Jazzman

My Dad loved jazz. He had a wonderful collection of 78s of his favorite artists: Bix Beiderbecke, the Dorsey Brothers, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, Bunny Berrigan, Tex Beneke, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, and so many more. Dad's two great loves (besides his family) were camping and fishing, and jazz. He spent countless hours making his own arrows, and flies for fly fishing, and listening to his jazz records. He would tell me about each musician, and point out to me their solos & style. I learned to recognize the sweet sound of Benny Goodman's clarinet, and the pure artistry of Bix Beiderbecke's cornet. I could pick out Gene Krupa's drum style, and the gorgeous voices of Bing Crosby, and Ella Fitzgerald. At the time I didn't really appreciate Dad's music. I thought it was quaint and dated. However, I did know it was great music. It might not have been my style (I was much more interested in the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkle) but as the years have passed, I love the music more and more. A few years ago I found a CD of old Bix music. He died tragically young, in 1931, so the music was really OLD. I have listened to that album so many times, and I love it! Some of it sounds really dated, but Bix's solos are so timeless and fabulous. Even Annie has shared it with her teenage friends. They think it's cool. I am happy!

Another Soap Label!

More colorizing... this time it's my Mom who gets the treatment. I love this picture of Mom- she looks so glamorous to me! I'm planning on giving her some soap wrapped in the soap label I made last week, but she would NOT like soap wrapped in HER photo. She's much to modest and humble for that. So, I'll give it to my daughters and sisters.

Weekly Bright Idea!

My brother is a fabulous amateur photographer. He is certainly good enough to be a professional, but has chosen another career path. (He is a geologist and teacher). For at least 40 years, Gene has been using the slide format for his work. He's rather a purist, and loves the challenge of capturing the perfect photo in his camera- there's no editing, cropping or darkroom work. Although he has finally purchased a digital SLR camera, he still uses his 'analog' camera for his best work. Through the years, I've seen countless slide shows that Gene has shown. One of the things that has struck me, is how beautiful photos are when projected onto a screen. The reason is, slides are pure film. Since they have not been printed onto paper, the image is simply pure light shining through the film. When you print a photo onto paper, you are limited by the paper itself, which is two dimensional, and the ink, which may or may not replicate the true hues and values of the photographic subject. In a sense, digital images are like those slides. Although many photographers and designers are adept at using Photoshop to edit and enhance their photos, digital images are pretty pure too. When downloaded to our computers, we can then view them through the light of our computer screens. This 'internal light', gives a life to our images that viewing them printed, just can't duplicate. So, how does this relate to digital scrapbooking? Since i love to ramble, I'll ramble, and eventually get to that. When I first started digital scrapping 2 years ago, I printed out every layout I did. I put them into small albums (I scrap at 8x8). It's been so fun to see those albums multiply, and my skills grow. For about a year, I've pretty much stopped printing my layouts. One reason is that the cost of ink for my printer has increased dramatically. Another reason is laziness. I just got behind in my printing, and it was overwhelming to catch up. But another reason is that I love how my layouts look on my computer. I love the glow of the screen, the pure color, and the radiance. When you study painting, you learn that pigments and light are totally opposite. For example, black paint is pretty much every color mixed together, and white is the absence of color. With light, it's the inverse. White light is the presence of all of the light rays, and black is the absence. Maybe that's why I see colors so much richer on my computer screen, and why some of the layouts seem to glow. I like to capitalize on this effect with some of my layouts. It would be cool if all digital photos & designs had a magic inner light, but there are a lot of variables that contribute to the way a photo looks on a computer screen- everything from the quality and calibration of the computer itself, to the quality of the photo. But still, it's magic to me to see photos and layouts, mine and others, on the screen. I think what really hooked me was putting my layout gallery on my iPhone. Now I have a tiny little light box to view our photos and my layouts. Here are a couple of layouts that I think capture an inner light:

Weekend Harvest Festival

Every year my band, the Boney Mountain Mamas, performs at a local Harvest Festival. This year, they had a lovely new performance venue, larger, and completely covered! As we were performing, we were amused to see a flock of blackbirds hopping around on the hay bales, pecking, and presumably finding something yummy to eat. Just as we finished singing one of our favorite Gospel tunes, "I'll Fly Away", the entire flock took flight, and swooped through the tent, and out into the sky. I guess they thought we were talking to them!

