Shooting in Camera Raw

I'm finally starting to take the plunge, and do some shooting in camera RAW. This is a digital setting that is done in-camera, that allows much greater editing power and control. Since I'm definitely an amateur photographer, this has been something that's scared me a little bit. The digital file size is much bigger, and the initial results seem a little on the bland side (I set mine to shoot both RAW and jpeg, so I have two photos of each for comparison. The Jpegs are slightly more vibrant and rich... to begin with.)  That means, RAW files definitely need to be edited and controlled, and I'm used to doing a lot of 'pointing and shooting'. I do some basic editing on most of my photos, but not much more than that. I can see that this could be challenging!  Thanks to my Graphic Design class, I've been able to learn more about shooting & editing in Camera Raw.

Yesterday, my Mom and I drove up Kanan canyon in Agoura, California, to see the wonderful Malibou Lake. (No, I didn't spell it wrong). It was a gloomy day, and due to parking restrictions and time constraints, I only took a handful of photos. Mom seemed disappointed that the day wasn't perfect for photography. But I prefer gloomy days, I'm not a fan of harsh shadows and bright light. Today I uploaded the photos, and began playing with them in the Camera Raw editor. What fun! I'm planning on doing a layout, but here's a little sneak peak at some of the differences in the photos:

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After (oops, a little overprocessed, but I'll learn!)

Before

After

I'm sure the pros out there could do a much better job, but it's really fun to learn more about my camera, and the editing power that's available out there. I'm sure I'll get much better at this as I practice!

Bruce's Bistro

I love my graphic design class! Although I'll probably not be pursuing  advertising art as a career anytime soon, it's really enjoyable creating things that remind me so much of my past life as an advertising illustrator & designer back in the '70s and early '80s, BTD. (Before Toy Design).

Today's assignment was to design a 5" x 5" ad, and there were some very specific PS techniques I needed to have: a smart object (which is the title- I created it in Illustrator and imported it in as a smart object), vector artwork (which is the steam), and I also needed to create a selection from a path (which is how I did the extraction on the soup bowl). Sorry it you aren't a Photoshop guru, and don't know what the heck I'm talking about. Trust me, this stuff is playtime for me!

'Bruce's Bistro' is kind of an inside joke... my husband Bruce is a fabulous cook. When I went back to work in '09, he took over cooking duties, and really hasn't been able to lose his cooking crown, even though I'm no longer working outside the home. I often tease him about how he should open up his own healthy restaurant and call it "Bruce's Bistro".  Every meal is a work of art, a thing of beauty, and a gourmet delight. He can make an ordinary vegetable sautee taste like heaven, and he can also make any dish beautiful with garnishes, and colorful touches.

So, sorry, you can't make a reservation at Bruce's Bistro, but if you're in the neighborhood, stop by. I'm sure Bruce can rustle up something amazing for you!

The Girl With Green Hair

When I was a little girl, I remember watching an old movie on TV called, The Boy with Green Hair. It starred Dean Stockwell as a little war orphan whose hair mysteriously turned green. Somehow that movie popped into my mind the other night when Annie came home late, telling me, "You're not going to like it". "What?" I asked. "My green hair", she replied. Yep. It's green all right. Not really kelly green, definitely not teal green. Kind of a 'mermaid green', as Annie says. She's already planning the end of her green hair identity, as there are social hazards of having green hair. It did look kind of amazing out in the backyard on Saturday, when I snapped a few photos of her green locks. Ah, youth! To be that young and brave again!

More Fun With Photoshop

My latest assignment in my graphic design class is to create a CD cover- front and back, including legal lines, barcode, and spine wrap.  Since my daughter Annie is the most amazing singer I know, I thought she deserved a cover for her latest (imaginary) CD. She is already concerned about the list of potential songs, I had to get them just right! I told her when the time comes that she records her CD, I'll happily redesign it any way she wants.

Other than the realism factor, the only other things required was that I had to create text on a path (the wavy lines where the (odd) title of the album are, and create a clipping mask for her name. (For the non-Photoshop users, that means I had to 'clip' an image to the word to give it more texture, dimension, and realism).

It was really fun to create the design and tiles. I will acknowledge that I borrowed heavily from a recent ad I found in a magazine, of the new Kiefer Sutherland TV series "Touch", but I think I gave it my own spin.

Photo Restoration- Again

I've blogged in the past about doing photo restoration with Photoshop. I'm not a professional restorer, but perhaps I'll consider that down the road!  Somehow I volunteered to help an online photographer friend (well we're best friends now!)  with her photo... it's for her parent's 50th wedding anniversary coming up soon, and this photo was taken on their honeymoon. Wowzer, horrendous damage from rolling the photo, then the subsequent flattening, cracking, and discoloration. Of course, the cracks went right through her Dad's face... everything else was a breeze compared to that. I don't think I really captured his face, but I did my best.
But it's always fun to share projects, whether creative, restorative, or just therapeutic!

