8 Feb 2010, Comments (3)

The Unicorn’s Wood

Author: Stace

The Unicorn's Wood

Look close…can you see her?

5 Feb 2010, Comments (0)

Dusty Images from the Past

Author: Stace

I have a pretty long net history. I remember how, the first time I heard about something called the “World Wide Web” I exclaimed, “Who needs that, when we have Gopher!” I built my first web page in Notepad, before there were any graphic browsers: you had to click on image files you wanted to download to your computer, and then open them in a separate program. And then Mosaic came along and changed everything, mostly for the better.

But this isn’t really meant to be a paean to the Internet, just a preamble to explain that, over the years, I’ve put a lot of content out on there on the Internet, much of which has disappeared in the ever-shifting landscape. Because I never throw anything away, I thought it might be fun to dig into my personal archives from time to time and throw whatever I’ve found up here. It’s an adventure, of sorts, looking back, trying to see how much I’ve changed, how much has stayed the same.

For instance, in the late 90s, I seriously explored the idea of setting myself up as a web designer. Remember that the Web was still a wild frontier back then, and anyone who could sling HTML and Javascript, and could figure out how to make a decent button gif that only took a couple seconds to download had a good shot of pulling in some cash. I even went so far as to make some free pages for writer friends of mine, by way of establishing a portfolio for myself.

Part of my campaign to set myself up as a web designer was to create a free graphics site. Web graphics had a very different look and feel to them then most do today. Everyone was sort of going crazy with Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, just seeing what they could do. Everything was extravagant, unrestrained…often just plain tacky. The style I liked best was ornate and bejeweled, done so well they almost looked like someone laid a piece of jewelry across your screen.

My own gimmick was stained class. At my site Cut Glass Designs, I offered up theme sets, buttons, bars, backgrounds, the whole shebang, under the moniker “Anastasia” (I don’t remember why I used a pseudonym, but everyone seemed to be doing it). Everything had a sort of stained glass look, naturally. I started at first with Photoshop’s stained glass filter, plied over gradients and lens flair effects in order to create the feel of light coming through. My work improved radically when I put together a technique that used photos of actual stained glass samples and patterns.

The pieces displayed here are what I considered my “gallery” work: large-sized originals that I would shrink down for background borders and so forth. I don’t know how much credit I can take for the work, since all I did was put together beautiful things that other people had made. But they are pretty, and I’m glad to have a chance to dust them off and hang them up for a new audience.

Somewhere along the line, I realized that web design and graphic design were changing so rapidly that the learning curve as a designer would be huge and constant. I didn’t want to commit all my time to just keeping abreast of new technologies, because I knew it would detract from my writing. Web design might be fun and all, but writing was where my heart lay. Of course I never stopped playing with graphics and web design. I still maintain my own web site myself, and my proficiency with Photoshop has grown by leaps and bounds (though I’m still no expert, by any measure). But there’s a difference between doing something for a living, and just doing it for fun.

I still struggle with the balance between visual art and writing though. I want both in my life, but I often feel that I’m indulging one at the expense of the other. Where does the path between them lie?

3 Feb 2010, Comments (209)

One World One Heart Giveaway

Author: Stace

Photo

I remember when I first featured the One World One Heart giveaway event in Artful Blogging magazine. I thought it was a great way to discover new blogs, meet new people, share the joys of creativity and generosity. I was impressed with creator Lisa Swifka’s vision and her dedication to what, over the four years the event has been running, must have become a huge organizational burden. This year’s participant list is almost 1,000 people long!

Here’s how it works: Post a giveaway on your blog. Everyone who comments on your post is entered in a random drawing for a prize that can be anything you dream up. It could be art. It could be a poetry. It could be a bar a soap, if that’s what you want to give away. Then Lisa lists all the participants on the One World One Heart site, and you can surf through them to explore new blogs and discover kindred souls you have yet to meet (and maybe win a prize for yourself along the journey!). Oh, you DON’T have to post your own giveaway in order to win prizes from other sites. That is totally optional—you can just start surfing now, if you want.