Here are a few photos taken at the festival, and the layout I did with some photos taken by Bruce, of our concert. You can hear our band play a tune if you click on the "view my complete profile" on the left side of the page.

Houndstooth

This layout was created for the weekly 2Ps Digital Challenge- fabric inspiration. I loved houndstooth as a teenager, and thought it would be fun to dig up some old photos of me wearing this Sixties standby. I posed Annie wearing a vintage jumper we found, to use as the focal point of the layout.

Weekly Bright Idea!

I've decided to retire my weekly rant... I think I finished ranting about everything I wanted to rant about. I just couldn't think of anything else. If I get mad again later, I'll let you know!

So, what's my bright idea this week? I do have lots of them! I write several monthly columns on Scrapbook News + Review webzine (SNR ) so some of my ideas may be things I have written about before.

Since I like to make everything that goes on my layouts, one of my most important tools is my scanner. I often say I could scrap just fine without a printer, but I couldn't scrap without a scanner. I love to scan all kinds of things to add to my layouts- the only requirement is that whatever object or photo I scan, has to be an integral part of the layout. I'm not a big fan of buttons, flowers, and unrelated stuff on my layout. (I do put flowers on a layout from time to time, but only if it fits perfectly the subject of the layout. I also once put buttons on a layout. The layout was about my Grandmother's button tin). I love to scan memorabilia for my layouts- on the layout on the post below, I scanned the match book, and both sides of a vintage postcard). To me, my layouts are so much more personal with my own stuff on them. It's also a way to get all those special mementos out of the boxes, drawers and closets, and onto my layout pages. End idea.

Happy Memories

Way back when, when Bruce & I were young married folks needing a little break from parenthood, we loved to motor up the coast to Santa Barbara to stay at the blue-roofed Miramar Hotel. The Miramar was a California landmark. With little white cottages, lush flower gardens, and a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean, the Miramar was a family-friendly, peaceful place to stay. For over a hundred years, the Miramar stood with its friendly blue roofs. Unfortunately, the Miramar has stood abandoned since 2000, and today sits in disrepair, awaiting the wrecking ball. There have been several plans to create a new resort where the Miramar stands. Most of the plans have been abandoned as well, and although there is a chance the Miramar will someday rise again, there is no plan to restore those sweet little white cottages.



I created this layout to remember some really good times we shared under those little blue roofs. (Vintage postcard from my collection)

More Pics of my Halloween Display

I'm having fun now!

Do I Really Hate Halloween?

Halloween stresses me out! I'm sure part of it is that Halloween means Christmas is just around the corner, and talk about stress! I'm sure another part of it has been the annual Halloween costume scramble... with 4 grown & nearly grown kids, I've sewn, glued, tied, drawn, and cut countless costumes. (And never used a pattern! Of course, they looked like I didn't use a pattern). Costumes are NOT my forte. I hate to sew, and do it poorly, but I've struggled valiantly to please the kids with their dream outfit. Now that I don't have to worry about the kids' costumes any more, wouldn't you know, Bruce & I have a Halloween party to attend Saturday night, and I have to come up with our costumes? Rats. Maybe we can show up as the Invisible Couple.

The other thing I hate about Halloween is the candy. I try to stock up on candy for weeks before Halloween, so I'm not buying Dum Dums, the only candy left, the night before. I try to buy candy I don't like, since I LOVE candy, but the stuff I don't like, no one else likes either. No one wants a reputation as the neighborhood candy grinch. So, I buy the good stuff. And then I eat it. By the time Halloween arrives, I've been sneaking tiny Snickers bars and munching Twizzlers for weeks. This year I've been good. Not a single bag of Halloween candy has crossed my shopping cart. Yet.

