Online sale

My Photopipe's (noted in my links) parallel company, QC Galleryworks are having a sale until the 7th of May. 40% off everything. That means 40% off 30"'x 40", Hahnemuhle photo rag paper, giclee for around 50 bucks. Seems too good to be true, so I googled Photopipe to find this nice blog entry about a photographer's jump into the unknown of online, big output and here is what he said>>: Taking the sample image he was going to submit:

"I sharpened it appropriately, converted it to 8 bit, saved it as a JPEG at the highest quality, and uploaded the 21.4 MB file to My Photopipe’s website. Several days later I received a triangular box in the mail that contained my rolled-up print. Opening the box, I was blown away at how good the print looked. I was quite impressed with their color management. They honored the Adobe RGB 1998 tag in the image and produced a print that was extremely close in color to the print made on my S9000 using a custom profile."

Works for me. I am calling today. Self promotion must wait. I have at least a dozen big images I need to get done for the August thesis show...and this might, just might, be the ticket. I found a local resource, but his prices are almost 2x the Photopipe/ QC Galleryworks prices. Anyone out there in the ether that has any insight on this one?

New Hobby: Self Promotion


In this weeks fun, I have been uploading new pix to the iSpot and to Portfolios.comand hopefully some graphic design stuff (see link at the top right of the page). I am a chimp at The Little Chimp Society a blog/tabloid chock full of images, interviews etc. I have been lazy (admittedly) and put some pix up yesterday and one today. I went back today and saw the image above with my "High on Life" image initially sketched for the Chicken Chokers (not quite what they were looking for). One above the fold with the skull, the other below the fold, in white, the paperwhite narcissis.Isn't this cool? Kick in the boo-tay for me to do a little more of this in different places as it might have a little splashback!

Spoke briefly with John Thompson from SU. We are going to have Gary Kelley for a week this summer and the other a graphic designer/illustrator, Whitney Sherman who John is very excited about.Right now my posture is to lie quietly and hope no one notices I am still breathing.

shhhh. I am.

Obey the Dachshund


Shepard Fairey makes these dachshunds Obey!

Just got the portfolio, check and writing to the Ithaca Art Trail to join for 2007-2008 starting in July. We will have 2 weekends of studio tours in October with hopefully a chance to show the newest body of work, my sketch books and new work to a broader group of people. The postcards and stickers will come in handy. Maybe we will have stuff for sale (like a totebag or tee shirt). I will talk tomorrow about A. and my newest entrepeneurial ideas...(I am kind of excited about this). There might be a show with the Ithaca SPCA (with dog pictures!!) that I am totally excited about. I am ready to start a little body of work of dogs...fab. More later>>

Winded


THE CHOLMONDELEY LADIES' (1600-10): Oil on wood, 35 x 67 in., artist unknown. It was owned by the Cholmondeley* family of Cheshire. © Tate Gallery, London Resource
*Cholmondeley is pronounced as Chumley (feel better? I did upon discovering this...I know I couldnt remember let alone wrap my mouth around all those letters and have it come out as something concievable.

While strolling through the Tate Britain, I was stunned by the sixteenth century paintings grouped as the "British School". The stiff, 1600s paperdoll qualities these images have combined with a purely english palette (which I had forgotten I adored...they sure understand grey, warm grey, gold and reds). Clean as a whistle. The jewel in that collection was this gorgeous picture of the Cholmondeley ladies or sisters. It is a total show stopper. I was literally winded by the wonderful naive qualities of the work while the subject matter is puzzling and intriguing. What is the story? Who are these women? Why are they woodenly holding these children, whose very knowing and calm demeanors suggest wisdom and patience beyond their babyhood. What is the message? Who are these women? Are they sisters or friends? Do they represent something? Look at their eyes...and the sheer perserverance these English ladies evince. Do you think they are doing all of this for the greater glory of England? Wearing those starched collars and boned bodices just after childbirth is a high bar...