I’ve never participated before, and I’m a bit late entering the game, this year…it started January 25th, and the giveaways are to take place on February 15th. Better late than never, right?

So here’s what I’m giving away: a creative journaling kit that will include one handmade journal made of watercolor (like I used for my Create Your Own Reality journal, following Teesha Moore’s 16-page journal instructions), a set of watercolor pencils, two pens (black and white), a glue stick, and a handcarved stamp (something along these lines). I’ll probably throw in some papers/ephemera too, depending on what I’ve got around when I put the package together.

To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment to this post (Livejournal readers, you need to click over to dumoski.com please!), and be sure to leave a correct email address so I can contact you if you win. You don’t have to do your own giveaway in order to win. But do click over to the One World One Heart site to visit other participating blogs!

The winner will be drawn on February 15th, so be sure to comment before then if you want to play!

ETA: New visitors to the blog may wish to check back a few posts for a giveaway of digital scrapbook/collage paper!

1 Feb 2010, Comments (2)

Last and First

Author: Stace


Monday, February 8th, is the next free creative journaling workshop at It’s A Grind in Laguna Hills. Most supplies are provided by the coffeeshop, and I will have a small number of 16-page journals available for sale for $5 (like the one I used for my Create Your Own Reality journal). Feel free to bring your own journal and supplies, as well. Did I mention it’s free?

Fragments of Butterflies

This is the last page of my “Create Your Own Reality” journal. The butterflies, which became an unanticipated motif in this book, forced themselves onto the page here. For example, the image of the woman was something I pulled out of a magazine a month ago, and I didn’t realize until I went to glue her onto the page that she was holding a butterfly in her hand. (It was a very tiny, hard to distinguish butterfly, though, so I replaced it with a larger one.) The rest of the butterflies were from a sheet that I was given at a recent craft show, synchronicity at work to be sure!

I tried to do a gel medium transfer, but as you can see it worked very poorly. I don’t know if it was that I didn’t wait long enough, or something with the paper, or what. I only know that I ended up with a mess on a page. But, as I like to say, mistakes (mess-takes, in Anna’s vernacular) are only an opportunity to try something you didn’t expect. In this instance, the fragments of butterflies led me to express a thought about my writing that has vexed me for a while now.

Deep Ink

This is the cover of my new gothic arch journal, which I first posted pictures of last week. Atypically for me, the title of the page came first — Word Painting is the title of a book we’ve been reading in my writers group, about descriptive writing. At some point in our last discussion it occurred to me that it applies to creative journaling, if in a slightly different way. And then I found the quill image in my clippings box (you DO have a clippings box for your creative journaling, don’t you?) and knew it was a fit. The red also looks very striking against the brown background (I do like red and brown, as you might guess from this site’s layout). In another move of synchronicity, Melodye posted a page today that used the exact same quill and ink image.

The text was a little problematic. I knew I wanted to do found poetry—words clipped from a page and arranged in unexpected combinations—but all the magazines I had available have text so tiny that it would have been a chore worthy of Psyche to carry out. I ended up going to MagneticPoetry.com and playing with the online version. When I came up with something suitable, I did a screen grab, printed the result, and cut out the words for re-assembly on the page. I particularly like the phrase “deep ink” … I think that’s what I’m going to strive for in my work this month, to dive deep into the words to discover what truth and story lies underneath.

Which reminds me that it’s time to get back to that short story once again. My writers group has tried to shame me for being so long without presenting anything for critique. Now I’m at the top of the list, and If I don’t have something ready to go by Thursday, I will face their condemnation. Okay, maybe not that, but I can expect a little indulgent condescension, all of which will be deserved if I don’t deliver!

I am an expert at finding creative ways to keep myself from working on my fiction.

This time, it’s been using some of my photos to create digital “papers” for use in scrapbooking, collage, etc. I started the whole thing because I thought it might be fun to have my own papers to use in my creative journals…kind of like using handcarved stamps instead of purchased one. It gives a more personal, unique flavor to your artwork.