There is one thing I LOVE about Halloween, and that's my Halloween decorations. I have some really cute stuff, most of it is vintage-looking, leering faced cats, pumpkins, witches and the like. I like to put a little display together right inside my front door. So the little tricksters can get a peak when they ring our doorbell on the 31st.

My Summer Vacation Never Ends

I created a lot of layouts about our trip to Eastern Canada this summer, but since I've hardly taken any pictures at all this month, I dug into the archives to do another vacation layout. The Nova Scotia coast was so beautiful and dramatic... we spent one day at Peggy's Cove, enjoying the scenic old-world fishing village. We spent another day climbing a cemetery hill, researching a family member's genealogy.

Sometimes Old Pictures Just Look OLD!

My dream in adding color to my old photos, is to bring them to life a little bit. Those old, sepia photos are fun to look at, but it's just so hard to relate to them. The clothing, faces, hairstyles, are so antiquated. But it's the lack of color that's the hardest for me. I really don't want to try to colorize our entire Western History! I'll still leave the vast, vast majority of them as they are. But it's been fun to play with Luella's photos, and try to give her some new life. Sometimes, no matter how realistic the color (and trust me, I'm not expert enough in colorizing to feel that my color is all that realistic) the photo just looks OLD! I was playing with this very low-contrast, but still lovely profile of Luella. I got a semblance of decent color in it. Not great, but better. But then, as I looked at it, it just looked like it should be a soap advertisement. So now it is. You can click on the images to make them larger. My new Photoshop Colorizing tutorial is up at Scrapbook News + Review here It's subscription based, you can find it in the magazine under Digital Delights.

Weekly Rant!

What is scrapbooking? It's fun to look at scrapbooks of the past... I recently acquired a childhood scrapbook of a family friend who is in her early 70s. She clipped newspaper articles, magazine illustrations, photos of movie stars, comic strips. It's not art, but it gives a wonderful insight into life in the 40s and early 50s. I could look at stuff like that forever. What are we scrapping today? Will the layouts we create give our grandchildren a glimpse into our lives, or some picture-perfect assemblage of stuff? I wish my family had been scrapbookers! I'd love to look at my own Mom's life treasures. What was her life like in high school in the 1920s? What did she wear, what school activities did she participate in? When we kids were little, what places did we visit? What did our house look like inside? When I look at old photos, I not only want to see the faces, but I want to see the backgrounds. Wow, look at that old '58 Chevrolet! Those sure were funny bathing suits people wore at the beach! Today we crop crop crop so much, some of the magic has gone from the photos. In our quest for artistry, we have lost sight of the mundane. I guarantee, some day, we will long to revisit the mundane. Our children and grandchildren will want more, not less of the day to day lives of our families. Maybe our photos won't be perfect. Maybe our pages will have more heart than art. Maybe we can put more of our lives into our pages, instead of putting more pages into our life. (Ok, so I love smarmy prose). End rant.

Breaking the Rules

The illustration on this layout was drawn by me for an illustration class I took for fun at Los Angeles City College in the spring of 1981. Ian was not quite two years old, and I used some of his toys in my artwork. The assignment was to break some design rules... which was totally fine by me! I love to break rules! It was fun to have 4 items in my composition- not 3, not 5! I cropped the teddy off at the eyes, created conflict by butting the drop shadows right at the edges of other objects. I'm sure there were other broken rules, but I can't remember what they were... probably too much white space! I'm glad I took this photo of the illustration, because shortly after I completed it, our house in Hollywood was broken into, and it was stolen. I scanned the photo some time ago, and have been wondering how to scrap it. I thought it would be fun to do a 'photoless' layout. Sort of.

Ok, I'm stopping now!