There is a great Christian Science Monitor article that digs into this picture a little here>>

Historical references suggest:
"The painting was recorded in 1882 as "an antient [sic] painting of two ladies, said to be born and married on the same day, represented with children in their arms" in "the passage leading to the sleeping rooms" of one of the family's houses.

Hopkins guesses that the mothers may have shared the same birthday, though some years apart, and that "they may have been married in the same chapel." He further speculates that they may have given birth to either their first or second children "on the same date.""

The Tate details the image this way:
"According to the inscription (bottom left), this painting shows ‘Two Ladies of the Cholmondeley Family, Who were born the same day, Married the same day, And brought to Bed [gave birth] the same day’. To mark this dynastic event, they are formally presented in bed, their babies wrapped in scarlet fabric. Identical at a superficial glance, the lace, jewellery and eye colours of the ladies and infants are in fact carefully differentiated. The format echoes tomb sculpture of the period. The ladies, whose precise identities are unclear, were probably painted by an artist based in Chester, near the Cholmondeley estates."

Bryan Pearce (1929-2007)


Bryan Pearce
My Mother 1973
Collection of the artist
© Estate of Bryan Pearce, all rights reserved DACS 2007

Quoted from The Tate St Ives website:

An extraordinary exhibition of paintings by the popular St Ives artist Bryan Pearce (1929-2007), whose particular experiences of his hometown were captured with unique clarity. Pearce’s artistic developments, his simple renditions of space, colour and light, evolve from a sophisticated understanding of composition. Celebrating a career which spanned over fifty years, the exhibition draws together works from private and public collections to evoke a serene sense of place, which seems at once personal yet archetypal.

His regular walks around St Ives, where he has lived all his life, have been the inspiration for his subject matter, unconsciously recording the town’s subtle changes. In this synthesis of imagination and reality, Pearce paints the world as he commands it; a sanctuary with an ever-present sun, bathing the streets and houses in the subtlest of colour harmonies. He has always worked slowly, but consistently, producing perhaps twelve oil paintings a year. Often compared to Alfred Wallis, the late Peter Lanyon said of him: “Because his sources are not seen with a passive eye, but are truly happenings, his painting is original.”

Pearce was born in St Ives, Cornwall, a sufferer of the then unknown condition Phenylketonuria, which affects the normal development of the brain. Encouraged by his mother, who was herself a painter, and then by other St Ives artists, he began drawing and painting in watercolours in 1953.

Once recognised as one of the country's foremost living ‘naïve’ painters, through the on-going re-examination of familiar views and landmarks, Pearce offers us his profound, extraordinary experience of St Ives.

----
I did a little googling of this guy. Wonderful work. Inspired palette (love the mustard/ cognac colored outline he uses. His landscapes are extrodinary).

Got the Noodlers


Loading up the pens with Noodlers "The only eternal black ink. Bulletproof on cellulose paper, yet washes off plastic. Water based ink". Funny thing, the minute, I uncapped the Noodlers, a huge whiff of seemingly alcohol rose from the bottle. I got a brush and started to work in the moleskine. Not as dense as india ink. Beads up initially..not badly but not the immediate sink in but maybe because the moleskine paper is a little hard. I need to pull out some Stonehenge or something else to run in parallel. Goes on nicely. Thin like Quink (think fountain pen), but much denser. More later on the experimentation. Gotta look at Russell Cobb's work as a reference to the brushwork etc. He is so cool--working many different notebooks all at once, scanning them in and turning it into all sorts of illustration (image above is from Russell Cobb's website).

Self Promotion Front:
PSPrint sent me a little love note. Half my order is in transit already (UPS)from California. Lets see how long it takes. Got the work up at The Ispot and Portfolios.com. I was wrong about Portfolios.com and not having any offers...they have some $$ off print jobs etc. Wrote the folks at the Ithaca Art Trail and also that of the State of the Art Gallery and hope to hear from them to get the work "out there".

Coming May 5: Cow Plop Bingo


Who?
The cow and a sports team from the Trumansburg Central School.

