Daily Photo 20190118 What I'm working on . . .

Detail of a larger collage that's part of an artist's book I'm making.

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

Daily photo 20190106 The beat goes on . . .

I’m so slow at this. I’m creating pages for a series of three handmade books, all with an aged and sort of raggedy/soft Japanese look.  I need to make at least 60 pages. And it’s taking me forever.

Right now I’m working on 16 of the pages, tearing papers, making small collages, integrating everything on all 16 at once, which means they will never be finished until all 60 pages are created and can contain no more elements. Then I will organize the pages, dividing them up into three completed books.

So I look at these pages daily, adding something here, something there, painting over something there, something here. What you’re seeing in this shot are the pages all spread out, overlapping one another, some stacked together.

But I’m also working on small handmade artist books — no text, just painted papers containing interesting shapes, forms, and colors.

I admire and envy other artists who seem to quickly make and show their books, their creations, while I slog through the process. Perhaps it's because I’ve devoted so much time to photography rather than making handmade books, and I’m learning as I go along. Okay, that sounds good! I’ll stick with that explanation!

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

What I'm working on . . . artist books

I've always wanted to make a series of artist books, small booklets that contain handpainted/handprinted papers.

The process begins (at least for me) with the papers, so I've been using a gel plate and a limited color palette to make the pages.

Using the pages as a substrate, I will add additional items and then create the signatures. The signature thickness will determine how the books will be bound. For all I know right now, each book may just be a single signature!

The colors are luscious, the possibilities for embellishment limitless. Here's the layout right now for simple page-making.

An oversize gel plate is where it begins (top), where I make the individual pages (middle). In the bottom picture you can see close-ups of three pages.

This is fun! No pressure, no time constraints, and the results are beautiful. We shall see!

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

WHAT I'M WORKING ON: "Bunker Art"

Another in my series of photographs depicting the details of military fortifications along the west coast. In this case, I converted the image to black and white and then let just a bit of the underlying color image come through. Gotta say, I like this effect!

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

What I'm working on: UPDATING

Before and after... New tools, new skills, new eyes. Yesterday morning I revisited an old photomontage I made in 2008. I decided it needed to be lightened, brightened, and have more depth.

Quite the difference (in my eyes).

Should I do this with ALL my old works? Ha! I'm not quite that insane. Yet.

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

What I'm working on: PHOTOMOTIVATION

I’ve got a private group going over in Facebook called Photomotivation, where I give the group an assignment every month, they post their pictures, and we comment and offer suggestions, joke around, and in general have a casual good time.

The folks in the group are primarily my former students and their friends, and during the 22 months I’ve been conducting the group, we’ve gotten to know one another in a delightful way.

This month the topic is “More is More.” Where maybe one oil can can look good, but a grouping might be even better. Or where one postage stamp with a giant bug on it can be impressive, but three postage stamps with giant bugs on them might be even more impressive.

By the way, if YOU would like to be a part of this group, the web address is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/photomotivation/ The group is a private one, so just click where it says to become a member and you’ll quickly be added to the mix. It’s free. It’s fun. It’s informative.

Here are some examples I’ve posted this month.

Postage stamps from Burundi are pretty dramatic. One bug alone is impressive. Three bugs and you've got an infestation!

One oil can looks pretty cool, but the family portrait I find a bit more interesting.

The single pen nib is competently photographed, but the treatment I subsequently gave it makes a dramatic, slightly mysterious image, doesn't it?

One buoy on top of a pile of others implies more while focusing attention on the one. The second version of the shot isn't necessarily better, but it tells more of a story, especially with the crab pots in the background.

And then while we always see just one viewing scope, a two-fer is unusual and catches our eye.

Finally, one of these colorful toothbrushes might be a fun photo, but a grouping like this has a bit of absurdity and humor to it.

Anyway, that's the concept this month. Want to be a part of Photomotivation? Follow the link above.

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

What I'm working on . . . KIMONO WRAPPER

I have an 1828 wrapper for a kimono that is gloriously soft and weathered and yet sturdy.

I have photographed various bits and pieces of the wrapper and then have combined those bits and pieces to create a variety of photomontages, montages that are slightly different, yet honor the spirit of the object.

The wrapper is made of old, used boro paper, multiple layers pasted together so that it's thick and very soft. I'm reveling in what this kimono wrapping paper is offering, and I hope you enjoy seeing my interpretations of it.


