Back on August 20th I posted an entry on finding a new source for printing. I recently took advantage of using Printology in American Fork, Utah to print 32 5 x 7 inch greeting cards. I also purchased matching envelopes for a fraction of the cost I have been paying an online company to print 25 4 x 6 cards with envelopes. They turned out very nice and I’m very pleased with how they turned out.
5 x 7 inch greeting cards suitable for framing. The image is 4.5 x 4.5 inches.
I’m going to try and use some of these in a chair sculpture and a few other assemblage pieces.
Pieces of some branches broken from a tree at the back of the condo during a wind storm.
The were an abundance of dandelions growing in the park strip this past Spring just down the street from where we live. I took some pictures to use as references for a painting and finally got around to using them. This was a rather ambitious work with all the flowers.
I'm calling it "Lightly Roaring Without a Sound" because the dandelions were so prevalent as to shout in a visual way "here we are”. Most people don't came for conditions but I thing they're rather pretty. They brighten up the scenery for a short while. Although I haven't for some years, I should get out my recipe for Dandelion Jelly and make some. Of course I would need to make some crumpets to go with the jelly.
Lightly Roaring Without a Sound | 3000 X 3000 px | Infinite Painter 7 | GalaxyTab S7 | October 2022
A long time ago I got a hold of an old hand crank Mimeograph machine that I cleaned up and got in working order. I even found some stencils and ink and a few tools for making stencils. The machine has been long gone for several decades but I still have a stylus I had purchased for creating rules and drawings. I have been using it as a scoring tool and no longer as the tool it was intended to be.
My Sure Rite No. 14-1301 Mimeograph Tool. It is 6 3/8 inches long. I use it now only as a scoring tool when folding paper.
The steel tip is very sturdy and strong with a very small ball end.
Here are a few things that I have been working on the past couple of weeks. I have started working on trying to get caught up with preparing for a gallery show to take place February 2023. The weather has been mostly cooperative to allow me to work on the balcony and build some assemblage boxes so I can finish them up in the studio when winter hits. This let’s me keep most of the saw dust outside as much as possible.
Instead of having my art hang out a little from the wall like below.
This isn’t one of my pieces.
Or like this.
I had this one framed at a local shop.
I like my art to hang flush against the wall like this.
Eye screws can be inserted on the inside at the back of the cradled wood panel paintings.
And like this.
So here is how I do it.
I build the box frames for my assemblage pieces with an inset of 1/2 inch square dowel that I insert the eye screws to. This 1/2 inch border also creates an edge that the back piece of the art work can be glued to.
Couldn’t ask for better weather these days. I have been working out on the balcony quite a bit the last week. I can see the mountains to the east so the air is fairly clean.
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Pieces of a large chair sculpture are being glued together. The mini electric table saw in the upper right of the image is from Micro Mark. The table is a Bora Centipede.
Walking on the beach one morning I came around some rock with the Morro Rock framed to the side and I thought it would make an interesting picture. I started it near the end of August last have been working on it a little bit at a time. I have four Morro Rock pictures including two other coastal pictures I’m working on back and forth.
Cayucos Morro Rock No. 12 | 2306 x 2880 px | Infinite Painter 7 | Galaxy Tab S7
I banged these three chairs out quickly thanks to my mini electric table saw. I cut most of the pieces out yesterday later in the day and finished cutting the last few pieces and glued them then started painting. Here is the first rough coat of white paint. These will fit in a bigger piece than I typically work on.
Most of the wood for these chairs is scrap I had laying around. My metal gluing jig came in handy for gluing the chair pieces together.
I don't have very many high-tech or professional tools so I use what I have on hand.
Paint jars work well as light duty weights in a pinch. The rusty looking rectangular thing is a hunk of metal of some substantial weight that I got from my father in law. It has come in handy hundreds of times over the years.
It's a ladder for a tall narrow piece.
It was time for an art field trip so I took Friday September 9th to truck on down to Utah County in the state of Utah, USA, to visit some art galleries. I started out in Springville at the Springville Museum of Art and worked my way north to the Museum of Art on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo and ended up at the Orem City Public Library to see Abigale Palmers show of oil paintings. Here are highlight of my visits.