What?
Cow Plop Bingo is a game that pits your luck against the gastronomical actions of a cow. In a marked area containing a free roaming cow, you can purchase a square on the ground. If the cow plops in your square - you win. Scintillating, right?

Where?
Trumansburg Fair Grounds, of course.

Reinforced Black

Before I flake on this and not pass this on...here is a brand new idea that is worth sharing with all of you. If you are working on an illustration in either Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator, think a little before you start work. Think about how this piece will be reproduced. If you are inevitably going to print a flat four color process palette, consider creating a "reinforced black" (which means in place of just a single hit of black, you run color directly under the black you are using...giving the black areas full color coverage under the black which results in a deeper, darker, richer black. Mix up a special black for this use:

"When you want an area of solid black within a document, 100% black (K) will not result in a solid, saturated black. You should use rich black, which is made by mixing other colors of ink with black ink to produce a much darker, deeper black on press than can be achieved by using black ink alone. To create rich black on pieces printed by a printer that prints strictly process, your CMYK calibration values must be 50% Cyan (C), 40% Magenta (M), 40% Yellow (Y), and 100% Black (K)."

And, it really works. Gorgeous.

But, if you are just working with output from your epson--and planning on framing the piece--this is inconsequential. But if you are ever planning on printing the piece, this reinforced black is a "secret sauce".

May Day!


First of May. I wish I had a glorious Botticelli inspired picture of the Muses or better yet, scantily clad young women dancing around a maypole. They would be joyously skipping and dancing in pastel colors--perhaps in front of admiring suitors, framed by garlands of flowers and ribbons. Very Marie Antoinette. Very frothy. Very May Day. I But I don't. I have this dumb, old Monkey showing us his teeth. He had absolutely nothing to do with May Day except in the wish that that old devil we call Mr. President is recognized today as the dumb monkey he is(AKA Commander Codpiece, thanks to our pal, Digby). Mission Accomplished take THAT. Deal with the inappropriate picture and message. R. claims I am grumpy because I didn't have any sleep. I didn't-- gosh darn it. I have to deal with it.

Dinner at Simply Red was nice--and far less wild than the former iteration. The Sheldrakers are delighted and clap to the music. Food is pretty much the same. Beautiful night with a full moon. Maybe that was the problem. It has been in the past.

Noticed that the ISpotter from the Ispot was looking at my blog--and it has prompted me to get going on putting some new work up. First thing today. Right after I talk to you. I will do the same with Portfolio.com. I am really questioning whether either one of them have any import as I have had exactly one inquiry from each one...resulting in absolutely no work. I can buy a lot of postcards for $1,000. There is some positive spin from the ISpot as they have strategic alliances and buying deals on advertising and lists and stuff. And, you can see traffic to your page...but if it ends up being a big old goose egg...it's $700+/- that is not recooped. Portfolios is cheaper and the owner is very optimistic and cheery but no tracking,no offers--no sense of forward movement. And did I say, no work also? Any insight from anyone out there? So, click on the link at the top of the page to see the new stuff. I think I will even put up the Steuben masterblaster as an example of stuff--new stuff.

Either that...or I need to face the fact that was presented to me in college to "never, ever become an illustrator--you just don't have it" (Thanks, Mark Mentzer--albeit its only been about 30 years--too bad I don't have any baggage!!(it must be the lack of sleep)). I am a psychotic mess.

Also, am thinking about hiring a friend of mine to work with me on thinking about databases, file nomenclature etc. to best use my storage and filing my illustration work to evolve to the complete data file from the decade I have been "The Luckystone". With that, hopefully, will evolve a website for illustration and graphics that I can keep current by pouring content in without having to ootse the design every step of the way. If I keep it clean, that's all that matters.

Gotta go put the new images up. Maybe later?

New Week


Spring is definitely here. Daffodils and narcissus coming up. The five hundred bulbs that were planted last fall are beginning to look like something...albeit a dent given the scale of the whole operation. More need to be ordered now along with snapshots taken of where everything is planted so as to get ready for fall. I hope the deer didnt eat the allium (fifty planted) as their gigantic purple heads would be quite nice and remarkable in the close-in landscape. Here are my favorite bulb websites:

John Scheepers>>: Scheepers is terrific but smaller quantities. More a normal type of order. Same terrific quality.