All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

What I'm working on: BUNKER ART

There’s one project I’ve been working on for years, and it revolves around photographing military bunkers and forts throughout the Pacific northwest. The subject matter is usually considered strange, the pictures are mostly abstract, and the colors are mottled and subdued. But my heart races when I go out to shoot, which tells me I’m doing the right thing.

Why is this project a good idea? Because it gives me a purpose. At the end of all this, maybe there will be a book, a gallery exhibit, a photo essay. Or not. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I have a focus, one that makes me explore the wonders of black and white photography rather than the instant gratification of color.

And it makes me happy.

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

What I'm working on: MADRONE TREE BARK

This is my summer project since it's rather weather dependent. Madrone trees are often tough to get to, and rain makes the job even tougher. So summer's my main window of opportunity.

But not TOO summery, because harsh sunlight can create dappled shadows, which aren't necessarily good for this project.

(But it's also tick season, and as I waded through weeds the other day, I got my first one. Ick! Luckily I saw it on my leg, a black spot smaller than the head of a pin. He'd taken a bite, was easy to remove, leaving a tiny red bump. He's now stuck to a Band-Aid, inside a little box, inside a plastic baggie. Why? Just in case this red bump gets bigger and I need the guy checked for some nefarious disease. Did I mention ick?)

So high overcast light is ideal: a little bit of shading, a little bit of shadowing, a little more light over here, and I've got depth, darkness, texture, and a glow.

The weather report decides what I work on that day. If the weather doesn't cooperate, no worries. I've got four other projects in progress. And I'll talk about the next one in the next post.

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you for your understanding and kindness.

What I'm working on . . .

Collages on boards.

Right now one part of the studio counter is covered with papers, stains, glues, paint, and more as I'm experimenting with creating collages on wooden cradle boards. I've never tried this.

The good part is that I have a lot of different papers from which to choose, which can be freeing. The bad part is that I have a lot of different papers from which to choose, which can be intimidating.

The process is that I simply begin laying out different papers, not gluing them down yet, which is what you're seeing here. They're just rough drafts, just ideas. Today I'll go back in and start making more "permanent" decisions.

The scary part comes when my next experiment will be to cover the collages with encaustic (wax). Maybe. What if I ruin them?! Once waxed, I can't go back. Yikes!

So once the collages are complete, I'll set them aside and then work with applying wax to some paper scraps. If that's successful, then yup, I'll wax the collages.

Shades of the movie "The Karate Kid." Wax on. Wax off.

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

What I'm working on . . .

I have been working on (since it seems forever) making a handmade book. I’ve been thinking of it as a “Kyoto” book, since I’m incorporating photographs I took In Japan, but it’s really not about Kyoto.

I’ve completed 10 pages. And have maybe 20 more to go. It’s 12” wide and 4.5” high and thick. It will be Japanese stab-bound on the left side. And it will be meant to be hung on a wall by a cord. The style is similar to a daifuku-cho, a Japanese ledger book.

Each page is a collage, both front and back, with the back much simpler, less detailed than the front. This unnamed book is designed to be held, touched, bent, paged through. It feels soft, worn, weathered, ragged, frayed, and irregular.

This year I’ve been gathering together appropriate papers for the book — papers I’ve dyed, inked, stained, painted, crumpled, torn, folded, and sometimes waxed. The collage items are old postage stamps, hanko signatures (“chops”), postal cancellations, rice paper images, rubber stamps, water stains, pages from antique Japanese books and ledgers, and much, much more.

Since I’ve never done this before, I’m winging it, seeing how my photographs handle being tinted, how glues hold up when the papers get wet, and how my printer inks react with water. My printer ceased working and so I got a new one. But the inks are markedly different and don’t react the same way, causing my processes to change constantly.

So here are bits and pieces of what I’m doing. From upper left to right you see a sample unfinished page sitting on top of other papers, a close-up of a page, examples of postage stamps I have to choose from, then my “paper table,” photos that I’ve stained and are now drying, another sample unfinished page, a number of signature hankos (chops) that I use here and there, a close-up of a stained paper (doesn’t that look cool?), and a close-up of part of another page.

I. Love. This. The process has been a huge learning curve, trial and (mostly) error. Full of surprises (always a good thing), and the book pages/collages are wonderful to hold, to page through, to curl and bend and touch. They even sound good, sometimes crackling, sometimes softly brushing one another.

