Photos and Etching, 100th post

Above is a scan of my final etching print of Mira installed in her bag. I like her face but am still not happy with the body on the right side, the fur isn't represented quite correctly. Oh well, I am running out of time to work on this plate so this is going to be the final version for now. Maybe I will get access to a press again sometime and be able to do more work on her. The plate was done with a combination of hard ground etching, aquatint, and engraving. Printing was done la Poupee, meaning I applied 2 colors to the plate prior to wiping, Mira is a Burnt Sienna and the background/bag is black ink.  The finished color difference is slight but there and was done to unify the cat as one image. Sorry for the shadows, the paper is wavy because of how it dried, when the ink drys I can press it flatter but right now I need to let it do its thing.  I know I could take the shadows out with Photoshop, but I really don't want to spend that much time on the photo. I have one more plate to print, this last one is of Jack in the Pulpit plants in flower. I will be printing it Tuesday so I will have a scan of it later next week.

I am still adding color to the soft ground plate but will have that done over the weekend and should be able to post a scan of that print with the Jack in the Pulpit. I am not thrilled with the subject of that plate, I think it takes me a while to absorb how to best utilize a new technique in my work and the soft ground was a new technique for me.

Next are 4 of the photos I turned in for my last Photography assignment, they were taken in color and I converted them to black and white in Photoshop. No other Photoshop work was done to them except for cropping. I really like the Red Line Terminal photo, I think that works on several levels. The trip to Boston really allowed me to take more interesting photos than I would have been able to do if I had stayed in Brockton.

            Christopher Columbus Statue in Christopher Columbus Park in Boston

Quincy/Adams Red Line Terminal

Quincy Market, South Market, Boston, MA

Building with Statue in Lobby, Boston, MA.

There were 2 more photos but these are the best. I am sorry I didn't write down the name of the building in the last photo. The one element I am missing here is a person, it would have been a better photo for my assignment if there had been someone in the lobby. Ah well it was a late Saturday afternoon and that would have been asking for a bit much. I was lucky to have cars on the other side of the street.

That is it for this posting which is believe it or not, my 100th blog post. If I were like some of the Bloggers on the Art Quilt List I would have a give a way. Maybe when I reach 200 I will give something away. In the meantime comments are welcome. Let me know what you think of my photos. 

Photos to Share

Yesterday I took a quick trip into Boston with the purpose of taking photographs for my Photography Class. We are working on an assignment where we have to make some photos in the style of Andre Kertesz. Mr. Kertesz was born in Hungary migrating first to Paris then on the eve of the 2nd World War to America and NYC. He was an early adopter of the 35mm film camera and was one of those who developed the techniques of Photo Journalism. I think I have my photos for the assignment and will post them later in the week, but for today I want to post some other photos I have taken. Above is one I took yesterday along the Rose Kennedy Greenway. This is the park that is planted where the Central Artery used to be in Boston. Since Boston's Big Dig was a project to put that roadway underground it left the land above available for something. So far plans have called for making it into a park. Hopefully it will remain as one. These tulips were in full bloom yesterday and just beautiful. I hope the photograph captures that beauty, in the background you can see some of the other beds that were laid out.

This next photo I took a couple of weeks ago just as plants were starting to leaf out. This was taken in Brockton's Field's Park along the reservoir. The sun was shinning on these - well I guess they are flowers though I am not sure what the bush is, creating this soft glow. I used a shallow depth of field to have the flowers closest to us in focus but blurring the stems and leaves that are in the background. Other than cropping I haven't made any adjustments to the original image.

My last photo was also taken in Field's Park but this one was taken a couple of years ago during the summer. This is a photo of a blooming thistle against the water in the reservoir. For this image I not only cropped it but I did lighten it a bit so that the reflection of the trees in the water has more green, the dark line across the top of the photo is the far shore where the trees are standing.

I am not sure just where I stand on posting photographs to a blog. I am not going to start posting a photo a day as some have done. But I have taken some interesting photos and I do plan on taking more photos, which is partly why I took the class after all, so it doesn't make sense not to share them. So I expect that every now and then I will do a post like this one and share a few of the photos I have taken that I like the best.  As always comments are welcome.

It's Spring

OK I now consider it officially spring. Above is a photograph I made today at Blue Hill's Reservation of Trout Lilies. They are one of the earliest spring wild flowers, and as you can see are now in bloom. Last year we had a late freeze and the blossoms were malformed so I didn't get any good photos. That said they are pia to photograph because they are only about 6 inches high and the blossom tends to droop a bit so they look at the ground. A bit tricky to photograph through a view finder. I have one more photo of these lovelies for you.

Monday was Patriots Day and the 114th running of the Boston Marathon, not that I run but it is notable that they have been running this race for over 100 years. I didn't realize that I didn't have class on Monday so got up per usual and puttered around working on some things then collected myself and headed out to school, only to find an empty parking lot - hmm well guess that made it pretty obvious there were no classes. So I thought I would head up to Blue Hill Reservation and check on how the Trout Lilies were doing. There were no open blooms on Monday, but it was apparent that it was only a matter of days before there would be flowers to photograph. I made mental plans to come back on Wed. then did some wandering around. Monday morning though a bit on the chilly side was a beautiful sunny day with just a few clouds, so I though I would take some landscape pictures. Well I ended up taking landscape pictures all the way up to the top of Blue Hill and into the observation tower. Even ended up with a picture of Boston to show for it. Visibility was for miles and about as good as it gets in the Boston Metro area. Enjoyed the outing very much though I am not sure I took any really good photos. I will spare you having to look at distance landscapes, photos of Boston, which to be honest from a distance looks like almost any large city.

Tuesday it was back to classes and my Intaglio class. Here I finally have something to show for all the work I have been doing, I finished re-working my tree plate and made 4 good prints. I also applied some aquatint to the Cat in a Bag plate, and applied hard ground to my final plate so I can do some drawing on it at home. I think the image for that plate will be a Jack in the Pulpit. I did a drawing which is OK, but it needs something so I am considering using an older drawing of the flower for a reference or looking up some more reference photos on the internet. Will probably do the latter.

So here is the final version of the tree after aqua-tinting the background top and adding a fair amount of engraved lines to soften the edge between the bottom plate and the aquatint. I scanned this so the shadows are the from the paper not being totally flat on the scanning bed. Paper for Intaglio has to be wet so it doesn't always dry totally flat. When the ink drys a bit more I can press it, but right now I need to let the ink dry. That's it for this post. I have to tint the prints that I did with the soft ground, I also added some engraved lines to that plate after adding some more hard ground etched lines. Will upload a photo of that when I get the tinting done and the print scanned, next post I am sure. In the meantime I am trying to get my cover design for my resume package worked on. I had something for class today, but it was pretty much rejected out of hand by everyone in the class. Oh well, I wasn't in love with it so don't mind going back to the drawing board with it. I have been spending more time with page layout, what images to use, what order to show them, what size to make this and what paper I am going to use to print it on. Did you know that you can no longer get really good paper in a legal size? No where, and I have even checked for web sources. If you want letter size there is plenty to choose from but not legal. Very frustrating but I think I have a solution, at least I hope I do. Will get back to you on how it works. In the meantime comments are always welcome.