Van Engelen>> Big volume. Terrific prices. Their collections are great prices, high quality bulbs. Lots of bang for the buck. It saddens me that the local deer population eat tulip bulbs like smokey almonds and snack mix. However, as you all know, deer do not adore narcissi and daffodils. We put in a couple of big collections, kind of the "generic" daffodils and then a bunch of different small cupped narcissi
which are quite fragrant and delicate. We put the Edna Earl's in. Def. more of those next year. And the allium smell like onions which is not a deer turn on, or the damned ground hog yum-yums.

Off to the new Simply Red at Sheldrake Point Winery for country night and live music. Sam Izzo is back in business in a new and exciting location with lunch and brunch and a few evenings for dinner. I think she has a tiger by the tail with this one. The local Sheldrakers are thrilled as we finally have a restaurant we can take our friends to--and have a wonderful evening that is real cooking versus "live from the Sisco truck" frozen food. Hazelnut Kitchen has opened in Tburg. And, from what I hear, they are doing a nice job too. So, lots of choices locally beyond the wonders of Danos on Seneca and the Stonecat. Lots of choices and all lining up to open prior to Cornell's and Ithaca College's graduation.

Self Promotion Part One


Got 8 postcards out to PSPrint. Broken order. Some the 500 qty. Some in smaller batches. Plan is to make little decks of them with clear envelopes and nice little notes with a business card (going to be crack and peel) to send out to galleries around here (Ithaca, Tburg, Corning, Skaneateles, Cazenovia, Cooperstown, Rochester) and some in Florida (Key West, Miami) to see if we can get a little traction with the bird pix.Just requested an application to see if I can join the State of the Art Gallery in Ithaca...to move more locally.

Also, just "did" the newest Choker's CD and sleeve graphics which will hopefully move to the website "look and feel", a tee shirt and the appropriate band offerings/needs. Have worked it out with them to buy 100 CDs from them to send to existing clients along with the postcard collection to say "Hey!" and point out that this monkey can make pictures too. When I get them, I will offer 10 CDs to the first ten requests outside of the Tburg/Ithaca area to get the Chokers to the wider world. Requesters know that they are really fun and --but if old time music isn't your thing...then maybe this is the place you can start!

The chicken(above) is featured promenantly on the soon to be released CD.

Quarter to Flaxination

We partook one more time with markdowns. More stuff. More boxes. Plenty for everyone. K found some $5. gems which with a perfect size 6 body represents my perfect "little matchgirl" garbed Barbie. These togs are dead on for our next jaunt to the land of surfers and surfer lifestyle...LA...and on her mind and planning schedule. Ran into a friend who was working the sale who, when asked, why she volunteered---" why? Well, because we all Love Flax. Always have. And there is no place to buy it around here even though it is headquartered nearby". Did I tell you that they gave everyone a wonderful heavy linen bag to fill during the sale and take home filled with more stuff>? We have glorious dark grey and white wove ones. Fifteen minutes until we have to wait for next year.

Bespoke Lifestyle


When we were in the sunny, glossy environs of the Bal Harbour Sheraton Hotel, I was struck with the language around a development that the St. Regis was creating in a luxe de Luxe way. It featured a totally idiotic picture of a glamourpuss blondie in the prescribed whispy, white dress strolling through the shallow surf followed (of course) by the hunkaburning love Butler (in uniform) carrying her suitcases with his pants rolled up, but all else "right and proper". Just this side of offensive in it's stupidity. It had a 3 line sign-off with one of the lines being "bespoke lifestyle"--which is luxe de Luxe code that R. was well acquainted with. So,look what I ran across this a.m.:

Bespoke
Term used for custom-made suits, shirts and shoes. Journalist Peter Howarth it thus: "In brief, the elements that go into making a pukka bespoke product: you start from scratch with measuring sessions, individual patterns are created, horsehair canvasses for inside the garment are washed, softened and hand-shaped over the knee, there's a great deal of hand-making, three fittings, six to 10 weeks waiting time, 65.5 manufacturing hours and a price tag of about Pounds 2,750 for a two-piece. Personal tailoring, on the other hand, is where you take an existing garment and make a version of it, largely by machine to the customer's specifications. You can change fabrics and linings and details and in four to six weeks have a pretty special result starting at that magical Pounds 695 for a two-piece." (Tailored to a Suitable Price, Financial Times, 27 November 2004.)