More fun with colorizing... this old photo (of my same relative) had lovely bones, but horrible quality. Luella is so beautiful, I just had to do something to bring this photo to life. After I did the colorization, I decided to add a background. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it looks really fake. The important thing to consider when Photoshopping people into & out of backgrounds, is to make sure the quality of lighting of both photos is similar. You can't place a photo taken indoors into a background taken in bright sunlight. And vice versa. I was lucky to have some great outdoor photos taken on a cloudy day. I also added a grain filter on the background to match the graininess of the colorized photo and pulled the saturation down slightly. It still looks colorized, I'd love to be able to make a vintage photo REALLY look modern, but the old photos are just difficult to work with. I think it's because they are so OLD! But all in all, I think the results are fun and decent.




*Edited to add: I've had problems making this photo look right. On my computer, the fleshtones look natural, but no matter how many times I repost it, she looks kinda surreal & ghostly. I'll just 'chalk' it up to web issues. That will get me off the hook! If I get it better, I'll repost the photo.

Middle Schoolers Are Great!

Today I had a fun experience- I was asked to speak to a group of students who are on the yearbook staff at South Pasadena Middle School- the school I attended in the paleolithic era. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the school, and the yearbook theme will honor the history of the school in very creative ways. I have been writing a book about the history of the school for quite awhile now, so I put together a short slide show, and a PowerPoint presentation, and then just rambled for awhile. The kids were really attentive- and that's no small feat- I spoke for over 90 minutes! I'm sure there were some crossed eyes, and light dozing going on, but I didn't see it. Their questions were intelligent and creative, and they were really courteous and sweet. Thanks to Ms. Robin Gochenour, advisor, for her kind invitation, and for all her hard work on behalf of the students and the school.

Speaking of Photo Retouching...

... we were speaking about colorizing photos, weren't we? I updated the layout I did of my second cousin Louella, I made it a two-pager instead of the original single page. The color photo is the first one I've done, except an early effort on a photo of my Mom last year. This new color photo is what has inspired me to develop a new method of colorizing photos. I'll have a tutorial on this method later in the month on Scrapbook News + Review webzine.

A New Obsession

I was experimenting the other night with colorizing old family photos, and I was so pleased with the results, I've decided it's my new obsession. I have done considerable research on the internet about colorizing photos, and have come to the conclusion that my way is by far the most tedious and difficult way yet! Welcome to my world- Why Do Shortcuts When You Can Do Everything the Most Roundabout and Hard Way?

Sometimes the results are less than satisfactory...in that case, thank heaven for the 'artistic filter' feature on Photoshop! The original photo here has always been a favorite of mine (me, age 11), but the quality was so poor... colorizing it didn't make it look as realistic as I'd wanted, so I put the Poster Edges filter on. Voila, Moi looking like a cool illustration! Click on the photos for a slightly larger version.

Weekly Rant!

I am always so excited about digital scrapbooking, and the unlimited possibilities, so it always takes me slightly aback when I realize that many digi scrappers are trying to replicate traditional pages. I don't think making digital pages look like paper pages is a bad thing. It is a 2D medium, after all. And there is only so much you can do with background, photos, headline, journaling and maybe an embellishment or two. I think what kinda bugs me is when I see tutorials, for example, on how to create chipboard letters in PSE. Honestly! With all of the fabulous fonts, effects, filters and the like, why would anyone want their digital pages to have chipboard letters? Or for that matter, why try to duplicate any one of dozens of traditional scrapping tricks & trends? My opinion is that it's probably a great idea to replicate a traditional scrapping technique if you really love it. If you adore inked edges, or grungy paint strokes, or doodles, go for it! Digital has all kinds of options for doing your own, or using digi kits, brushes, frames, etc. But to do it digitally just because it's trendy in traditional scrapping seems a waste of energy to me. I would hope that as people become more and more familiar with their software and skill level, and learn more techniques and tricks, that new innovations and ideas will start popping up. I have been watching with interest the new trend of realism, and piling on of 3D digital elements on the pages. I've also enjoyed seeing the new digital trend of scenarios (I have no idea what the designers are calling them) where a photo will be extracted, and placed inside a kind of storybook world, that looks rather real- many have castles, or forests, or bridges, fairies or butterflies. It's not my style, but it's inventive and fun.

