New Kittehs!

I've been working on some new cat prints for the Madpixel store. Since I love Sushi and it's all my old cat would eat (sans rice), I made a Super Tasty Fish Wish print of a cat dreaming about some shrimp sushi. You can get this through the Madpixel website or the Etsy shop. See links on the right.


I've also gotten into the cutesy vector graphics. What could be more adorable than two kittens in mittens. Of course this is a seasonal print that will delight the kid in all. Three color print is 11x14 and can be purchased through the Madpixel website or our Etsy shop. Meow!

and the final piece...

This is the final Shotgun screen print. The metallic gold ink doesn't show up so well in a photo, but trust me, it's awesome. You can get your very own at The Madpixel Store. Now on to Sushi Cats. Stay tuned for details!

Update: From Digital Illustration to Silk Screen - Step One in Transition

This is an updated post. See content below first :)

Here is the same piece broken down in three colors ready for the silkscreen process. The next step is to turn each of these layers into black and transparent images to burn the screen. Once the three screens are washed the negative space is left and ink can be forced through on paper. Look for the final result posted here after it is printed tomorrow. 


Start Here

I'm starting to work towards creating some images that can be used to make art prints for the silk screen process. This is image is my first design that will make this move. I like it. It's all layer-y and pretty and has the feel of a a Lotte Reiniger film. Lotte was one of the earliest animators who worked in silhouette (and from Berlin - even better). I remember seeing her Pied Piper of Hamelin piece and falling in love with her careful and ingenious use of cut paper to tell (to me) a well known story. The visual quality of the silhouette also had a very creepy feel to me so this really works with my love of exploring the shadow themes in fairy tales. Keeping with my life long love of this type of story, I look at this piece as being a post-modern homage to kick-ass female leads in the horror genre. I will continue to update the process here and show the steps of taking apart and reconstructing in a different medium, but for now let's just say I'm very pleased with the look and excited to explore something new. The silk screen piece is being printed with the help of Madpixel and will be shown at the Ultra Pop Halloween show.

Making Cyanotype Solution - Prep for the LVAA Photogram and UV Printing Workshop

In preparation for the photogram workshop I'm teaching at the Louisville Visual Art Association on Sunday I had a little fun with chemistry. This process is from Photographer's Formulary and is the new improved Cyanotype chemical prep. You can do this in your house, just be sure to use safe handling procedures for the chemicals.

This is not listed first on the instructions as the first step, but I do it first because it takes awhile to do completely. Finely grind 10g of potassium ferricyanide to a powder. *Wear protective gear! Gloves and a face mask!

The crystals will start out red but turn light orange as in the photo above. If you think you are done grinding, go ahead and grid it some more! You need a very fine powder for it to dissolve quickly.

 Heat 30 ml of distilled water to 120 degrees and add 30g of ferric ammonium oxalate, that will result in a green liquid when completely dissolved.

Under safe-light or a very low watt (25) incandescent light, pour in a 10ml solution of ammonium dicromate. (Not pictured)

While the solution is still warm (I keep my beaker in a pan of 120 degree water) pour in the fine ground potassium ferricyanide and stir until no red or orange crystals remain and green crystals begin to appear. Allow this solution to cool for 1 hour until just about room temperature.

When the solution has cooled strain the liquid through a filter (a standard coffee filter will do). A green sludge will remain on the filter which can be discarded. To the filtered liquid add 100ml of distilled water and put in a brown or dark colored bottle with a tight fitting lid. The solution can be painted on paper with a brush or use a glass coating rod. This chemical will last about 1 year in a tightly sealed and dark bottle.

Another Vision

This is the owl woman piece re-imagined. So different so similar.

Preliminary Art for a CD Cover

This is some preliminary artwork for a CD cover by one of the first women of Kentucky Folk Music. She has a wise and mystical quality in real life, so when she said she really connected with owls it seemed natural to show her with the spirit as part of her. The background is from NASA and is from the Hubble space telescope. 

New Wrappings Underway!