I started with a cloud photo (what photographer doesn’t have dozens of cloud photos lying around?) and slapped another photo on top of it — a picture of a paper towel I’d used two wipe my brushes with the other day when working on my new art journal. When I played with the blending modes, the reds, greens and blues on the paper towel gave rich, magical shades of color to the clouds. I used a little blurring and a soft paper texture, too. Here’s the first result:

Digital art paper

Pretty, isn’t it? I’m looking forward to cutting some of this up to do collages in my art journal. I’m thinking of some awesome borders, maybe a golden castle, or a magical forest…

But after I made this, I got carried away and ended up with a baker’s dozen of digital papers–some cloud compositions like this, and some patterns made by combining those different clouds images– and got to thinking that maybe other people would like to use them too. My plan is to try selling them via Etsy and Artfire (they are in fact available there now) BUT I have a special offer anyone who reads my blog.

First, I will send the following full-size digital paper to anyone who wants it, absolutely FREE. It’s 12″x12″, 300 dpi; JPEG, suitable for printing or for any digital artwork you may want to use it for. Also, it’s exclusive: not available in either of the packs for sale. Just leave a comment to this post to get one!

Watercolor clouds free sample

Secondly, if you would like to play with all the papers, I will be happy to send them to you, FREE OF CHARGE, as well. All I ask in return is that you post in your resulting artwork in your blog or other online forum, with a link to this website, or to one of my shopfronts. Heck…you don’t even have to show off your artwork so long as you want to pass on the link to this site. I’m not so picky. Again, just leave a comment here if you want either or both packs.

sunset collection digital art papers

Woodland collection digital papers

While waiting for the girls to get home from Disneyland with their father last night, I spend some time playing with a couple of papers, to see what I could come up with. This is unfinished (I’m still trying to figure out how to add details) and maybe a little rough because I’ve never done this sort of cut-and-paste collage work in Photoshop. But I think I’m on the right track. In fact, I know I am, because when Lucy saw it just now she said, “That looks cool!” which is high praise indeed from my artful teen daughter!

collaged castle -unfinished!

27 Jan 2010, Comments (8)

My Next Art Journal

Author: Stace

Gothic Arch Journal

Gothic Arch Journal

Gothic Arch Journal

Gothic Arch Journal

Gothic Arch Journal

Gothic Arch Journal

Gothic Arch Journal

Gothic Arch Journal

Gothic Arch Journal

25 Jan 2010, Comments (2)

Creative Flow

Author: Stace

Unicorn

I’m still busy with my short story today, as well as trying to do a few articles for a quick bit of cash, but I thought I could spare a moment to share some more recent journal pages, all within the pages of my January “Create Your Own Reality” book. I didn’t really plan on this journal’s theme being change (I wasn’t really planning on a theme at all) but it just sort of happened. These pages all reflect change (growth, transformation, enchantment) in one way or another, but they also reflect something that was on my mind when I created them. They evolved piece by piece, without any final vision in mind when I began. They may yet evolve still. You can never tell with this sort of thing.

I want to point out the face on the page above, which is one of those happy accidents that happen when you let creativity free. I wanted a male profile there on the page, intending to simply trace it and fill it with color and/or words. When I couldn’t find any in the magazines I have, I turned to the Internet. Easy enough to find what I wanted there, except that our printer happened to be out of black ink. What printed out was the melange of color you see above—pinks and peach and a hint of blue—which was a perfect blend for the background of the page. How could I not use it, hm? You always have to be prepared for the unexpected in creative journaling.

How I See

By the time I made this page, I was firmly entrenched in the theme of change. I had also just gotten my new camera lens, and so it seemed natural to do a page about it. I could have printed a picture from the internet, sure (we had blank ink again by this time) but I decided to stretch myself and sketch it myself. Most of the drawing I’ve done has been faces, and I haven’t even really done that for a while. But I figured why not give it a whirl? And you know what, it didn’t turn out that bad. You can tell what it is, anyway! So there’s today’s lesson #2: always stretch your limits.