The traditional scrapbooking industry has to work really hard to keep their customers satisfied, and buying their products. The industry is struggling, as interest in scrapbooking has long ago peaked. With digital, there are so many more options out there, both digi products, and your own imagination. As technology improves, and becomes more accessible, digital scrapbooking continues to grow. I'm just a voice in the wilderness encouraging creative thought and new ideas. Let 'em flow! End of rant.

Thursday Fun

Yesterday while cleaning out a cupboard, I came across this little drawing I did of Alec when he was born, to use for his birth announcement. It's hard to believe this cute li'l guy is now 23 years old, and a married man! Not to ever leave things well enough alone, I thought it would be a fun experiment to add some color. I've discovered through many years of adding color to my artwork, it is very difficult to add color to a pencil drawing with shading. There are several ways you can do it- you can just dump color into the different areas with the paint bucket tool, but that leaves the shading blotchy and irregular. The paint won't fill in the subtle areas where the paper shows through. You can also create a new layer, then using the lasso tool, create different shapes for the areas of color, fill them with color, then drop the opacity down so that the dark outlines & shadows show through the color. The problem with that method is that you then have harsh blackish lines and shadows that don't match the color around it. That's always been the problem of tinting photos- you get gray shadows on faces, for example, rather than subtle browns and russets. Eventually I'd like to try to 'tint' a black and white photo in Photoshop, and have it be completely natural.
For this one, I made several copies of the original drawing layer, and tinted each layer a different color: brown, blue, green, and violet. Then I created a mask for each color I wanted to tint: flesh, yellow, blue, and green. I cut away the areas of the layer I didn't need, then merged the layers together. (each tint was simply a color, then I pulled the layer opacity down) The violet layer is the shadow under little Alec, it's not too smooth, but that's the way I drew it. When I had combined everything, I went back in and eliminated the cheek pencil shading, and did a little airbrush work on the cheeks, and other highlights. If I were to do this drawing today, I'd probably do it in pen & ink, scan it, and do all the color work.

Thanks, Mom!

For this week's 2Ps Digital Challenge- I did this layout about my Mom. She really is pretty amazing, and I want her to know it! Bruce took these pictures at a family gathering we had in August.

I love family history, redux!

I don't understand how I got all this stuff. I'm sure most of it came either from my Mom, or my cousin, but somehow I've ended up with the physical memorabilia of my family. Most of it, surprisingly, is from my Mom's side of the family- The Wards and Gruetzmachers. I say surprisingly, because it's my Dad's side of the family that is so into Genealogy. The Clarks and Kents have scads of photos, stories, books and 'stuff', but I don't have much of it. That's probably because there's so much competition for the family treasures. I certainly don't have any special claims on anything, so my little treasure trove is small. However, as I have been going through the Gruetzmacher file, creating layouts and doing my 'due diligence', the picture is starting to clear, and I'm beginning to know my ancestors in ways I never thought possible. Perhaps it is because mixed in with the photos, are postcards and letters. Lots of postcards, not many letters. But these personal communications have given more depth to my understanding and appreciation of my family than I ever imagined! How fun to read about cousins, visits, schoolwork, travels- all part of life in the early 20th century. I also appreciate the internet- I've been able to fill in a lot of missing blanks with my research. It's also nice to discover that my long-gone family members seem like folks I would love to have known. I'm so grateful for this legacy.

Weekly Rant!

Ok, I'll try to be gentle this week. In fact, maybe the best way to handle my weekly rants is to be constructive, instead of just, well, ranting! So, at the end of my invective, I'll try to add some suggestions and helps. I don't know if it will mean anything in the eternal scheme of things, but it will make me feel better!

