worked with my old sand images i didn't think they were strong enough to interact with the leaves in the stream, (the rotting part where soil gets made). Also, although I have a ton of rock pictures, many of them are old scans that might not appreciate being blown up to 17 x 25!

Today i found that one of the recent beach pictures i took with the lens baby had a strong design element in the sea weed that interacted nicely with the leaves in the stream.

to that i added recent succulent plant image. now the cycle idea has loosened up a bit cuz of the sea weed in the sand picture. so it was suddenly OK to use a rock picture that's about 1/2 green plants (the rock is a strong orange from the carotene moss very strong colors support the idea of the strong rock) and that the moss showed an advanced stage of break down of the rock. so the concept is muddied. Still this one fit in a design way too.

all the curves and diagonals play off of each other. I put them in a low res photoshop file and messed with the opacity and created a drawing layer to get a real feel for how the shapes and colors interact. I also played with the blending modes, i'm not sure why! but anyway. i feel comfortable with the choice so i can begin the process of preparing the images to be printed on several sheets of silk ($$$$!!!!) after blowing them up and all. once i get the first one done i'll feel more comfortable ordering more silk. I wish i could afford those big rolls ... but it's ok. fitting together the 8.5 x 11 sheets gives me an opportunity to represent window panes on the windows.
(coming soon - why i changed my mind)

peeling of the backing - not!

2006-09-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

today i had trouble with one piece of silk, a teenaged face - spent way too long trying to get the backing off the silk.

I had it sit this time at least a week before ironing it as the directions say, and letting it cool. But after i ironed it, the paper and glue did not peel cleanly.

so i worked and worked. I eventually got the back wet to soak off the paper. now it's as hard on my fingers as a transfer from a print on paper using Golden gel! further, all the work i did abraded the pigment on the silk and made scratches. one of the disadvantages of pigments over inks is that they sit on top more and don't sink in as inks do.

Then the next 3 faces, cut from the same page of silk printed at the same time, came right off! AAUURRGGG!!! well i guess i should be pleased when it works but it makes no sense to me when it doesn't.

when i ironed it, i noticed that some yellow stained the cloth i'd put underneath -- just like with the Lazertran for light cloth and i'm thinking the Epson ink doesn't like heat!!!! (actually that doesn't make sense cuz it does not hapen with Lazertran for dark materails which also is heated to peel off the back.)

fortunately the faces on the blumenthal silk are small.
hey you want to buy an unopened roll of this stuff????

I thought i was going to use it for smaller projects but if it's so hard to peel i'm not sure it's worth the effort!

Anyway, as a result of scratching the face, i changed what was to be the picture used as the dolls face for the teenage page. I will use the now scratched up face as a secondary pic. in the background. but by then i was getting careless and sewed the face on right side out so it was wrong side out when i turned it.

no problem, i just painted it with water colors.

6 hours later i will have the next head in the book done. sigh!

it looks good tho.

so i think i'll print out some photos, so straight ahead. no fuss no muss. when one's computer is behaving that is!

more on doll faces

2006-09-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

well i couldn't sleep this morning so i got up and finished stuffing all the little hands for the dolls in the book. and then i cut out the first of the faces. ironed the back off the blumenthal silk and sewed it to the tea dyed cotton back of the head.

My concern had been that i'd printed the faces too close together and wouldn't be able to sew the face to the back for lack of a seam allowance. Well i had to sew close to the edge so i sewed over it 3 times. I know from stuffing the hands that if the seam allowance was too small, it would break right through when i stuffed it. and my machine has limited capabilities so the smallest stitch is not so small. It came out fine. it's a smaller head overall than i'd pictured in my head, with no space between the end of the image and the start of the cotton for the back of the head. But it looks fine cuz it's a grown up head. i think for the baby and little kid faces i will be sure to print with a seam allowance in mind so the head can be rounder and the face set off from the back.

doll faces

2006-09-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

I'm making a fabric book that has little rag dolls in it. their fasces are photos printed out on the silk.

I'm using some the baby pictures i had scanned in. They are some old black and whites that i then made look as tho they were hand colored using Photoshop.

I remembered my previous efforts at actually hand painting a print and i knew i needed that undo button on the computer!