Having projects, having a purpose, making something is important to me. And in my mostly digital world, having a physical result is most refreshing! I will attempt to update more and more as things have begun speeding up. Wish me luck!

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

It all begins now . . .

I've solved the printer/ink/paper problems and am now ready to begin printing the images for my handmade book.

I took a couple shots of what my photo "fails" look like (although seeing them here, they do look kinda cool!).

And then there are a couple of photos showing what else is on my studio counter.

It's now time to clear the decks, begin cutting paper to size, to print a bunch of pictures, and then create the pages.

Each page will be a collage of sorts that features one or more photographs embedded into the paper. Stains, tears, smudges, patterns, postage stamps, etc. are some of the things I'll be incorporating into the mix.

Let the games begin!

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

What I'm working on: Ledger Book

I have an old ledger book, full of empty pages, and it sits on my work counter.

As I'm making other things, leftover bits and pieces of scrap paper go onto the pages in this book.

The fun of it is that it doesn't have to be perfect, that I'm free to put things just anywhere without thinking it to death.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Back-to-back-to-back . . .

There’s a certain someone in my life who sees things, sends me a link, and says, “maybe this is something you could try.” I, of course, think it’s very cool, make a note and usually do nothing. So then she subtly includes a particular supply in a Christmas gift package so I can make this thing.

Sigh. Now there’s no excuse. I go down to the studio and give it a go.

This is a picture of what I made. It’s the first (and probably only) one I will ever make, because it drove me insane!

It’s a back-to-back-to-back book, requiring no sewing, just some cool papers and double-sided tape. And that’s what CJ dropped into my Christmas package. A big roll of double-sided tape.

The concept is to make a bunch of papers all the same size, fold them in half, and then, one by one, glue the back of one folded paper to the front of the next folded paper. Until you have a stack. I mean, how hard can this be?

Well, if you want things perfectly stuck together, perfectly aligned, this project will make you crazy. Which I think was CJ’s goal. In the name of love and friendship, of course!

So here you see what I made. It’s not great, it’s not even mediocre. And guess what CJ’s getting for Christmas next year. . .

NOTE: I wrote this yesterday afternoon and scheduled it to be published for early this morning. Since then, however, I have totally changed my tune. I now have a BRILLIANT idea for what I'm going to do with this b-2-b-2-b concept. Brilliant. So thanks again, CJ, for your oh-so-subtle Christmas goodie. I think I can make something very cool.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

What I'm working on . . . "Kimono Package"

I stumbled upon, online, a "kimono package" for sale. It's a large, padded, multilayered, old, soft, weathered, hand-made packet that, when opened, would contain a Japanese kimono.

And I'm slowly, slowly photographing bits and pieces of it to use in photomontages.

These are examples of what I've made so far, and I haven't even begun to photograph the interior.

I have similar yet very different old Japanese papers from a roll that Kathleen Amt so generously gave to me. That, too, is its own project.

And eventually, the two will merge, creating a third series of images.

For me, the key is slowness. I am giddy about all three projects. Giddiness comes with a price, however, and it would be easy to quickly burn out, and/or become overwhelmed.

Slowness is the watchword for these projects. Difficult to accomplish when one's feeling like a nine-year-old on Christmas Eve . . .

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

What are you working on?

What are you working on? This is a question that's often hard to answer, but it's very important to have an answer. As an artist, if you don't know what you're working on, don't have a project, then you are simply flotsam in a sea of possibilities, going nowhere.

And that's how I've felt lately. I don't know what I'm working on because, at present, I really have no place to work and my supplies are all packed.

I have definite projects I want to be working on, and I'm taking baby steps toward them, but that's not rewarding at the moment.

It all came to a head the other day when I was unpacking boxes without really knowing where things should go. A kindly suggestion from Chris that I should just throw out all my slides was the tipping point. WHAT? Is he inSANE?

No. He's very sane. But he's not an artist. So I called my friend Kathleen Amt. She's an artist. She would understand. And she did. And as we talked I began feeling more energized, revitalized, and at the end of our conversation I had more of a feeling of direction, of knowing some specific steps I could take to get me back on track, steps that didn't require torn papers, glue, paint, and a brayer.

So what am I working on? I have two photo projects, one to be done in the next couple of months, and the other is more of an ongoing project. I have an idea for an assemblage piece and I'm slowly gathering the necessary materials for that.