Before

After

The Gruetzmacher Family

Happily, I have a lot of old family photos, especially photos from my Mom's side of the family. I'm not really even sure how I got all these photos, because I don't really remember my Mom having these pictures when I was growing up. I believe they came from my cousin Joanie, who gave them to me a dozen or so years ago as we were planning a family reunion. But it doesn't matter, they are mine now! (Gloat gloat!) So I love taking the opportunity to put some old family photos together to create something fun to look at, and perhaps convey a little family history.

This layout is about my Grandma Ward's brother Will and his family. Uncle Will was a favorite of my Mom's. He came to visit many times, traveling from Minnesota to Idaho to see his sister and nieces. His older daughter Luella was Grandma's favorite niece, and thus became my Mom's favorite cousin. Although Mom was closer in age to the younger sister Verna, Mom stayed close to Luella until her death in the mid '80s.  Uncle Will's wife Emma was a lovely, sweet woman whom everyone loved. Mom often portrays the family in such glowing terms that I wonder if it's all true, but they just look so sweet and loving, I just have to believe they were all that!

The Dragon

There's a large genre of digital scrapbooking or digital art that's based on fantasy. Not being a fantasy person myself, I rarely venture into that realm. But a recent assignment in my Photoshop class in my Graphic Design course,  requires us to create an imaginary creature from scans of at least 4 animals.  I really jumped at the challenge, because I thought it would be so much fun.

Here's the result of my assemblage: a dragon of sorts, built from photos of a lizard, frog, moth, bird, rabbit, chameleon, and tiger.

Part two of the assignment was to put it into a scene, with people. The original assignment required photo scans, the second part said it was ok to use digital photos. All of the background photos, animals, and people, are from my own photos, taken in the past year.  I altered the critter's face somewhat, to make him more dragon-like, although I never was really  trying to create an actual dragon. It just sort of ended up looking like one.

I did two versions, one with a horse on the left side, one without. Which do you prefer?

Back to the Drawing Board

I'll pretty much make a layout of just about anything, including my recent Prismacolor drawing. Wanting to share my enthusiasm about creating some 'real' artwork instead of the digital kind, this layout celebrates my (hopefully) return to creating analog art, just for myself.  Maybe you'll want to pull out your colored pencils, too, and make some art!

Making Art

I've been 'doing art' since I was a tiny child, and working as a professional artist or designer all of my adult life. But as a 'commercial' artist, it seems that everything I do professionally is an assignment or job, not necessarily creating art for arts sake.

My digital design/ scrapbooking is most often what I do that's sort of 'art for arts sake'.... except it's not really that either.

Two weeks ago when I was in Utah, I had the opportunity to stay with my brother and sister-in-law. My SIL Joanne is a very creative person, and she loves to work in her studio, painting in watercolor, and planning and sketching mural projects and other artistic ventures. She and her sister (and my bestie) Nancy, who lives here in So. Cal, have set up a weekly 'creative class' together. They paint, take online classes, and do iPhone FaceTime together, inspiring each other, and sharing each other's work. Nancy is an accomplished watercolorist, and has recently begun exhibiting her work, and accepting commissions. So, when I was visiting Joanne, I participated in their weekly FaceTime, just talking about art, and projects, and getting more and more inspired myself. One thing I've been wanting to do for a long time, is to do some color drawing projects. Just for me. As a designer and illustrator, I rarely do "fine art". But you know, I'm not getting any younger! I don't plan to be a painter- no watercolors or oils or acrylics for me. I'm must more comfortable with pen and ink,  Prismacolor colored pencils, or perhaps in the future, pastels.

So, using one of the photos I shot in Utah, I decided to use it to inspire a color drawing. Smallish, just for fun. I pushed myself to finish it, because, while I can easily spend 6 hours on a complicated digital illustration, doing a 5x7 Prismacolor drawing seemed daunting. But over the course of a few days- a few minutes here, an hour or so there, I finally finished it.

Not a work of art, but I think it's decent. So, now I'm a maker of art.

Sunday Morning in Moorpark

This morning I had to drive to church extra early, and since it was the first morning of daylight savings (meaning it felt like 7 AM instead of 8) I got a lovely shot of the dramatic morning light. Not earth-shattering gorgeous, but beautiful enough that I had to pull over to take a photo.