I used a painting layer. i then blended the layer using "color" or "soft light" blending mode for the layer. One got complicated around the eyes and i ended up having three layers, one with just the eyes repeating, blended with "soft light."

of course i spent way too much time fixing up the old photos. I'm also using images of grown up shots that are mostly old IDs i scanned in. one was a NY driver's license which puts a moiré pattern over your face. many of the lines for the face are lighter than the moire pattern cuz it was over exposed. But it's the fading away that i liked about it, so i actually spent time erasing these lines so you could make out the face!

OCD and tiny threads!

2006-09-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

Ok be truthful, all you who work with this silk you can print on -- how much do you fuss with the little tiny threads and hair like fuzz on your silk????

This is definitely bringing out the OCD in me! ha ha ha ;-}

I'm getting gorgeous prints on the chine that i got from Colortextiles for my window.

i'm excited!
I 'm simultaneously sewing the little hands for the dolls for the cloth book. I can sew and stuff an arm in about the time it takes to print out a panel for the window!

colortextiles and light

2006-09-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

my Colortextiles samples came and i really like the crepe de chene "14" for the window project. it's got the right amount of variation in the thread and seems to throw more light. I think I'll use the blumenthal for cloth books cuz it seems stronger.
As i was falling asleep last night i saw one side of the window with silk and the other with a gel transfer.

humm... i wonder how that would really look.

I signed on to the fabric group at yahoo groups and i'm reading through old posts.

I'm going to move my studio into the living room and the living room into this room, which is the dining room. I will get alot of resistance but i'm in this house all day and they are here for a few hours everyday. Morey's "study" (my son's bedroom when he's not in college) is bright and sunny (when there is sun in this fog belt) and it has access to the deck. my daughter's room is twice the size of our bedroom and she pretty much has exclusive use of the family room, which is the same size.

The dining room where my studio is has no natural light. it's window looks out to the front stoop which has a roof and a gate. the stoop has a sunroof but it doesn't let much light through.

can you tell i'm shoring myself up?

more on printing on blumenthal silk

2006-09-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

this morning i ironed the sample from last night and pulled off the backing. it looks lighter, and seems to have left behind some yellow, but i don't miss it.

so i might only want to reduce the ink desity only 25% - depending on the purpose of the piece.

i found it sticks to the glass nicely when i use a mix of Golden's soft gel gloss and GAC 200. I'm testing to see if it looks a little more translucent if i wet it first so it absorbs more water from the gel. But it's tones better than the lazertran for looking glowy in the light.

I did loose some detail. Should i do extra sharpening? hum...

i also ordered sample packs of the Colortextile cotton and silk. I went ahead and ordered some ink from them as well cuz they have a baseline shipping cost per order. I don't have the cash flow to order a whole $100 worth of stuff to get free shipping. Sheesh! at amazon it's only 20!!

and i am interested in the organza but i have to wait til next month..

color correcting blumenthal silk

2006-09-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

well I spent a whole lot of time messing with the curves in Photoshop, trying to get the color right on the blumenthal silk. I have gone full circle and i'm really scratching my head on this. basically one way to fix a picture is to take a curve on an adjustment layer (if you have elements use selective color i suppose -but the curve is so neat to look at!) and make the screen look like the print out and then make a new adjustment layer curve with the opposite info! but the bottom line is that something that seemed to have stopped working (switch input/output numbers) is working again.

an interesting thing is that curves is represented as a line indicating from 0 (darkest) to 255 (white) on a pure diagonal. if you pull the line up from the mid point, you make the middle pixels lighter and if you pull them down they get darker.

So you'd think the "opposite" of one curve would look like it's mirror. but some how it doesn't. instead it seems that it's upside down and backward! so i'm shaking my head and got my son in to help me think it through.

