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.

Immersive Show

Using the medium of Second Life, I created a different version of layered transparency based on my real life Into the Woods exhibition. I'm finding a curious exhilaration with learning to work in the computer environment to create a space where an avatar may enter and experience, from various points of view visual sensory information. Using the built in cameras in the app to change the way you look at a piece or virtual art allows the viewer to participate in the experience.

I have been pretty excited in general about my SL gallery. My traffic is way up on my website and it's been fun getting to know some of the interesting people in the community. On stage for the next exhibitions at Vividblack Gallery at the SL Hotel Chelsea sim are RL gig poster artist Madpixel in January, SL visual poet Ed Vespucciano in Feb, and virtual art experience The Gracie Kendall Project, an exploration of identity through the lens of real and virtual worlds. All are must sees. Please visit my Vividblack Gallery in SL . You must also have an account and an avatar set up to view the work. Don't worry, it's free. Visit SecondLife.com, and get an account m'kay? For announcements for the SL gallery, please click the eyeball in the gallery and join the group. You'll be glad you did. ; )

Thanks to Mykal, Enola and all the fabulous people at the virtual Hotel Chelsea for making such a great sim. Visit for super live music and literary events. Really, I'm not kidding.

Photo Icons for the $20 Art Sale

These are some little painted photo icons I did for the $20 Art Sale and the Very Portland Christmas Sale. They measure 4x6" and are mixed media on wood. Pretty little things, precious. They can be ordered if you like as well. Contact info@vividblack.net for more info.

Second Life Gallery

Vividblack Art Gallery in the Hotel Chelsea NY Gallery Row

Louis XVI

I forgot to post these King Louis XVI pictures. They are from an issue of the LEO on photography. Several local photographers were asked to see the city from their perspective. Lot's of cool stuff. This is my interpretation of what I would show King Louis XVI if he came to Louisville today. Mostly cool things like the bathroom at 21C, art, Chuck Rubin's and the Mag Bar.

Scenes from Dystopia - The Examination

The thought of scrutiny and examination is always an uncomfortable place. Being helpless at the hands of someone you barely know when you are sick or injured is a place where primal fears can invade our thoughts. A gradual regression of humanity could allow certain individuals the capacity to delve into the darkest objectification. A biology laboratory where unchecked experimentation allows people to degenerate into cruelty - human vivisection.

The Real American Gothic

Gas mask, shovel and pie, oh my.

Sinister Humor

I asked my friend to bring up some of his favorite props from his performance art to create a sort of cyberpunk / steam punk look for our shoot. Not only did he bring some great stuff (that I supplemented with a few of my own pieces), but he brought this cool woman with him who was willing to do some studio play. We had a great time and they both brought so much creativity and humor to the process. It's such a pleasure to work with such fun-loving people who have a sense of sinister humor. Totally what I was looking for. More from this night coming in future posts.

Wrapping - Cellophane

I started working on some new wrappings recently. Cellophane makes people look kind of creepy and dead. It wasn't intentional, but I like what it eludes to in a Commodified Human context. It only happens to be that my model was female that night...I'm not going for a "dead girls are hot" kind of vibe, just more a contextual relationship with the other human commodity images.
I see a landscape coming with 5 or 6 bodies in cellophane (men and women), littering the space. Some desolate place where the trash we create is put out of sight but continues to encroach on the natural world. The overall destruction on our identity through corporate greed and whacked American cultural values is killing us all.

The Work is Transforming

Someone has been playing with the Bio Lab Installation. That makes me absolutely ecstatic! It's pretty exciting to think about how these images will change as the installation continues on. I feel like the 3 bears in a good "someones been sleeping in my bed" kind of way. I hope to catch several different stages of this work as it transitions. So go to the gallery and play! I love surprises.

Into the Woods Installation piece from recent exhibiton

I just returned from the opening for Into the Woods at the Huff Gallery. Here are a few views from the installation of this piece. Into the Woods, 2009, Installation, Digital Transparencies and Light

Interactive Bio Lab Installation

This is one of the installation pieces from the Into the Woods show at the Huff gallery. Visitors to the gallery can create hybrids and layered landscapes from a collection of photographic transparencies that I created. Come play Wednesday night!

Exibit Opening at Huff Gallery June 10 4-6pm

Into the Woods Photographic Prints and Installation by Mary Yates
I have always had a secret desire to become lost in the deep woods at night. To hear the rustling of animals, smell the fertile earth, and to feel my heart quicken as perhaps I catch a brief glimpse of the hidden world that exists beyond my safety and touches the place where magic is born. The thought makes me feel giddy, alive and even a bit apprehensive. With all my senses engaged and not knowing the outcome, I could venture forth and really feel what it is like to be human and truly alive with limited defenses and no connection to the safety of a warm home with locked doors.

The ways we have distanced ourselves from nature is truly heartbreaking. We all now live in our shoebox cages and most of us visit nature only when we need “sport” or “recreation”. As urban sprawl encroaches on more and more wild lands these magical spaces are disappearing at an alarming rate. We are so fearful of the woods and the wild beasts that roam that we have insulated ourselves in subdivisions and strip malls. We call the wildlife management service when a “nuisance” animal encroaches on our tidy little plastic world and spray chemicals on our lawns to create uniformity that feels safe because we have lost our way and become fearful. I believe that this disconnection to our wild lands is one of the most devastating signs of how unhealthy our planet has become.

Through this work, I hope that people will realize that the woods are a treasure, a place of magic and beauty, and essential to our success as a species. I hope that visitors to this exhibit will experience, in a small way, how it might feel to be immersed in a living world where we can revive our connection to our to our planet and our responsibility to her.

The images were gathered in Kentucky at Wolf Pen Branch Mill Farm (part of the River Fields conservation easement) and at Bernheim Forest.

Please visit River Fields at www.riverfields.org or the Nature Conservancy at www.nature.org for more information about how you can help protect our land and natural resources.

Opening Reception Wednesday, June 10th 6-10pm at the Huff Gallery at Spalding University