Enchantment

I like the colors on this page a lot; I added to the background with the new pastels I showed you the other day (they are a unique product, with a fixative blended into the chalk, so that you don’t have to worry about smearing). Unfortunately the glitter on the letters doesn’t show up much in the scan…it’s really a much more “enchanting” image (snrk).

The thing I want to point out about this page is the two coppery blobs on the door of the castle. I tried using stamps and Palette glue to put down some copper foil that I’ve had for ages but never used, but clearly it didn’t work. I don’t know if it was that stamp design or the glue or whatever else might have caused a problem, but I ended up with blobs. A little disappointing, but I can live with it. I’m just glad I remembered I had the foil, and I’m looking forward to experimenting more on future pages. Which, yes, brings us to lesson three: try new things—even failed experiments are worthwhile.

I swear, I didn’t intend to make this into a lesson when I started. I just wanted to show off these pages. But, you know, once you get in the creative flow, you never know where it’s going to go.

23 Jan 2010, Comments (3)

Rainbows

Author: Stace

Rainbows

Yesterday’s and today’s.

22 Jan 2010, Comments (1)

The Other Shore

Author: Stace
The Other Shore fantasy desktop wallpaper: Click to Download

Click to Download Desktop Wallpaper from Deviant Art

Because we’d all rather be at the beach.

21 Jan 2010, Comments (0)

Lesson Plans

Author: Stace

The storms persist, and I decided to abandon my writers’ group tonight in favor of staying home and dry, and not trekking down over-crowded freeways with lightening and thunder sparking overhead.

Likewise, Tuesday’s second class at Juvenile Hall was canceled due to weather, but I thought I would take some of my free time tonight to share a little of the class plans Melodye and I made.

Our first objective was to introduce the concept of creative journaling, but we knew it had to be quick and lecture-free. Besides having a sharply limited schedule and kids who we knew would be more interested in doing than talking, I don’t know if you can really tell someone what a creative journal is. You have to see them to have a even a glimmer of understanding of what it’s all about, and you have to do it to really, really know.

We started with a quick succession of sample pages we had made. Who here has kept a diary? Did it look like this? How about like this? Or this? With each page, we could see that the girls’ eyes widening with the possibilities. We had them hooked.

Then came the handouts. First, a one-page summary of what Creative Journaling is, along with some quick steps to get started:

Creative Journaling is...

We also included a one-page cut-sheet with ideas and inspirational quotes on the theme of the evening, Change:
Change, Grow, Transformaiton...

To be honest, I don’t know if any of the girls paid much attention to either handout. They were more interested in the art supplies being handed out right then. Though they were invited to incorporate either or both handout on the pages they were making, I only saw one girl actually cut into hers, and that was only to extract the letter “D” from the word ENDURE. That’s all right: creativity shouldn’t be obligated to use anything it doesn’t want to.*

We asked the girls to write “Change” on their pages (12″x12″ sheets of scrapbook paper in pastel shades) anywhere they wanted, as big or as small, as simple or as elaborate as they imagined it should be. After that came magazines, and a pile of strips that I’d cut out from scrapbook papers to use as borders if they wanted (I was very gratified to see at least one person choose a strip of pirate-themed paper with skulls and swords…I’ve had that paper for ages and never found a use for it).

That was about the extent of our lesson plan. We spent the remainder of the class moving around the girls, making sure they had what they needed and encouraging there efforts.Some of the girls spent the whole time tearing pages from the magazines, while others quickly settled on a few and started gluing. Unfortunately, we did not have nearly enough time for them to complete their pages. When time was up, we collected their papers and all the assorted elements they were planning on using (they could not, due to an oversight of supplying contraband stickers, take the pages with them). The plan was to bring them back to be finished this week, and the girls asked if they could have colored pencils the next time, for shading and coloring.

Unfortunately, next time didn’t happen, and it’s uncertain when we’ll be able to go back. When and if we do, it’s likely we’ll have an entirely different set of girls, and we’ll have to start from the top once again.

The handouts won’t go to entirely to waste, though. I used one on my own journal page, as a tribute to the experience:
Change

*Though, to be sure, being forced to use a certain set of supplies can drive creativity into unexpected places!