My main objective was to see the Mixed Reviews: Utah Art at Mid-century exhibit. I was able to make notes of artists I am not familiar with so I can look them up. Included with the show of paintings are two living rooms with furniture displayed as one might see in home.
Also at the museum is an extensive competition show of quilts. There are many traditional themes as well as some unusual themes.
There is also an exhibit called Soviet Stories: Layers of Reality that is quite nice.
I started off by going to the museum to see the “Monumental Matters exhibit of large sculpture and installations. There aren't very many pieces in this show but the most intriguing and engaging piece is a wall of glass jars filled with Windex in various shades of blue with video footage projected onto the jars.
I paid a visit to the Harris Fine Arts Center (HFAC) to reminisce on days spent there back in the early 80s to see if there were any exhibits on display only to discover the art department has moved completely out of the HFAC to the old Provo High School. The music department remains in the HFAC for now.
I made an unplanned visit to the west campus in the old Provo High School to check it out. The art and design departments have a lot more space available to use than they had on the main campus. The art and design departments will remain there until construction of the new fine arts center is completed sometime in 2025. Stephanie Miller of the design department graciously gave me tour of the design facilities. I tried to visit the printmaking facilities but encountered only locked doors.
Fridays with the art and design departments are sleeper days when no classes are held so there wasn’t anything to see or observe. And the facilities are still under renovation.
My last stop before heading to my brother’s house for a visit was the Orem Public Library to see a show of paintings by Abigale Palmer who I follow on Instagram. I enjoy seeing her work online and since the real thing was so close to where I live I had to see the work in person. The show is titled “All the Colors”. There was to be an opening reception that night but since I’m not fond of driving in the dark I was allowed to get into the hall where the exhibit is hung so I could have a private showing. My thanks to the Orem Public Library.
I need to take more days like this.
Springville Museum of Art north entrance although you are required to use the east entrance. Springville, Utah.
One of several rooms of the extensive quilt exhibit.
This is my favorite quilt in the show.
Soviet Stories: Layers of Reality. Exhibition of painting from the Soviet Union.
One of the smaller paintings from the Soviet Stories exhibit.
Entrance to the Mixed Reviews: Utah Art at Mid-century.
One of two living rooms of the Mixed Reviews exhibit with typical furniture one might see in a home during the 50s and 60s.
Entrance to the BYU Museum of Art on the campus of Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
One of the installations in the Monumental Matters show at the BYU MOA a small show of large works. This one is by Rebecca Campbell and is titled “Two Years Supply: Clean”, 2016. Windex, tin plated steel, glass wood projection. There is a projector behind the spectator that projected a video that made the glass jars shimmer. Now and then one can see a large eye looking back at you. I found this one the most interesting and engaging piece of the whole show.
One Jim Dine’s painted metal word scuptures.
The Harris Fine Arts Center (HFAC) where I hung out part of the time I was attending BYU back in the early 80s is now a ghost town.
One of the gallery spaces for the design department under renovation. The room through the lighted entryway in the middle of the image is the other half of the gallery.
Main wall of Abigale Palmer’s “All the Colors” show of oil paintings at the Orem Public Library in Orem, Utah.
I like these small oil paintings by Abigale Palmer.
Here is another coastal picture I have been working on for a couple of weeks on and off.
Trying to move more in an abstract direction. This scene is basedon a photo taken along the Point Buchon Trail, San Luis Obispo county, California.
Try as I may I couldn’t get to sleep the other night. I tried reading a couple of times and last of all I got the tablet out and created this painting.
First early morning iteration created on September 1st.
A second iteration done few days later on September 3rd.
It may not be a painting or a sculpture or a digital piece of art but it is a work of art nevertheless.
One of my prized music instruments is my McSpadden mountain dulcimer. I haven’t been playing it the past few years and I decided it was high time I get it out and use it. It’s a lot of fun to play and listen to. Christmas is coming soon so I’m practicing and relearning some songs just in case I get brave and play in public should an opportunity present itself.
It has an ebony fret board, spruce top, cherry body, and geared tuning pegs. The case is solid built. I also bought a brass capo and a strap. It is a beauty to look at and touch.
