Sweet Holga Action

Since the horrible halt of the production of Polaroid film, & the fact that I burned through my top secret hoard of 600 Polaroid film, I've decided to start using my Holga as I would my Polaroid camera. All summer I've been shooting w/ the Holga, & at the end (I'm thinking Sept 1st will be the cut off & then I'll start fall!) I'm going to make a Blurb book w/ the images. The whole concept has become a really fun way to capture little snippets, through a vantage point only a Holga can muster, of my summer & the things I've seen & experienced.

For those who don't know what a Holga is, it's basically a plastic toy camera that takes medium format film. Its settings are extremely easy to use: flip the little slider to the picture of the sun if it's sunny out, flip it back to the little cloud if it's darker, rotate the "aperture" to the single figure for up close stuff, rotate it the group if your subject is farther away-very rudimentary & very fun to play with. You never know if there's going to be a light leak, or image blur, or crazy colors which you know weren't in the scene when you photographed it. But sometimes, only every once it a while, you'll get a pretty clear image in which it's very obvious & easy to discern what you've made an image from-go figure. :) I purchased a 35mm film adaptor for the camera, so I've been able to have the film processed locally. I then scan the film in & make digital copies of each frame. The whole process is fairly quick & allows me to touch up images as needed.

I'm excited to get my 'Summer 09' book published & then start working on my Fall 09 book. I'll upload the link on the side bar of this blog, so if anyone's interesting in seeing the final result you can follow the link to Blurb's virtual sneek peak of the book. I really love how these images are turning out-the aesthetic feel, how I'm relating my memories from the summer to each image, etc. So I may continue this Holga quest indefinitly-sounds like a good time to me!

ok ok I know..

I know my last post was about journaling...but I can't help it! :) A site I really like to frequent is called Book By It's Cover http://www.book-by-its-cover.com/ They have a whole section dedicated to sketchbooks & journals. I always love to see the inner workings of fellow artist's creative processes, & BBIC sketchbook series lets me do that! Like I mentioned in my previous post, journals all have a very different feel & style, very specific to their owners. Take a look at a few of these entries:

This image is taken from Chris Kyung's sketchbook-tons of layers, graphite, & the book itself is bound by the lovely red metal spiral at the top.(http://www.book-by-its-cover.com/sketchbooks/sketchbook-series-chris-kyungcover.com/sketchbooks/sketchbook-series-chris-kyung)

















While these images-from Karen Klassen- are full of bold color, multiple supplies are used, & each book has it's own look. (http://www.book-by-its-cover.com/sketchbooks/sketchbook-series-karen-klassen)



I absolutley love how, just by taking a book full of blank paper, so many different outcomes can be created. I also appreciate how each of the artist's featured in the series is allowing anyone with access to the net, to take a peek into their work. Which, through my experience, sometimes leaves you feeling a little exposed & open for judgement. But all in all the series is exciting to read through & look at & appreciate for all the work that went into these little worlds called journals. Hopefully you can find a little inspiration in them as well. :)

Oh journals how I love thee-let me count the ways

When I sit back and think about why journaling is so important to me, I think about how easy it is for me to fill a page with whatever is on my mind at that moment. Whatever spills onto the page can be used for inspiration, or act as a log for my travels. It can stay, folded amongst the pages, all by itself-waiting to be revisited when I flip through later. Whatever the pages act as, the results are an un-judged, private (but can be made public), outlet for any and all ideas that need to be expelled.

I think a journal can be intimidating too though. I know when I get a new one, all those blank pages waiting to be filled, the crisp clean cover, and the anticipation of filling it with something "important", can be daunting. Actually, the last journal I bought I sanded down the edges & front w/ a piece of sandpaper. I thought it looked more like something I'd work in, and a little less pompous. Yeah I know, sounds weird that I'm intimidated by a journal, but being comfortable with the way your journal looks, and feels in your hands, is very important. I've tried working in journals that didn't have the right vibe & for some reason my work seems more stunted, with a feeling of trying to create something good enough to record on the bright white pages.