Anyway. the main adjustments i'm making are tonal just the blacks and whites and grays. i'm learning that the color adjustment can be much less if you fix the tonality first. this is easier for me to do now that i work with this nifty test strip (little squares of white to black in 21 gradations) with a color gradient rainbow thing. I add a swath from the picture i want to print.

i can say for sure that i have to reduce the ink 33% --that really helps (BTW since writing this i have found that silk that i cut and put in a plastic bag and got back to a couple of weeks later did not need the ink reduction.)

well the fix just came out of the printer. it looks ok but i have to wait to see it in the daylight (or should i say fog light!) to be sure. the light in this room is bad. I can see that, from reducing the ink, the dark colors look better and the light colors got too light.

to do the fix in levels slide the mid point slider to the left to lighten the midtones and then on the output at the bottom move the darks slider to the right to lighten the blacks. you could do it in selective color too where you'd lighten the blacks and grays.

instability

2006-09-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

the blumethal silk is acting completely different!
oh boy! i don't know what's up but my new roll of blumenthal is acting completely differently from (than?) the stuff i had before. I guess the main difference is that i didn't worry about how much ink was going down before, set it up like it was paper. but my new roll is clearly unhappy with how much ink is going down! ink everywhere, what a mess!

I'm wondering if the product has this much variation or if the silk I had gotten from my friend was really old or something.

the good news is that except for the extra ink, which i know how to solve, the color is looking good with little adjustment.

in other words it seems to have the right colors but just too much of it all.

i have to wait for it to dry enough to cut it off the roll so i can print the next thing.

as usual i ran into some strange restrictions with the Epson R2400. I'd been using the borderless manual roll setting and feeding cut silk through the roll slot even though it wasn't on a roll.

when i got my new roll i decided to set it up like a real roll. BUT Epson's roll paper sizes don't include 8.5!

Seriously.

i put the roll handling things on the ends of the roll. these things let the roll spin and attach to the back of the printer. they attach fine to the roll but they won't then attach to the printer because the tabs on them don't line up with the slots on the back of the printer.

the roll won't fit on the printer unless it's 8.3 inches! every roll out there is .2 of an inch too big!!!

what are they thinking?

so, being too lazy to start cutting sheets, i tried what i thought was a shortcut. whenever i'm lazy and try a shortcut, i almost always end up doing twice as much work.

this was one of those times.

i left the roll in the roll handing things and put that on a shoe box so the roll sat above and behind the roll feeder. i put the cut edge in the roll slot, just like i'd done with the cut sheet. The idea was that the silk would feed into the back roll slot but with out attaching the roll to the printer.

the Epson took the paper and had trouble lining it up, which it does sometimes. but i couldn't get it to reset properly, pushed the wrong button and instead of it backing up to try again, it starts pulling out _all_ the silk off the roll! O NO!!

a real I Love Lucy moment if you know what i mean.

it gets to the end of the roll and the printer starts spinning like crazy because the silk is firmly taped to the end of the roll and won't come through! The printer is not going to stop til all the silk is thru. i jumped up, reached over and yanked the silk off the roll while quickly ripping the tape off the end of the silk so it wouldn't go into the printer and gunk it up!

So there was all my silk laying curled up on my printer table.

I rolled it back up, put it back on the shoe box, and fed it in the Epson again. yes i _am_ a glutton for punishment.

But before going any further i decided to read the rest of the directions. The directions provided by Epson show being able to choose a banner setting after setting the print perimeters. there is one option option for banner and one for separate pictures with spaces. this tells the printer when to stop. It allows you to to print your prints print right next to each other with no spaces in between.

but i didn't see this option. so i messed around and determined that this option only becomes available when you choose "banner" in page set up first. (so you can choose banner there and change your mind in the next dialogue?) a regular choice of manual roll paper doesn't give you the banner choice.

Ok fine. i chose the banner setting and you won't believe this, i lost the velvet fine art setting! all the others with the good paper profiles have become grayed out as well. what the ___! ?!

How on earth can the printer's ability to stop at a certain point and not advance the paper have anything to do with the paper profile used?

So with a big sigh i fed the paper in there anyway, and this time it set up fine.

it actually fed pretty nicely, until the end when it started spewing all the silk out again! OMG! so reached over and pushed the right button this time and it stopped, and started backing up! oh no! i'm imagining that it's going to back right up into the printer and gunk everything up cuz there's all that extra ink sitting on top of the silk!

amazingly it stopped at what looks like a nice pace to start the next picture if i'd actually sent a full 11 inches to the printer. but the epson believes it's jammed. and i don't want to press anymore of those buttons till i get the over saturated silk off the end.

well i think writing this gave it time to dry. back to work.

yeah it is kinda fun, although right at the moment that i think i'm about to trash my printer.

i'm not laughing!

blumethal silk

2006-09-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

I've been testing the blumenthal silk on my Epson 2400 all morning. the only paper profile that comes close to looking good on the silk is the "velvet fine art" setting. I'm on a roll getting the color as i want it and conquering the ins and outs of the back manual feed thing. (i couldn't get to "velvet fine art" without it. )

I just hit the wall tho -- the last print was off and i'm too tired to figure out where to go next.

