I've been letterpressing my little heart out. I feel so lucky to live in a city where I have all of these fabulous resources (like letterpress classes) so readily available. Here's some things I've been doing: There's more coming soon :D

Its Nice to Be Nice

There's a wonderful cultural movement happening right now, and if your senses are keen enough, you can pick up on it and notice the small wonders people will present to you. When times become hard or stretched, the acts of human kindness become prevalent. You'll notice that people will go out of their way to make small good deeds for others.

Here's an article by my wonderful Mother who is a practitioner and master of good deeds:

It's NICE to be NICE

I’m amazed at how quickly this year is flying by. It’s already spring and summer is just around the bend, and then it will be fall -- you get the picture. I’m always learning so much about health and wellness; I have to tell you that it all starts with your state of mind. So I just wanted to share my thoughts and observations. Who knows, maybe it will help bring about a new perspective.

The news and media: I can hardly watch it; it’s bleak, and depressing. They keep ramming home “these troubled times.” Advertisements: they are doing a great job constantly talking about how horrible everything is for everyone. You would think this is the worst time the world has ever seen. It’s not! My god! Are we, as a society, incredibly spoiled? Stop listening to the media. I mean really. I know that we are in a significant and temporary down turn. Has this happened before? Yes. Will this happen again? Yes. Is it a natural occurrence? Yes. Just like the push and pull of the tides. Do the media companies want to sell papers and generate news? Yes. Do you want to be a pawn in their game? Hmmm, this is up to each and every one of us individually and as a team. I guess what I’m trying to say is, throughout history there have been some really bad events and we have pivoted out of them.

So let’s start to keep our chins up, and look on the bright side. For example, I have been observing, quite by accident, people being nice to each other with random acts of kindness. It warms my heart. They are always small acts but they generate so much positive energy. They bring joy to the people giving and receiving as well as to any witnesses.

I was in line at the 99 Cent Store and the first person in line was purchasing an item that cost $1.99. The cashier said, “I’m sorry but the minimum purchase with an ATM Card is $5.00.” The customer said, “But this is all I want.” The woman behind him had about 8 items and she said, “I’ll buy that for you, sir.” The two of them went back and forth… oh my goodness, how kind, no problem, yada, yada. The third person in line had 2 items and she was so touched by the second woman’s generosity she said, “Excuse me, I’d like to buy all of the items please.” Everyone in the store started clapping. It filled us all with such joy to witness this small act of generosity. We are still talking about it.

Since that day I decided to open my eyes and see if people are being “nice” -- and do you know what I found? They are. It’s everywhere in the smallest ways. Someone says, “Would you like to get in front of me in line, you only have a few items,” or “You look like you’re in a hurry.” Someone stumbles and falls and people stop and help, with genuine concern. I could go on and on.

You would think that with all of this economic nastiness, people would be more uptight and uncaring in their own little worlds. I am saying that it’s just not the case, if we will only look. Let’s start looking for the kindness in strangers. Not only that, let’s start being kind. My Father’s favorite saying since I was a little girl is, “It’s nice to be nice.”

We have to change this world energetically and what better way to do it than by one kindness at a time. So, let’s follow Dad’s example; he’ll be happy that I told you. What do you know, that’s one more happy person out there. You see it’s already working!

Chine Collé!

Chine Collé means "chinese collage" and it's a process of running a collage over your printingmaking paper on the press. I'm having alot of fun with it. Here's some examples:

Nostalgic print

Here's an update to an older etching of mine. I added shading with aquatint.

Etching: Japanese Paint

This is an etching I have made from a drawing I created this year. To me she represents the graceful ideal of femininity as well as the thought of "creating who you are" - because of the way she's painting herself. She is hand- watercolored. You can buy my artwork at my ETSY STORE

New Etching: Girl with Tea

This is an etching I have made from a drawing I created this year. She is so beautiful and peaceful, I find her to be an inspiration of femininity and charm. She is hand- watercolored.

This is a pure zinc plate, etched by acid, over a hard ground resist.
Here's some of the process:
After the plate is made (which i'll explain in another post one day)

I spread ink over the surface and use a combination of starched cheesecloth and newsprint to wipe all the ink away from the "un-etched" areas.

I then carefully place the pl registering it on the bed rulers. ate on the press,Then goes the paper which has been soaked in water, then on top of that lay the thick press blankets, then I turn the wheel and watch what comes out the other side!

