New Mixed Media Artwork

There has been a flurry of mixed media activity over the past week.  I'm posting 2 pieces that I just finished from my ongoing Venice Series.  Along with each piece is a detail shot showing a closer view of the canvas and the texture of the wax. Check back later this week for more new work!

The beach this week

I'm not sure if winter is going to show up or if its taking the year off.  The unseasonably warm weather has been absolutely fantastic.  This was snapped with my iPhone during a walk to the beach.  Happy Friday!

Fun with Point & Shoot

This weekend the weather was unseasonably warm and sunny so I just had to be outside.  I grabbed my pocket sized point & shoot camera and headed out to a fantastic spot that overlooks the harbor in Dana Point.  I decided to play around with a few functions I hadn't tried yet. 

This panoramic photo of the harbor was taken using stitch assist.  The stitch assist was very helpful with lining up the horizon in all of the photographs.  This made it really easy to combine all 6 photographs together on my computer.  This is a very cool function and I can't wait to use it again.

I then played around with the tilt-shift function, which is definitely cool!  I'm going to play around with this function some more this week & will have more photos to post. 

Mixed Media Article

 The March/April issue of Somerset Studio is on newsstands!  I am very excited to have an article in this issue along with one of my pieces featured on the cover.  The mixed media artwork I created was made using photographs taken during our trip to Venice.  Pick up a copy at Barnes & Noble or Michaels to read about the process.  I've got a few more canvases that I'm working on and will post photos of those once they are finished.

More Mixed Media Beginnings

Experimenting with photography in the darkroom is where my interest in mixed media began.  I was very interested in altering photographs and especially giving them a dream-like quality.  The images below were again shot with film and done by hand in the darkroom, no Photoshop or digital alterations.  A custom negative holder was created to give the photos very soft and 'torn' edges.  The negatives were exposed through a sheet of tissue paper, which gives them a very soft and distorted quality. 

It has been quite some time since I've shot & experimented with film, maybe its time to get out the old Pentax or Holga.

Mixed Media Beginnings

I have always loved experimenting with photography and my first experiments took place in the darkroom.  Garden Dream Series was a project that involved several unique aspects, all done strictly in the darkroom, no Photoshop!  The objective of the project was to create dreamlike images that depicted a walk through a garden.

The first step was to photograph two different subjects individually - nature scenes and self portraits.  I then constructed a special negative holder that would sandwich two negatives at the same time.  These were then exposed simultaneously through a sheet of glass that had Vaseline smeared along the edges.  The overlapping of images, and the distorted edges that the Vaseline provided gave the images a dream like quality.

The first image, Garden Dream 1, was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Plano Art Associations National Juried Show.

Garden Dream 1

Garden Dream 2

Purple Flowers

Several months ago when my sister moved into a new building for work she requested some flower photographs for the walls of her new office.  Since Christmas was approaching I thought it would be a great gift idea.  Her favorite color is purple and we just happen to have an abundance of purple flowers in our garden.  I decided to frame 4 photographs in such a way that when positioned on the wall it would seem like she was looking out of a window onto a garden of purple flowers.