I wanted to mention that i think it's really interesting that when i print out the tests the colors shift but not the blacks and whites and grays. I use a color test strip that has a section of blocks of B&W from white to black 22 steps, and a ranbow of color, plus little pieces of chalenging art of mine.

when i print it out no color is introduced into the B&W blocks. so if i try to fix a color shift globally i begin to introduce a color shift into the grays! so i think that leaves fixing it with selective color only.

tea dyed fabric

2006-09-29T06:35:00.000-07:00

i just made two of my very own tea dyed fabrics. very cool. one is for my dolls that go in the cloth book the other is some lace i'd cut from a curtain that was way too white to be attractive.

the lace i dyed in plain old tea which came out a mellow tan. the cotton i added a bit of chai tea which made it much pinker.

yesterday i finished deconstructing the canvas closet organizer and started the cloth book with the main portion - sewing some batting onto one side, stitching where the page breaks will be. I'm making it a concertina (continuous zigzag) but floppy, in the style of a baby book i saw once. I started working on an image from when i was recovering. my mom took it while i was taking pictures at muir woods.

I like the symbolism, but it's too small not enough info so yesterday's photoshopping goes in the trash. I have others.

working with cloth

2006-09-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

i just made two of my very own tea dyed fabrics. very cool. one is a plain cotton for my dolls that go in the cloth book the other is some lace i'd cut from a curtain that was way too white to be attractive. I may use some of it in the book and save some for another mixed media brojest.

the lace i dyed in plain old tea which came out a mellow tan. the cotton i added a bit of chai tea which made it much pinker. I tried dyeing a ssoft stretch terry cloth but it ended up just looking like a dirt rag. I tried dyeing it two different times. I don't understand the difference. I'm going to try to rescue it with a coffee dye. I wonder if i can use instandt!

yesterday i finished deconstructing the canvas closet organizer and started sewing together the cloth book using the main portion of the canvas - sewing some batting onto one side, stitching where the page breaks will be.

I'm making it a concertina (continuous zigzag) but floppy, in the style of a baby book i saw once. I started working on an image from when i was recovering. my mom took it while i was taking pictures at muir woods. I like the symbolism, but it's too small not enough info so yesterday's photoshopping goes in the trash. I have others.

Ok be truthful, how much do you fuss with the little tiny threads and hair like fuzz on you silk???? This is definitely bringing out the OCD in me! ha ha ha

I'm getting gorgeous prints on the chine stuff i got from color textiles for my window. i'm excited!

oh, check out this art in a real life gallery:

here's a mixed media artisit who incorporates old photos of her family in her work
http://www.bquayartgallery.com/archive/rayner2006.html (click on the images for bigger versions).

I particularly like the cyanotypes and the looking glass.

and

http://www.bquayartgallery.com/archive/rayner.html
some of her older work.
the thing that looks like a candelabra is filled with wax encased photos of her family.

here's a different artist at the same gallery.
http://www.bquayartgallery.com/archive/austin.html
I see the note that the piece is sold and i really want to know for how much!!

black and white

2006-08-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

really grayscale. i think maybe my latest beach photo, a lensbaby interpretation of a broken shell, is better as a grayscale cuz when i converted it, out popped this face!
so the color was a distraction from the form. it was the color of the grains of sand.
but to add interest i reduced the opacity of the layer that i used for the channel mixer and let a little color thru. this actually made it eery - like a skeleton!

beach again and color

2006-08-10T19:47:00.000-07:00

This morning i went down to the cold foggy, windy beach with my camera, lensbaby attached, and took sand pictures. Fun to revisit the subject from the warped perspective of the lensbaby. But i had the strongest macro lens on and that meant being inches from the subject. So i'm down on my knees in the wet sand, keeping one eye and both ears on the surf so i can jump up when the occasional larger wave sends more wet bubbles my way. I got out of the way every-time but i was wet and very cold at the end. The pics are interesting. see it you can see it with the profile - maybe open in photoshop too see the warm colors - the foam i was shooting was yellower than the foam that disappeared quickly.