Being comfortable with your journal is right up there with realizing that you can put whatever you want onto the pages, & no one will tell you it's right or wrong. That decision is up to you! The act of creating is sometimes hard to do without having in the back of your head, "What are people going to think about this? How are people going to
see me after they see my artwork? Is my work good enough to be shown to the people in my life?" With journaling, the only person judging your work is you, & yes sometimes you can be your own worst critic, but after working for a while in journals, you begin to realize that these are for you & no one else. You can doodle, write, paint, sketch, glue in stuff you pick up from a hike, & make MISTAKES, but no one will judge you for any of it, because your journal is there to absorb whatever you have to give it. Don't you just love that? :)

Like I said, I use my journals to record just about everything: sketches made on post it notes at work, ideas jotted down on reciepts, grocery lists, sticks & flowers I pick up on hikes, polaroids & entries from my travels, new techniques with new art supplies, I'm talking everything goes into these journals! Nothing is safe once it's on the page-I go back to pages & add & substract what ever I want. It's taken me a while to calm that critcal voice-the "this isn't good enough" voice-but now that I've gotten better at ignoring the negative thinking, I've taken my journaling to a whole new level. Journaling is so important to my creative process I can't imagine stopping. I think journaling is for everyone, maybe not my kind of journaling, but finding your own style is one of the best parts! Keep lists in your journal, glue in pics of your friends, family & pets, write mathmatical equations, make a lot of entries, don't enter something for a week, a month, or a year! Don't hold yourself to any standards, or feel obligated to wait until you're "good" at a technique, or writing, or whatever. Just do it! & hopefully you'll build that outlet that's worth using whenever you need.

Design Sponge!

So one of my design obsessions definitely stems around the frequent checking of Design Sponge a "daily website dedicated to home and product design" (http://www.designspongeonline.com/) created by & run by Grace Bonney . I generally check the website at least 4 times a day to take a look at any recent postings-which change throughout the day. My favorite sections of the site are the sneak peeks-a look into peoples awesomely design homes- & the before & after sections which feature clever projects submitted by the everyday reader. Thus begins my story :)

This project started out when I saw a piece of art in a Pottery Barn magazine. It was made from wood, multi leveled, painted white, & very inspirational to me! One day on my way to work I found these old crates from a local business, they were giving them away free, and I talked one of my friends w/ a truck into helping me pick them up & drop them off at my house. I had tons of ideas to re-purpose these crates, but I finally settled on cutting them up into random pieces & laying them out for wall art!

The whole project probably cost around $11. The wood was free, I had the miter saw, the wood glue was $3, the back board that I glued the pieces to was about $8, & the hanging rig was made from wood & screws I already had. I thought about giving the piece a white wash like the intial inspiration piece I saw in Pottery Barn, but I loved the texture of the wood & the color of the spray paint against my bright studio walls!

Months later Christie emailed me a link to Pottery Barn-they're selling a similar version of what I made for $400! Go figure :)


So back to Design Sponge, I thought I'd tempt fate & send Grace some of my before & after pics. She sent me an email back very quickly saying they'd consider it for the site. At this point I was pretty pumped they even responded to me, but I wasn't holding out to see a post w/ my work. Next thing I know Christie is calling me freaking out saying my before & after had been posted on Design Sponge! How crazy is that!?! Long story short (well maybe not that short) I freaked out too, immediately hopped onto the computer to check it out, freaked out even more when I saw it, & now I'm sharing the story & the link on my blog. Go here to check out the story, with pics, and tons of lovely comments from other Design Sponge-a holics!http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/07/before-after-jenns-pottery-barn-crate-artwork.html

There are such thing as happy endings :) Enjoy!

First post on a new start!

Hey all, So I've blogged before but not on my own. My very good friend Christie & I started blogging & because we are both a little too a.d.d. for our own good when it comes to art, design, projects, & lets just say it-LIFE!-our blog updates didn't last long. So I started my own blog, under my business name 'Chickadee Studios' as a place for me to upload new project images, talk about art, photos, design, gardening, & really anything that tickles my fancy. So here goes :)

Anyone who really knows me knows full well that I'm always working on creating something. Whether it's journaling, photographing, painting, sketching, gardening, working on my house, or day dreaming, I'm always always figuring out how to fulfill my own creative drive.

My newest project is figuring out how to photograph artwork. I'd love to get involved working with students & artists photographing their work so they could sell reproductions, create a portfolio, submit work to galleries or shows, and overall just promote themselves. I definitly have the camera & the set up under control, & I'm fine tuning everything to get as sharp of an image as possible. I know I have extremely high expectations for any reproductions of my own artwork, & I know other artists do too, so I'm working hard on figuring the process out. Here's my first attempt-not too bad! (image named Untitled Blue #1) Now that I've seen the image & done some more testing in Photoshop, I'm going to try out a few more techniques to see if I can get it any sharper. In the mean time keep checking in-I'd like to get something posted at least every other day & believe you me I've got A LOT going on in my head I'd like to share. :)