Perpetual Birthday Calendars

I spent today working on Perpetual Birthday Calendars. A friend had suggested this as a product idea based on the fact that she needed a new one and I needed one period. I NEVER remember birthdays. I'm having a lot of fun coming up with ideas. No pictures to post yet.

Photoshop

Today was frustrating, although I should feel happy that I accomplished quite a few things. I purchased photoshop a while ago and have been afraid to try and teach myself how to use the program. I finally jumped on it today and muddled my way through a few things. My photographs already look better! I also figured out how to work with the layers function a little bit. You'll notice on my banner I have my name layered on top of the photograph.

The best thing I did today was hired my teenager to help me with my computer struggles. She quickly added links to my blog, something which I worked on for a few hours and never figured out. She also started a website for me. I had registered the domain of cammydavis.com, but that's as far as I got. She's started creating the website, so hopefully that will follow soon.

I'm ready to put some time into my actual art rather than trying to figure out how to become computer literate and market myself. I'm a creative person, the business side will always be the struggle for me!

Painting for Charity

Today I'm working on a painting for a charity. I have a friend who is really involved in Relay for Life, so I started this painting to donate.

I also joined a new site today. It's a site where artists can upload their artwork and sell prints. I'm interested to find out how it works. The plus is that you don't have the huge initial output of doing a print run, but the commission is so much less than selling the prints yourself. Another plus though, it's a huge website, with a lot of artists work. Anyway, I set up a gallery and am going to upload some of my paintings in the next few days.

CAD

Well, no time for art today. I spent about 9 hours in front of a computer for my CAD class. There is a part of learning to draft via computer that is fun, but the perfection needed does not come easy to me.

EtsyRAIN

I joined Team EtsyRain today and am really excited about the opportunity to meet other artists in the Puget Sound area. The meetings made me smile....because, they sound so similar to the girlpods I've done with my friends for years. And I LOVE the girlpods. A bunch of us get together and do crafts and eat yummy stuff. Life doesn't get much better than that!

Etsy Rain

A friend sent me a link to etsyrain. I'm interested to learn more about it, it's a group specific to the Puget Sound area. They utilize Meetups to set up meetings in the area and support each other. I've decided to join and am also looking through Meetups for other interesting art groups around the area.

Logo

Today I worked on creating a new business card for myself. I really need to come up with a logo or image to use for my artwork branding. I keep going back to a black background with bright colors/images in front. Perhaps this would be a good thing to focus on this week. I also had a friend suggest I look at etsyrain. I'm not sure what it is but perhaps the link will have good ideas I can use.

Clocks continued

I continued working on clocks today, but felt a little discouraged when I searched etsy to see what prices people were using for clocks. I don't know how they do it. I hope when I list them on my etsy site, people will see the design and creative value of having one in their home.

Clocks

Going off the idea that I needed a clock for the living room and I want items to sell at art fairs, I decided to work on a series of clocks utilizing squares, rectangles, tree outlines and newspaper. I am working on about 7 of them right now but I still need to get the clock innards so I can see what they will look like.

Art Fairs

I spent the entire day working on art. It started with hauling home 5' mdf pieces on the scooter. Always an interesting adventure. I then pulled the miter saw out and set it up on my little apartment deck. About an hour and 6 canvases later, I'm sure the neighbors loved me. But, the good news is that I can continue creating rather than being stalled.

I'm also mulling over this idea of doing art fairs. It might be a good idea since I'm so afraid of the future, of actually making a living in Interior Design or some other creative activity. This might be an additional income while I figure the whole thing out. And, it might give me a creative outlet on the weekends if I end up doing office work again. Ugh, I can't stand to even think of that possibility!

Clocks

I started making a clock today for my living room and realized this might be a good product to create and sell on my etsy site. I like the idea of incorporating art and craft into one item. I also like to utilize materials that might otherwise end up in a dumpster. I'm going to try making some with a combination of newspaper, magazines and acrylic paint.

Texture Paintings Uploaded to Etsy

Yay! I finally took photos of the texture painting series and uploaded them to my etsy site.

Today I also downloaded information on the Issaquah Farmer's Market, which is each summer on Saturday mornings. I think I'll try to do a booth at least a couple of times. The difficult part for me is to rent or purchase a booth and even more difficult, to figure out how to get it there. I've decided I'm going to start by getting note cards ordered, so I have something smaller (less expensive) to sell than just my original artwork.

Method of Painting with Acrylics

One method I want to try in my paintings is to paint over an already dry area, wait until the new layer is barely dry, spray lightly with water and then lay a tissue on the paint and blot. From the photos I viewed, it gives it kind of a hazy look.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day

"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better." Martin Luther King Jr

Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day

Tree Painting is Finished

I did not finish the goals I set for myself today, so I am planning to work on them again tomorrow. However, I did finish the yellow ochre and dark umber tree painting I have been working on. I took my first photos with the new tripod. It's definitely improved the quality, but I think it will help photograph even better during daylight hours, so am going to also work on photographing the texture series tomorrow.

Tripod

The tripod has finally arrived! I have goals for tomorrow and they are: take photos of the texture series and upload to etsy. Update resume to reflect current student status and Interior Design focus. Sounds like a fascinating weekend. ;)

Rendering Style

Today I worked on a painting of a tree. I want the painting to have a morose, lonely feel. I have many branches to go. I think the looser I get with paint strokes, such as the background, the more I like it.

I took a color rendering class last quarter. I played around with one of my one-point perspectives. The first image is done with photographs of my paintings. It's not hard-lined, but I took more time making the lines straight, etc. The last two, I drafted and rendered in about 5 mins. I realized that I liked the looser ones much better than the more precise-time consuming rendering. I think I've found my style.