I've been so wrapped up in working on my widows. following my teaching advise to test your application. I thought i had a great solution to the challenges of transferring photos to the glass when i decided i did not like the look at all and now i've switched to other materials. So i'm back to experimenting before i print out and transfer. the interesting part is trying to get the color i want. When i first thought of transferring images it was because i wanted to move a picture with perfect color from a paper with controllable attributes like a paper profile and consistent professional level paper production to a surface that was more artistic but without the controllability - watercolor paper, canvas etc.
The method for doing that is hard because it involved rubbing off the paper from the back of the acrylic gel emulsion. this killed my hands. So i started working with overhead transparencies and lazertran. they don't have profiles but they seem well made. But with the overhead transparencies i had problems getting clean transfers when i worked big, so i switched to lazertran for my big project. I'm currently in the middle of doing color tests. changing one thing at a time, printing out swaths of color waiting for things to dry, then transfer it and wait for that to dry and then compare with the image on the screen. painfully slow. But the color is important to me. when i worked with the overhead transparencies the first time i was so excited about getting the image to stay on the window that i did not work to correct color problems. but then it slowly got to me, how it was off. Also that it was too distressed ( places of lift where the ink does not transfer). I feel like maybe i'm crazy cuz no one else i know tests this much.
maybe i like testing! i'm the daughter os a scientist afterall ya know!
I have also been working on generating a handout that was supposed to be given for my last workshop. Oh boy, the dangers of cut and paste! the material is mostly a compilation of information at the Golden and Lazertran websites, with some quoted material from the yahoo group, with my running commentary throughout. Boy is it long! It was so unwieldy that i had to actually make an outline to determine the organization i'd given it and rewrite the outline to get things is a more comprehensible order. I can't remember the last time i outlined something!!! I guess i'll ost it here when i'm done.

teaching again

2006-07-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

I am so happy to be teaching again!
I had not been teaching the elders at El Cerrito as of late because their schedules were not working with mine.
Then we moved to San Francisco.

Right after moving across the bay I was in a group art show. Art on the Avenues with the Sunset Artists Society. It was my first juried show. I brought along several works in progress. This created many opportunities for conversation. Over and over people said i should give a workshop.

So I did!

It was so much fun for me and the participants.
The class was about transfer technologies and people who came were artists. Photographers especially.

Things i liked about giving the workshop:
It was all my own curriculum, I was not working with someone else's idea of what should be taught.

We explored some new things and some things that are still experimental - that i have been experimenting with.

The people in attendance were highly competent, they were good artists and well versed in using their media.

Somehow it was fun. I'd like to see the key to that cuz sometimes a class won't be and i'm not sure what makes the difference.

Of course i did way too much prep work for it. but i'm assuming that i will get ready with less effort if i do it again.

I also will think more seriously about giving other workshops. I have many in the planning stages.

Since i posted last I have updated my website. See the link above.

e-mailing posts - i still have to

2006-03-03T11:52:00.000-08:00

well i'm really not sure i understand the e-mailing posts feature. today i signed on for the first time since i sent in the e-mail posting. it wasn't posted but was saved as a draft so that i could hit the publish button today. very useful! not.
oh dear and look at that formating! what a mess. oh well.

test the e-mail posting feature

2006-03-01T08:15:00.000-08:00

Today I''m testing 2 features. one is the ability to send the blog to
someone by e-mail. if that worked, and you know who you are, leave a
comments so i know. i've opened up commenting so you can post a comment
even if you aren't a member of blogspot.
the other feature is the ability to e-mail in my blog. with this
feature i write up my blog in my email program and hit send and we'll
see how it turns out.
I suppose this would be useful if you only had dial up.

what happens to a photo when I post it here

2006-03-01T07:59:00.000-08:00

I've been experimenting with what happens to a photo when i post it here. I had made a large file for my daughter to print at school. it was a jpeg but i'd saved it with a resolution of 300 and kept the size at about 5 by 5. When i uploaded it here and then right click to save back on my hard drive, the fine folks here at blogspot had kept the dimensions but dripped the resolution to 72. So this is definitely not the way to share a file that you want your grandma to download and print. This is very interesting!