Its a wonderful process because everything is so tactile - a wonderful change from creating art on a computer. The print you're seeing is hand watercolored, and I do have 25 of those for sale, as well as 200 plain black & white ones (which is a very classic look) If you want to buy, visit my ETSY STORE

LAYERS TUTORIAL

This tutorial will demonstrate how to add a sun or object behind the white mission building.  This is a good lesson in how to make proper selections by using various selection tools, including the illustrious quick mask mode. You will also see the benefit and practicality of using layers.

Original Image: (You can click on it and save this image if you would like to work with me)

Step One, Making an initial selection: 

What I would like is to have a sun shining behind my building.  The best way to do this is put the building on a new layer of its own, so that I can 

place a sun right behind it and move it around if I would like.  It might be faster to select this sky in this picture because the sky has a relatively uniform, solid blue color - a perfect reason to use the Magic Wand Tool.

Select the Magic Wand Tool by choosing it on the toolbox, or simply press "W" on your keyboard.

If you click on the blue of the sky, you will notice that it didn't do a perfect job of selecting the sky, the reason is because there is most likely a checkbox at the top called "contiguous" that is currently checked.  This is telling photoshop that you only want to select pixels that are touching eachother.  

After you UNCHECK CONTIGUOUS, when you click on the sky, you are telling photoshop that you would like to select that blue color all over your image whether the pixels are directly touching each other or not. 

 If you click on the sky now, it is able to select the areas in the bell windows, as well as to the lower right where the tree branches are. Your selection should now look like mine:

 

Step Two, Refining Selection with Quick mask:

Quick mask is another way to make selections.

It's more creative and intuitive you just need to know how it works and it might become your favorite way to select.

First of all, I'll show you what happens when I click the quickmask button.  It looks like this on your toolbar:

When you activate quick mask mode (either by pressing on the quickmask button shown above or pressing "Q" on your keyboard) photoshop takes your current active selection and turns it red.  Your screen should look like mine: If it does not, read further.

If your building is red and not the sky, it's because of a simple setting that you can change.  To change the setting: Double click on the quick mask button.  You will get the following dialog box.  Make sure that Color Indicates "selected areas" and NOT "masked areas."

You will have to click on the quick mask button again after changing this setting to get into that red mode.  Just for fun, click the quick mask button on and off just to see that the red area will become your selected area.  Now comes the fun part, you can add to and subtract from the red areas NOT WITH THE ERASER, but with a regular paintbrush and some Black & White paint.  Wherever you paint black, it will add to your selection - therefore appearing like you are painting more red.  Wherever you paint white - what do you think will happen? -It will take away from your selection!

Now let's refine our red areas, select the brush tool ("B" on your keyboard) and start painting with white over the areas we don't want selected (like on the bell tower on my image)

I'm now going to further refine my selection around the tree branches, using small brushes to really get it perfect.

Ok, now that i've refined my selection, it's time to get out of quickmask mode.  Simply press Q on your keyboard, and watch what a beautiful selection you have.  

Now here's the catch: In order to put a sun Behind the building I need to make a copy of the building and paste it on a new layer.  What's the deal - We've pretty much selected everything but the building!  That's ok, it's so simple. we simply need to invert our selection, and you access it up in the Selection menu:

Now your selection should look like mine:

Step Three, Duplicating the pixels within your selection

I want to duplicate the building and put it on it's own layer Above the background layer.  Why? Because we're going to put another layer sandwiched between those layers and put a little happy sunshine on it, that's why.

How do you do this? Well, make sure the background layer is active (by clicking on the word "background layer" on the layers pallet and pressing "Command J" on your keyboard.  Your layers pallet should now look like mine, but nothing will look different about your image.

Step Four, Creating the sun on a new layer:

Click on your background layer to make it active (the layer on the pallet should be highlighted in blue) and click on the New Layer button (down at the bottom of the pallet next to the trash can)  You should have a brand new layer called "layer 2" with nothing on it. (If it is not sandwiched between the two existing layers, you can drag it down in the hierarchy of the layers on the pallet itself)

Now with your middle layer active, time to make your sun.  Just use the elliptical marquee tool, changing its feather to "10 px" drag a perfect circle by holding down Shift while you drag, fill the selection with your color.  Now the magic is that you can then choose your move tool (by pressing "V" on your keyboard) and you can move the sun around to anywhere you like.

That's it!  I should let you know that while you're editing in quick mask mode, feel free to lower the opacity of your brush... When you change it into a selection, it will retain the transparent quality that you used when you painted!

 - If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to comment.