Shooting and adjusting excellent detail photographs

I just read a post on the Beadlust blog by Robin Atkins, Taking and Editing Quality Photos of Beads and Beadwork... it’s an excellent tutorial that would be useful for many types of artwork. It includes the adjustments she uses in Photoshop, including Levels, Shadow/Highlight, Brightness/Contrast, and several more. A before and after image shows how much of a difference her process makes in bringing out the beauty of her beadwork. I certainly learned a thing or two that will come in handy. 

While you’re there, of course, check out the fab artwork made with one of my favorite materials, BEADS! I haven’t posted many of my beaded creations, but above is a butterfly that’s almost finished. He just needs a little repair work where I managed to cut the thread around the outside... oops! This actually was scanned, not photographed... it doesn’t look as sparkly as the real thing, but since I was in a hurry and didn’t follow all of Robin’s steps, that’s probably why.

Quilting Natural Florida 2 exhibit is now open

If you’re in the Gainesville, Florida area from now until April 25, 2010, be sure to stop into the Florida Museum of Natural History. A special exhibit of nature-inspired quilts will be there, sponsored by the Quilters of Alachua County Day Guild. To see the guild’s lovely quilt, appliquéd with the flora and fauna of the state, click here. 


This is my piece, Reaching, that was juried in. We haven’t seen the exhibit yet, but since it’s only about 7.5 X 10 inches, it’s probably the smallest piece in the show. Here is my artist’s statement:


I painted this pine tree directly on the fabric while on location at Highlands Hammock State Park. The twisting branches of pine trees continuously catch my eye, each treetop a unique formation caused by Florida’s weather extremes.

All of the image color is paint, except for the binding fabric. This detail shows the stitching. One drawback of using acrylic is that it causes the fabric to retain needle/pin holes, so it’s best to get the stitching right the first time. I made the mistake of using safety pins to hold the layers together which left a few holes. Using a sharp needle mostly from behind, it wasn’t too difficult to gently pull the threads together to minimize them. 


There are a few more trees that want their portraits done... hope to fit them it sometime soon. I would like to try a larger one that incorporates chunks of fabric in addition to or instead of paint. At long last, the weather is not so chilly now, so that helps. Spring is right around the corner, yay! 

2 new quilting books

A surprising and delightful package arrived last week containing two new titles published by Lark Books. Apparently I had signed up to review books for them months ago, though had completely forgotten about it. I would have written about them sooner, but after starting to page through 500 Art Quilts, I put everything on hold to spend the next few days in the studio putting together an entry for a contest before the March 8th deadline. (Made it, see sneak peek below.)


So, I can personally attest that 500 Art Quilts: An Inspiring Collection of Contemporary Work, definitely lives up to its subtitle. The artwork juried by Karey Patterson Bresenhan into this book presents a wonderful overview of the variety of work being created by artists today using cloth and thread plus many materials that uninitiated readers might not expect. Each full-color photograph is accompanied by a materials and process list that may include newspaper, fusing, drawn threads, charcoal, gauze, stones, tulle, ink-jet printing, grommets, zippers, beads, shibori, and much more.  A portable quilt show in 432 pages (8" X 8"), it is a worthy addition to the books in this series, such as another one of my favorites, 500 Beaded Objects. 

For a more detailed step-by-step book, Pretty Little Mini Quilts can fill the bill. The small (under 36") quilts are original designs by 25 different artists. They include a variety of styles and techniques such as traditional geometric blocks, appliquéd images, a portrait quilt, “drawing” with thread, machine and hand embroidery, vintage fabrics, and the use of embellishments. The directions are clear and should provide enough information for sewers with at least some experience. Compared with the artwork shown in 500 Art Quilts, these projects are simpler overall and require relatively standard materials and techniques. The 144 page, 8" X 8" book includes a table of contents, supply and tool list with general instructions, and an index. 

Last week I wasn’t sure if there was time to pull together an entry for the Quilting Arts 2011 calendar contest, but things came together nicely for once... perhaps my biggest worry was having enough time to print out three 8" X 10" photographs without my printer balking. No problemo, this time. As you can see from the detail, I crocheted some elements, in this case the curly stem on top of a tomato. I was glad to be able to enter again, wish me luck!

From trunk show to quilt study collection

I received some fun news from SAQA recently... my little 8" X 8" piece that had been part of the SAQA 20th Anniversary trunk show has been chosen as one of 55 to be archived in the permanent collection of the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska (Lincoln.) There is more info on this page about how it was made. 

Tropical Dreams l has some novel materials incorporated into it, which is probably why it was chosen for the study center. The shell is painted onto a sparkly sheer turquoise fabric, not too unusual, perhaps. But the fronds of the palm tree are painted, stitched heavy-duty aluminum foil, which is a little offbeat. By the way, the painting on foil technique won’t work on the new, nonstick foil that is available now, so read those labels.

Seen a Giganotosaurus lately?

There’s going to be one on the cover of the book I just finished. Yes, I made the deadline (barely), working until 10 o'clock at night without a day off since about the middle of December. 

Haven’t worked that hard since illustrating my first book in 1984 which was pen and ink with pre-separated color. That meant that I had to color in with pencil 4 black and white “plates” for each spread of artwork, one for each process color of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. No wonder A Number of Dragons took 6 months to illustrate. 

Who knew then that a bunch of people out there would invent the computers, software, and electronic pens and tablets to allow artists to draw and paint digitally? One thing is for sure, the artwork shown above would not exist with those tools. When My Teacher is a Dinosaur is released next fall (hopefully), my buddy Giganotosaurus (Giggy for short) will be staring out from the cover. 

And now, on to reclaiming my normal life again... yay!

A “value-able” Photoshop tip

Checking the values of artwork as you work allows you to disregard color for a moment and evaluate the pattern of light and dark. Transforming the view of an image into black and white is very easy in Photoshop, using a Black and White adjustment layer. 


Many thanks to David Opie (www.spacemandave.com) for this simple but very useful tip.

Select the topmost layer in your document, then create a new layer thusly: go to Layer> New Adjustment Layer> Black and White and poof, the entire image is in grays (though none of the layers below are actually changed.) How does it look now... flat or contrasty, too much dark in one area, too uniform, or whatever? In the case of this Allosaurus on the left, he’s as flat as a pancake and needs some shading and highlighting.

That’s better, isn’t it? The way I’ve been doing the modeling lately is to make one layer for highlights set in Screen mode, then a layer for shading set in Multiply mode, both clipped to the color layer. The same color can usually be used on both layers but because of the different modes, it has a completely different effect. I‘m still not happy with his teeth because they don’t look sharp enough, but that’s a problem for another day! 

Here he is with the Black and White adjustment layer in place. From now on, I’m going to put a B + W layer on top of every image and use it to punch up my artwork. You can turn it off and on by clicking on the eyeball.

I’m still slogging away at these prehistoric illustrations... hope to finish before the next asteroid strikes!

Lost in time...

In case anybody is wondering what has happened to me, this is what I’m working on. Above is the eye of a Parasaurolophus, one of the hadrosaurs. The deadline for this prehistoric book is early February and it’s going to be a squeaker. The only way it has chance of being finished is if I don’t leave the house and chain myself to Photoshop.

It’s freezing here in Central Florida, the dinos wouldn’t last long down here. Hope your new year is off to a good start!