The subject of my rant this week (ok, try to be tactful here) is those who are new to digital design/ scrapping, but want or need to be at an advanced level by, say, the end of the day today. It's funny, I've been thinking about this all week, even before seeing some message board posts that confirm my suspicions- that there are a lot of misconceptions out there about digital design. Misconception 1: Since it's digital, it must be instantaneous. Misconception 2: Digital is really easy- and there are keyboard shortcuts to make it even easier! Misconception 3: For anything one wants to do, there's a little button you push to make it happen. Misconception 4: If I buy Photoshop Elements today, tomorrow I can design my wedding announcements! (or is that the same as Misconceptions 1 or 2?) I could probably name about 10 more, but I think I've made my point.

I really love to help people. In fact, I feel that my purpose in digital scrapbooking is to inspire and teach. Since I'm not interested in selling my designs, I've been trying to figure out how to go about teaching. Perhaps at some point I'll post lessons on my blog, as many scrappers do. I do a monthly tutorial at SNR and write columns there too. But since I use Photoshop, not Photoshop Elements, I've hesitated. So, when newbies write into one of the boards I participate on, asking for advice and help, I love to give it! I am so excited when someone decides to give this wonderful design/ art form a try, and I hope I can give some worthwhile advice. I am also in awe of my fellow digi scrappers, and the stuff they know and share. But, what gets me a little annoyed, are those who have no experience with digital, but have a big project to do, and want to be experts NOW. It's hard to know what to say without screaming!

Here are a few suggestions to anyone who thinks they would like to try digital scrapbooking. You might consider it LESSON ONE for digital scrapbooking.

1. Find a good software program that is flexible, and can grow with you. I suggest Photoshop Elements. There may be other programs out there that are free, or less expensive (PSE is NOT expensive) but you will be very happy with it. Plus, most tutorials & helps are written for Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

2. When you first open your program, start by learning to create a canvas the size you are comfortable with- 12x12, 8x8, 8.5x11. 300 dpi. If you can save this size, do it.

3. Find your layers palette. Copy and paste a photo onto your canvas. Find the transform tool, and size it the way you want. Add a second photo. See how the 2 photos are on 2 layers. Highlight the upper, or second layer on the palette. Drag it beneath the first layer. Move this second photo layer around (on your canvas, not the layers palette) so you can see that it is now under the first layer. Isn't this fun?

4. Find the text tool. Pick a font. Pick a size. Place the cursor somewhere on the layout and start typing. Highlight the text. Pick a color with the color picker, watch the text change color! Use the transform tool to enlarge or reduce the text.

End of lesson 1. End of rant!

I love family history!

I had the week off work this week, so I've been doing scrapping and family history research too. Yesterday the most amazing thing happened- I have been researching my Gruetzmacher line, that's my maternal grandmother's family. She was from Minnesota, and left when she married my grandfather, to move to Idaho. She was never able to return to her family home. She had 2 brothers that she was very close to, one passed away just 5 years after her marriage, the other lived a nice long life. This second one, the subject of my recent layout "News from Home", was Will Gruetzmacher, or William Carl August Gruetzmacher. Uncle Will and his family lived in the small town of Geneva, Minnesota, in the southern part of the state. Will operated a little hardware store called WC Gruetzmacher Hardware. I have the basic information of his life, but I decided yesterday to Google him. Instead of the usual 'William Gruetzmacher', I decided to try WC Gruetzmacher, since that was the name of the store. The only hit was a book of the history of Freeborn County, MN, with a picture of him as the bandleader of the Geneva Cornet Band in 1916! I was so excited, what a bonus to not only find him mentioned in the book, but to find a picture! I had never known this about him, so I immediately called my Mom to see if she knew anything about Uncle Will being a band leader. She said she did remember that, but had forgotten all about it! So, of course, I had to create a layout with the picture. I ended up using the cutout artistic filter, since the photo was quite poor. I think it turned out rather fun looking! Did I mention that I love family history?