Further amplification is provided by Ray A. Smith in his A Real Savile Row, Wall Street Journal, April 14-15, 2007. "William Skinner worries that customers will think that made-to-measure, which typically involves using a stock pattern that is then adjusted to fit the client's measurements and taste, is the same thing as bespoke or custom...Custom suits are made entirely from scratch - mostly by hand, in a process that can take at least two or three fittings and at least eight weeks. More than 20 measurements are taken for a besopke garment."

Very cool site>> The Digital Librarian (Shopping section)

Bespoke lifestyle--made to measure. No shortcuts. Custom fit. No alterations...cut from cloth, sewn and tailored to perfection.

We don't speak of bespoke here. No luxe de Luxe here. You need perfect weather and tropical plants for that. When it's paradise...why be content with that?

And...from the picture, bespoke bespeaks of being just like 1000 other folks with that tailor made lifestyle. Har.

Jay Hart


We walked into the State of the ArtGallery yesterday to be surprised and wowwed by Jay Hart's magnificent maps. And to our pleasure, Jay was on call that day at the gallery. I really don't feel that I can do his work justice by rambling on in my random manner about his work. Go see it for yourself>> Here is a little of what Jay says about himself:

I want to introduce people to the broadscale beauty of large swaths of earth, with perspectives that are fresh and penetrating. In doing so I also want to simplify our view of that big world, so that we can feel at home in a broader sense, becoming inherently less anthropocentric, and approaching each other with a high level of respect for our diversity.

As we trace the paths of our daily lives, we become used to thinking of the spaces around us as linear, routine, even dull. On trips to faraway places, we measure distance in travel time, too often ignoring what we have actually driven through or flown over. We think we know the world we live in - we have a glut of digital information about it - but most of us perceive it only within a confined personal range.

Jay translates that "glut of digital information" down to sheer elegance and a new way of looking at who we are and where we are. New context setting that shifts one outside into the abstract and then back to reality. His huge output is glorious in it's size, detail and 20/40 sharpness. His respect for this work eliminates glass and to a large degree any frame...allowing the work to speak for itself. Magic.

As an aside, his links and other information makes visiting his site an afternoon of discovery. It's rainy today...visit another place with Jay., and did I mention, he is a Trumansburger? I guess we might honor him with the honorific of First Cartographer and Master of Topology to the Court of Rongovia? The Director of the Academy is delighted to know that Jay is in the neighborhood.
____
Jay Hart
A Brief Thaw (details)

print size: 71 in x 40 in, 181 cm x 102 cm
print resolution: 360 dpi
file size: 977MB, 12866 x 24042
number of images: 2

center location: N 68.9, W 133.7
approximate scale: 1 to 200,000
ground cell: 14.25 m, long side: 343 km

Flax Nation!


Wow. Boxes to the ceiling. Women in various states of undress. The real pros came in black pants and camisoles. The committed came in black bathing suits. All posed in front of hundreds of sorted boxes of linen clothes...on/off/on/off...commenting to their friends and new friends..."does this look right?". Three women wearing the same coral coat...joking they all should buy them and wear them on Memorial Day. Bags and bags of linen clothes leaving. Boxes upon boxes unpacked for the next throng swarming into this warehouse room. Samples, the same. Long and short. Thousands of designs that would never grace our shop's racks. A historical review of the year on every type of women's backs from suburban mommies to tattooed, short haired girlfriends who would be happier on the back of a motorcycle--riding together into the linen-free sunset. My tribe. All of Ithaca. Women exclaiming and hugging. Lots of laughing. Lots of purchasing. Happy times.