Chiaroscuro

I decided on days when I have nothing new to write about because I'm painting the same painting as yesterday or have been in school all day and am brain dead, that I would research something related to art technique or marketing, etc. The idea being that I need to keep learning and....I often forget things that I have learned in the past unless I keep refreshing my memory. Such as todays research. Chiaroscuro.

I'm taking a Lighting class and in today's reading came upon chiaroscuro as a way to describe accent lighting. Of course, I've heard the word before in art history classes, but was drawing a blank as to the meaning. Basically, it's light-dark. It's a technique used to create dramatic contrast.

In painting, you can create the effect by using glazes of umber or burnt umber (for a warmer look) melding into black or dark blue. The highlighted object should have a little bit of red, orange or yellow mixed in to warm up the color because of the cooling effect of the background. If your light source is cool, like the glow from the moon, use cool colors.

When I have time, I want to experiment with this technique. One of the things I wrote in my sketchbook recently, was that I want to focus on bringing out emotion in my painting. I like sharp contrast. I want people to feel something when they stand in front of my work, rather than just, "oh, pretty, it matches the couch". Chiaroscuro is used to create emotion and can bring an intimacy to a painting or space.

Photograph of #5

I'm still waiting for the tripod I ordered. I hope once it arrives I can figure out how to take better photographs of my artwork. This is a photo of Texture Painting #5. I have not loaded any of the texture paintings to my etsy site, so once I get the tripod I'll attempt to figure out how to photograph them for placement on the etsy site.

Goals

Today in my Professional Practices class, we talked about writing personal and professional goals. I've been thinking about re-doing the ones I wrote 4 years ago, so I think this is a really good time to write goals on how to live a creative life.

#5 is Alive

I finished Texture Painting #5!! Picture to follow tomorrow. Now I'm working on a brown and yellow ochre painting of a tree. I've had the background finished for a while, but just started the tree. I want it to have kind of a bleak feeling.

Texture Paintings....

Today I re-did texture painting #4 and now I'm happy with it. I'm waiting for the tripod I ordered so that I can take pictures and post it on my etsy site.

I'm also continuing to work on texture painting #5. What I did differently on this painting than the others, was moved the texture squares apart so there is about a 1/3" space between them. I like geometric orderliness of the painting. If I make another one I will wrap the texture squares with tissue paper prior to attaching to the canvas as I think that will give it a cleaner look.

Almost Forgot

Yay blog! I was about to crawl into bed after a long day at school and realized....I had not written in my blog and....had not worked on my art at all today. So...I painted the first acrylic coat on #5 texture painting and now....am going to sleep.

Unfinished Painting

Most of today was spent on schoolwork and my resume, but I did work on my 5th texture painting. I decided to post a photo of it unfinished because I think it's kind of interesting. Typically I only show people my finished work. This photo shows where I get the texture, which is from textile samples. They are then modpodged with tissue paper, thus the filmy look, then the background is painted with glossy black.

Oh, I also scanned the cartoon logo I'm working on. It needs work, but I often think it's better to jump in and start something rather than procrastinating. I'll go back and refine it in the days to come.

Preparing for an Internship

Definitely a good idea to do this blog. It forces me to think about a creative career everyday. I notice that even on the days that I am in school for Interior Design, I also want to make sure I do something for my art. I think to find my calling, I will need to figure out a way to meld the two.

Today I started my first CAD class. Ugh, computers scare me, but so far so good. I also worked on updating my resume so that I can begin to look for an Interior Design internship. For the program I'm in, I will need to do two internships prior to getting my degree. Experience is always a good thing, so I'm excited by the opportunity but also overwhelmed at the specifics of fitting unpaid work into my life. Mostly the fact that I commute via Vespa. It makes commuting in professional garb a bit more challenging.

I also worked on my 5th texture painting. I think this one will be my favorite, which makes sense. They should evolve the longer I work on the series.

Texture Paintings Still

Today I am still working on the texture paintings. I also started Winter quarter today. This will be my 4th quarter at Bellevue College. The class I went to today is called Professional Practices. I'm excited because I think it's going to teach me about owning my own business, writing a business plan, letter of agreement, etc. The practical side of having a "creative life".

Texture Paintings

I worked on paintings all day. I have 3 texture paintings finished and two that I'm working on. I also gathered some information on local arts and crafts fairs, the cost of renting vs. purchasing canopies, etc. I'm not sure if it's something I'll be interested in. I'm still trying to figure out what will work best to sell my art.

Are Note Cards a Good Idea?

Today I checked into the printing costs of note cards. A friend suggested that I have smaller priced items on my etsy site, such as note cards. I love the idea because there have been many times where I like someone's work but can't afford to buy the original.

Step two is to pick a painting to photograph for my first batch of note cards. Taking a good photo of the painting is the difficult part. I'm waiting for the tripod I ordered, meanwhile I downloaded the Canon PowerShot User's Manual. I'm trying to figure out how to use the auto-shoot feature and the AV setting. Of course I ran out of batteries, so now they are charging.

Meanwhile I'm still working on my new texture paintings.

Experimenting with Texture

I've decided to try different ways of incorporating texture into my artwork. I've been doing a lot of paintings with squares making it more 3-d. This is a takeoff of that idea. I used different materials leftover from my Interior Design projects and glued them to my wood canvas. Then I mod-podged tissue paper to even out the seams and finally painted using only two colors; Raw Umber and Titanium White.

I really like the way it turned out. :)

I also am working on the notion that along with the creative side, in order to have a "creative life", I also need to work on marketing myself and my work. To that end I'm trying to figure out a logo to use for business cards and as a banner for my etsy site. I also ordered a tripod today for my camera. At Christmas I spoke with my Uncle Evan, who is a photography buff (along with being an English Professor), and he gave me a few tips for taking better photos of my artwork.