Christmas Wishes from Clarksville VA

 

(inside greeting)
We're ready for Christmas
with our pretty main street.
There's a tree with lights
and the shop windows are neat.
The decorating committee gave it their most
and wreaths are hanging from every lamp post.

Welcome to Clarksville, dear Mr. Claus.
I tried to be good but I have a few flaws.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I have been AWOL from my blog for a while but I managed to create this Christmas card, get them printed, folded, addressed and in the mail Saturday.  This is a photo taken with my iPad during the summer; then, in my desktop Corel Photo/Paint program, I converted it to a watercolor.  Next, I sent it to my iPad and, using the Procreate app, removed parked cars, painted a nighttime sky with stars, added street lamp lights and wreaths; then painted Santa and the dog.  Text was added in Corel Draw.  (The dog was inspired by Big Ben, a mixed black lab, who was featured on our Lake Country SPCA site last week--he and many others need homes.)  I posted this on FB yesterday and, somehow, this scene touched the hearts of many who live/lived here, and brought back memories.  Some of their comments brought a tear to my eye (it is that time of year).  Clarksville is a beautiful little town, especially, at Christmastime.

 

I wish you a wonderful holiday and I hope to find more time for art and blogging in 2014.

 

Easter

My Clarksville VA, created on iPad, SketchBook app

Easter is here so I'm eating blue chicken peeps and my front porch is decorated with yellow wooden ducks.

 

This is one of my first iPad projects from August.  I took a photo of our downtown with my iPad, then removed the moving cars using Corel on my desktop, and sent it back to my iPad.  The photo is one layer; the duck is a second layer.  It's fun making the duck larger (he blocks the lake) or smaller and ducking into the Pizza Pub.

Happy Easter.   

Circling the Thing Called Art



Pencil Sketch of Dave, 5x5



My sketchbook is always handy but until three weeks ago I had never sketched in public.  At an auto shop I got my chance; sitting across from me was a great model, my husband Dave.  Both our Jeeps were at the dealer (54 miles away) for repairs.  Dave's not very patient--he sat for a few minutes, left before I sketched his feet, and returned to a different seat.

Corel'd Dave

I recently bought Corel Draw Graphic Suite X5 (an upgrade because Suite 12 didn't work with Windows 7).  I wanted to play with digital paint brushes and colors so I tried scanning the sketch into Corel--the scanner didn't work.  We now have a new printer/scanner.  Everything's working, thanks to a good friend, Sam Caparatta.  Sam and Dave spent lots of time talking with "Tech."  We bought a Windows 7 computer in January and it has taken me 10 months and a lot of cussing just to get back to where I was last year.  I'm not sure this is progress; it's more like treading water and trying not to drown.   

I took a 3-hour linoleum block printing class at
Convergence Art Guild, a real pleasure, taught by my sister-in-law Mary Wilkerson.  My
subject was the chair next to my work
station.  I added a cat the following day, Halloween, and only needed three bandaids. 



Two-legged Chair, linoleum block, 7x5



I hope to do more linoleum block printing.  My problem is I like the block itself--looks like bas relief , and I'm hesitant to cut pieces away for printing with more than one color.  I just read THE COMPLETE PRINTMAKER, a book I've had for years; printmaking is definitely interesting.



Terry, charcoal drawing, 24x18

I attempted to draw my artist friend Terry during Thursdays at the Y Art.  The easel contraption stood still; Terry didn't.  When she appeared too thin, I took the easy way and made her head smaller.  She said she had always thought she had a pinhead--ha.  She was wrong when she said she lacked a sense of humor--we laugh a lot.  

Longwood Park

I feared I had missed the autumn colors so I took my camera along when I voted yesterday; luckily, I wasn't too late. 



Kinderton Golf Club



Clarksville Marina--3 blocks from my house





End of 4th, next to Marina--my favorite.  Geese patrol this knoll during the summer.

And I'm still playing with my Winsor and Newton watercolors--nothing worth posting yet. 

Arting with Gravity

Just Hanging Around, digital photo

While others were shopping, diligently working on paintings, or decorating for the holidays, I was playing with a tangerine bag. It began several weeks ago when I didn't cut the bag into pieces (for animals' sake) and left it lying on the counter. At first, I thought it might make a nice hat--with that little tassel. It did; I looked a bit like an old elf and considered wearing it to holiday parties. I then noticed the similarity between frozen turkey breasts and heads. I thought it might be cool to take a photo of a head in the bag. The memory of a photo--Mussolini hanging upside down--brought gravity to mind.

After several days I had a plan. I would wait until my husband was out of the house (explaining my project would have been impossible and I didn't want an audience). I chose a small Danish leather-topped table; I moved the dining table to make sure I had enough space, set up a light, set up the camera--a cereal box stood in for my head--and I lay across the table. Anatomy (and a couple of fused disks in my neck) made it impossible to get all of my chin below the table top. With my left hand holding the bag tightly behind my head, I snapped the shutter with my right and waited in place for the timer. In some photos I forgot to remove my glasses (they were hanging on my forehead); in some I inadvertently used the flash (I wanted shadows); in some I am without the bag (I look like a gray-haired Dracula); and in others I am laughing too heartily.

I chose a photo and with Corel Photo/Paint was able to remove my arms and the table legs, clone my missing chin, enhance the turkey-look of the skin, and add the carrying strap. I think the contraption on the right represents a scale--$2 per lb. Lesson learned: If you're in your sixties and want to hang upside down, a net bag is handy for holding face parts in place. Gravity is awesome.

I am usually very serious when working on a painting. Playing with digital photos is just great fun; I don't think of it as art but as "arting around." I'm still looking for a model.

SOVA Title Photo Credit

The title photo of Clarksville VA was taken from the Tisdale Bridge on the day of its dedication--June 8, 2005. It is actually two photos taken by Pam Speed; I stitched them together using Corel Photo/Paint.

Pam and Brian "Stork" Seal are a young couple and former neighbors. They have since moved to Roanoke--an exciting VA city where they attend festivities like "70's Cocktail Crawls" and are arting around at the new Taubman Museum (http://www.taubmanmuseum.org/). During the seventies, I saw costumes like these only on 14th Street in downtown Washington D.C. In the suburbs we were a bit more subdued.

(I changed the photo--some people have dial-up and it took too long to load.)