Forest Wrapping

Meadow Wrapping

More Human Commodities

me at work with the model
(don't worry there is an assistant nearby ready to cut him out of the plastic in an instance)

I spent a grueling, hot Saturday afternoon with a very committed model who allowed me to wrap him, not one, but two times in the 98 degree sun. Sweat was pouring off me in buckets. My photo assistant Shannon looked a little sticky too, so imagine what my model Joey withstood in the nice purple Easter egg cellophane! I think he was relieved when we finally cut him out of the wrappings, but maybe he kind of liked it after all. After a gallon of water and a gin and tonic, our trooper was ready for another go. This time, we hiked a bit into the forest and I found a nice place where the trees were lush and green and made a nice linear composition. This one was more challenging, because Joey had to stay wrapped for a bit longer so I could get various angles and make sure the green of the forest was properly reflected off the transparent cellophane. A nice big daddy long legs almost got smoothed in there with Joey but thankfully Shannon is not squeamish about bugs and pulled it out to live another day. Thanks to those two, I got another nice set of images to for my project. Stay tuned...more wrappings to come!

Fallen

This image is my most recent Photoshop manipulation. The image of Terry was shot while she was laying on the grass and the water, clouds, and flower are all shot at different times. I'm still playing with the color, I like it in full shocking, vibrant hues as well as completely in gray scale. I think it works both ways. The posting here is a compromise between the two extremes. I like the idea of living between worlds. In the fall this is the moment where you are free from the constraints from what came before as well as what's to come. It's the moment that is in flux, a space where potential exists in both how we view the past and what we imagine for the future.

Where There’s Life There’s Art

Check this fabulous post at Drunken Boat by Ed Vespucciano, the artist currently showing at VividBlack Galleries in Second Life:

Where There’s Life There’s Art

Ed's Exhibit runs in-world though March 12, 2010

SEX WITH TYPOS
Drunken Boat contributor Ed Vespucciano invites you to his exhibition of Visual Poetry, SEX WITH TYPOS, at the Vividblack Gallery, in “Second Life”, (near the Hotel Chelsea) February 1 – March 12, 2010.
SEX WITH TYPOS was created for the Second Life world using only the tools and materials available in SL: avatar created pictures and chat texts, the currency of life and vitality there. All the photographs were taken with the SL avatar camera (or perv-cam) and the text layers were created using IBM Word-Cloud Generator software to process actual local chats or instant message (IM) conversations.
“These scenes are sometimes real encounters, sometimes a combination of texts and pictures from different SL sources, but they all represent the heart of experience I have drawn from real people in Second Life. However cyborgian we may get in the virtual world, we are all still thinking with minds of meat.”
No avatars were harmed during the creation of these works of art.
Reception – Saturday, February 6th 2010 at 3pm SLT (6pm EST) at Vividblack Gallery.
You can visit Vividblack Gallery with your Second Life account (it's free if you aren't registered yet).

Virtual Worlds - Sculptures for the Treeline Project

These 3D modeled sculptures were created for the virtual Treeline Project, an Australian nonprofit connecting, people, art, science and nature to bring awareness to conservation issues. Each image is an environment that an avatar can physically enter and experience an immersive virtual space. Two events have been scheduled in world, an opening for all the current virtual Treeline artists Thursday, January 21st at 2pm Pacific time. I will also be giving an artist talk for the University of Western Australia's Design Challenge Showcase Saturday, January 23rd at 3pm Pacific Time. I exist in world as an avatar Araminta Kroitschov, artist and owner of Viviblack Galleries.

Flutter Trees, my art and design and scripted so butterflies float around the viewer. This piece was done in collaboration with virtual artist Ed Vespucciano, who was wonderful about taking my butterfly photographs and making them in to little moving swarms to go inside the sculpture.

Moon Forest is a piece that can be entered and experienced from different camera view points to gaze at the moon and feel a spiritual connection to nature.

 

Virtual Forest is a massive box filled with transparency and light that gives the viewer an experience of getting lost in the woods. Moving an avatar passes through the space layers and layers of tree images and stumbles around until they find the door.

 

A picture of part of the Treeline Project's installation space with the Virtual Forest on the top left of the image gives an idea of space.

For a transcript of the artist talk visit the UWA blog.