And then there are some Photoshop things I want to learn, so I shall research one of them. I'll also revisit an online class I never finished, which will sharpen my skills and perhaps take my work in another direction.

And finally there is one thing I can pursue right now, until I find some of my papers and paints, that will at least give me something to do with my hands, so when the studio finally comes to fruition, I can jump right in.

So thank you, Kathleen, for being as weird as I am, for not making fun of my angst, and by, just in the course of a simple conversation, inspiring me to take some control and to see more clearly where I want to go. To know exactly what it is I'm working on.

And the photo at the top of this post? I have a metal sculpture of a red heart that has a crack running down its length. I turned the sculpture over and saw how cool the back looked, so I placed it on top of a glass patio table and used the iPhone to take an abstract shot of "a river running through it." My plan is to photograph it more professionally and then I'm sure it's going to appear a lot in various photomontages.

So my question to you this morning is: what are YOU working on?

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

What I'm Working On: More Monoprint Mania

When making my monoprints, I’m usually using 9x12 drawing paper, which is larger than my 8x10 Gelli plate, so there are often empty white spaces here and there on the paper which I don’t particularly care for (as you can see in the first photo). What to do?

When I bring the print into the computer (either by photographing it or scanning it), I can crop the monoprint so that the white areas off to the sides don’t show. But I can also use a Photoshop technique called “Content Aware Fill,” and Photoshop will arbitrarily fill in those white areas using the surrounding pixels of color as its guide, as you can see in the second photo.

If you’ve never used “Content Aware Fill” in Photoshop, look it up! It’s an easy and useful tool that I use all the time, so much so that I created an action for it which enables me to simply select where I want the effect to appear, click the action, and hoo ha!

But back to the monoprint. I don’t think it’s all that wonderful, frankly, as it stands, but I may make an envelope out of the physical print and it’ll look pretty good. As a framed physical print? Nope. It’s not interesting enough to me. But wait!

In the computer, using Photoshop, I cropped the image down to a square format and added some circles (third photo). Okay, now that’s better. This is worthy of sending off to Fine Art America for sale. But there’s even more.

Using Photoshop, I copied my original layer, flipped it, and applying two different blending modes created the two zig-zag versions you see in the last two photos. Not bad. And they could even be sold as a series along with the one with the circles. They would also look good as throw pillows, don't you think?

So there you have a peek into my little world, where I’m using paint, glue, scissors as well as computer technology to bring everything together. And you wonder what I do with my time? Well, this is a big part of it.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

What I'm Working On: Monoprint Mania

I'm having so much fun playing with creating monoprints. This is something I made yesterday using various colors (blue, metallic copper) and various handmade stencils. I've uploaded it to Fine Art America -- let's see if it sells!

Speaking of sales, they've been dreary this month. There was an adrenaline rush when someone purchased FIVE images last week, but then came back a couple hours later and cancelled the order. Sob. It's hard to not take that personally!

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

What I'm Working On: Still Processing Kyoto

One of my (many) weirdnesses is that, returning from a trip, I take a quick overview of my photos and I think they're all crap. And so I let them marinate for awhile. And then I revisit them. Slower this time.

And gradually I realize that they're not all crap. There are a few good ones hidden in there.

Yet, I still don't do much with the images. I may process a few, put them online, but then I retreat. And then come back just a little. Then retreat.

This has been the case since what? 1980? I admire those who get all excited about their results, can choose the best and finest, make a photo book right away, and voila! Great trip! Great photos! Here, take a look! And the work is terrific, I must say. The resulting photo books are just lovely. And I feel like such a slacker.

I'm coming to grips with my "slacker-ness," however, and have resigned myself to my strange way of working. I'm more comfortable with the slowness, with the quiet calm. In addition, since I am easily overwhelmed, this is my way of picking away at the sheer volume of photos without going insane(er).

These four photos are from our first day in Kyoto last November. The interior of a temple (which is my favorite of these four), then a couple of abstract images of temple shadows and forms. And then a lone bicycle in the rain at the park across the street from the hotel.

Bicycles are a big part of Kyoto, and this solitary bike in the rain spoke to me. I purposely chose an aperture of f/1.8 for very shallow depth of field, converted the image to black and white to emphasize the silvery glow of the fenders and handlebars and to remove the distraction of color. I did, however, let the red glow of the reflector come through. I'm reminded of Nathan Lane's line in the film "Birdcage," "Well, one does want a hint of color!"

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!