My custom made mountain dulcimer by the McSpadden company in Arkansas. I had a couple of extra frets installed when I ordered it that aren’t normally on most dulcimers. I also had it made with double top strings and extra slots on the nuts just in case I wanted to use four strings instead of three. The two top strings are positioned close together and tuned the same and played together.
Most mornings when I take the dog out for a break one of the first thoughts that comes to mind is, “Take the camera with you “. It's the times I tell myself, “Na don't bother.” that I miss the opportunity to take nice reference photos. This morning was one of those nearly missed opportunities. Fortunately I was able to go back up to the condo, grab the camera, and snap some pictures of morning clouds to add to my collection of cloud photos. During the few minutes it took get the camera, the blue sky was a bit lighter and the light and shadows on the clouds had changed so they weren't as dynamic but still made for a nice picture.
So let that be a lesson to me. Always have the camera on hand because I never know.
Looking west. Taken with the camera in my Galaxy S22 Ultra phone.
The custom tool bar shown at the top of the picture was created by touching the tool panel icons and dragging tools into it that I use most often in this case Fill, Line, Circle, Rect selection, Lasso selection, Wand selection, Clear layer, Export, and Save.
The visibility of the small reference image at the top left can be toggled by selecting the push pin icon at the top right. Or it can be removed.
The visibility of the Layers panel can be toggled by touching the layers icon at the top right. In this case I am using three layers. The bottom layer is the original painting and the layer above it is a duplicate the bottom layer that I have reworked. I can toggle the visibility by touching the eye icon in the top right corner of the layer so I can quickly compare the two versions. The top layer is typically where I add a signature. Some artists use lots of layers but I tend to use not more than five. Often times once I have painting on a layer the way I want it I will merge it with the layer underneath. There are a lot more things one can do with layers that I am discovering.
I usually keep the brush tool bar at the bottom of the screen. This is the tool bar that I use to choose brushes and control the brush size, color, and opacity. I can also choose the eraser which will let me use any of the brushes as erasers. This tool bar can be repositioned by long pressing it then dragging it to another location either docked or floating.
The custom tool bar shown at the top of the picture by dragging out tools from the tool bars next to it that I use most often. The small reference image at the top left can be toggled on or off by selecting the push pin icon at the top right. I can also toggle the visibility of the Layers panel on or off by touching the layers icon also at the top right.
I recently took another look at the Spooner's Cove No. 02 picture I created last year and decided to make some changes to it. I wanted to add some more detail while keeping the abstract theme and retaining the flat colors.
I didn't want to add texture to the colors like I have been doing by brushing over colors with the “Old Oil” brush using the same color which creates slightly darker and lighter streaks then filling it with a darker shade of the color. See the picture below for an example.
The original painting. It didn’t seem as finished as I thought it was and I wasn’t happy with the foreground.
I began by changing the foreground by adding some more shapes and modifying a few colors.
I added some more colors to the foreground and made some changes to the sky, the beach and the small section of waves and rock at the left of the picture.
Using the “Old Oil” brush this texture was created by brushing random strokes over a block filled with yellow using the same yellow color. This created some very light marks. Using the Fill tool with a tolerance setting of 2 or 1, the yellow block was filled with a darker color bringing out the lighter marks.
I created this picture back in 2013 when I first started working with digital medium. My first app was Sketchbook Pro on a Galaxy tablet. The image you see here is after importing it as an Infinite Painter 7 project. I did some tweaking in a few areas and set the dpi at 144 otherwise the image is mostly original. It is part of a series of furniture in libraries in West Jordan, Utah.
One of my favorite chair pictures. I wanted to keep the colors simple and abstract and the picture without a lot of detail except for the texture in the floor which I added in Infinite Painter.
I'm working on a pink version of the orange colored recliner in our living room. I'm trying to figure out what object to put on the seat or one of the arm rests and so for I haven't come up with anything.
I’m thinking of adding this to a series of the same chair in different colors and poses or various kinds of chairs.
The actual chair is orange. I chose to do a pink version with some other unnatural colors surrounding it.
I thought I would show a picture of how I start a digital painting.
I start out by drawing black outlines of objects and shapes in the picture then quickly add flat colors to the shapes. These colors are starting points that I will add textures to and change colors by painting over them or refilling them with other colors.