Tonight I've been sorting through some old photos I've scanned through the years, planning a layout about a time nearly 40 years ago... I'm sure I'll have something to show you in a day or two!  Sometimes I read in scrapbook message boards, questions from people wondering if anyone is 'caught up' in their scrapbooking. To my amazement, many people actually think they are. Ha! Ha ha! The thing I love about trying to document my story, and my family story, is that there will never be a way to 'catch up'. There's always another project to do, old or new.

Happy Birthday Dad!

It's been nearly 10 years since my Dad passed away. But today is his birthday, and I'll always celebrate his day! This is one of my favorite photos of my Dad. It was taken before his marriage to Mom in 1939, probably during his college days in the late '30s. It epitomizes three things: his love of the outdoors, his classiness (note he's wearing a tie even at the side of a raging river!) and his exuberance. It looks like he's not just merely waving, but lifting his arm in pure joy!

Last year I created this layout in his honor, and I feel just the same way today. Thanks for the memories, Dad!

Celebrating La Bebe!

Here's my layout about my niece Laura's baby shower on Saturday. My darling daughter Amy, and cousin Megan, and friend Megan threw the soiree, and a bon temps was had by all! (Note the fabulous high school French!)

You must have figured out that the theme was girly, and Paris, and pink! Everything was fantastique! Magnifique! Excellente!

Click on the image for a closer view!

Seriously?

All four of our kids look like their parents... the older two look an awful lot like my husband Bruce: from their olive skin tone and brown eyes, to their dark brown hair. The younger two look a little more like me. Green eyes, light brown hair... but it's Annie who sometimes makes me feel like I'm looking into a time machine mirror...  One day last week, she found a pair of my old glasses, and came in to show me. It was startling how much she looked like me, so I grabbed my camera and shot a few photos as she made some of her 'Mom faces'.

Seriously!

On Being Published

I had my first magazine illustration published in 1974, when I was entering my senior year of college. The magazine was called 'the Friend',  a children's magazine for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I did many more illustrations for the Friend through the years, the latest were in 2004. I also did a few illustrations for the Ensign magazine, and for the children's publications: Turtle, Humpty Dumpty, Children's Playmate,  and Children's Digest.  I've even done a few magazine covers for Turtle.   My illustrations were all paid assignments. They ranged from pen and ink illustrations, to Prismacolor, to line art with hand cut amberlith separations, to marker renderings, to digital illustrations.

I've had digital scrapbook layouts published in Digital Scrapbook Magazine and Creating Keepsakes. The digital scrapbook published works are an entirely different matter. Being used to receiving a nice check when my illustration work was published, it was quite a shock when I discovered that these 'hobby' publications don't pay at all! I'm still not sure I'm really comfortable with publications 'honoring' the artists with a free copy of the magazine, and a nice addition to their resume, but no money. Seems kinda like they are taking advantage, and getting an entire magazine's worth of inspiration for practically nothing.  (When I say they don't pay at all, I mean that they don't pay the designers that are published in their gallery sections. They do pay modest fees for articles, tutorials, and features). But much of what you see in these kinds of magazines is 'gallery' work. But that gripe is for another day, another place.

That said, I was thrilled to stop by Barnes and Noble last night, to find that the latest edition of Somerset Digital Studio magazine had hit the shelves.  One of my layouts was featured in the magazine's gallery, and it was a full page! Somerset publishes a whole slew of amazing, highly regarded, and high quality hobby and art publications, and I am proud to have had one of my layouts picked for the Spring 2012 Digital Studio issue. My complimentary issue arrived at my mailbox at home yesterday also, but since I'm in Utah, I didn't get to see it. So, there I was, standing in the magazine section, telling a lady standing near me, about my layout! She seemed nice enough, but moved away quickly, muttering something under her breath about 'nutty lady', or something like that. I put the magazine on a chair and pulled out my iPhone to snap a couple of photos.

So, ta da, here's the actual layout for your viewing pleasure, I actually created it nearly 2 1/2 years ago, but they didn't seem to mind that it was old! I hope you don't mind either.

It's All About Mia

My daughter Amy and husband Jon just got a new, tiny puppy. They named her Mia, and she's just the cutest little thing ever! I can see why they fell in love with her, because I fell in love with her the moment I saw her! Amy had taken her outside for a potty break, and I drove up. As I got  out of the car and started toward them, Amy said, "Go to Grandma, Mia!" and she joyously bounded toward me on the grass. My heart melted! My other little granddoggy is skittish of me, and takes forever to warm up. But little Mia just snuggled with me, nipping and squirming like a tiny puppy should! She's a Yoranian- a Pomeranian & Yorkie mix, and has these funny little black whiskers, almost like a moustache. (Oops, I think I extracted it out of the large photo, but you can see them in the photo of her and Amy.)

So, in her honor, I dedicate this little layout to the adorable, enthusiastic, cuddly, ankle-loving Mia!