Flax Annual Barn Sale, Triphammer Mall, Triphammer Road, Ithaca. From Friday through Sunday.

still here


This little drawing was inspired by a sign on a ladies room door at a cuban restaurant in Miami. There was a little man too. Am cranking a few of these out...they are cute. Love the blockiness and the vienese style flowers match up surprisingly well.

Had a nice meeting with a client today--introducing her to a longterm friend and printer friend--and has a nice lunch together too. Big plus meeting.

Tip of the Day:
If you are someone who has been holding off having postcards printed (of work, of pictures, of family shots) cause ponying up the $100 +/- was just a whisker too much...this one is for you!! PS Print has until the 30th, 500 full color (4c/1c) over 1 color for about $60 (with shipping!!)Go here>> I am sizing a bunch like crazy--and need to get a business card too. Have finally run out of my small stack.

Finishing up graphics for the new cd from the Chicken Chokers "007". The Chokers are reconvening after many years apart with great style and confidence that time and experience bring. You can hear a few cuts from "007" at their MySpace. They are going to the Blue Heron Festival and GrassRoots Festival this summer. I hope to get a handful of cds and send them as a nice nice to my clients (with my chicken!!). The whole choker thing feels very energetic and new...and ready to launch. Might happen. I hope so. More later.

Back again.


It's hard to imagine we were in Miami only seven short days ago. We came back to snow and cooler weather. The daffodils have been dug out and are beginning to pop...and we have a bunch on the dining room table to signal spring.

The shot above is one view of the "biggest hotel pool in the continental US" at the glamorous Biltmore. It is a full 180˚ your line of vision. Impressive and so select, there are only a limited group of folks sitting in chairs watching the water unlike the Bal Harbor insanity where beach chairs, towels and cabanas are all claimed by 8:30 in the morning. The cabanas at the Biltmore are rooms by the opposite side of the pool nested under the terrace and each area separated by full length, tan cotton draperies tied up that separate one cabana from the next. Simple, very residential furniture decorates each space--and the sheer distance and quiet these spaces project are totally opposite of the Morris Lapidus insane little tents at the Bal Harbor. To spend time at the Biltmore would be a restful and lovely time as it is a timeless resort in a beautiful community. Now, it would just be a question of how to pay for it!

Hollywood Beach view
We had an opportunity to visit the clean and unexpected Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park. It had a wonderful beach with mild water up by the Lighthouse--and we waded in to walk in the tepid, turquoise water. It was a lovely afternoon. Then, we drove to Hollywood FL to spend the night prior to our early morning flight to Newburgh. Hollywood was unexpected. The beach up there is much like the east coast beaches--cooler, more violent waves and tides--with a boardwalk with restaurants and stores tumbling out onto the beach. Not ticky tacky but nice..."regular". Hollywood is pretty cool as it is probably more like Miami before it "popped"--with neighborhoods, tiny motels and restaurants that have the indoor/outdoor thing--little living rooms that tumble out of the restaurants-clinging to the corners of the stores --inviting you in. Hollywood was a surprise I hope we can explore at another time.

Spent the better part of Sunday on my thesis paper which has been a very introspective process and through the process I decided to incorporate the burkas with the birds to talk about the development of a personal style. I think I could wrap up the writing in about a week or so and another week to get the visuals in place. Ordered a dozen Nielsen Bainbridge Trefalgar poster frames yesterday and need to prep my files to get the prints done. Everything is going to be 24" x 36". Nice and bold.

Discovered Sunday that the Academy of Fine Arts is a link on SharpDraw, terrific site dedicated to the discussion of pens and art supplies--in a very salient, insightful, and well written manner. Check em out.

IF: Polar

It is melting. All of it. All 12" of heavy, wet snow. In celebration, bathing suits must be considered to beat the melancholy of almost being spring--but not. Our minds are melting from being fixed on snow and ice, melting from the introversion that accompanies this polar state of mind. Polar melts...spring evolves.