Oh! The photographs included in the RAA Featured Artist Display!

I forgot to include the images for the twenty or so matted photographs that are also part of the display now up at the Redlands Art Association in Redlands, Calfornia. I'll assemble those and post them within the next week.

Stay tuned ...

While I'm in the midst of posting this, I'll also add that I'm still having a ball posting and viewing photographs on Instagram. I have posted over 400 images in my Instagram gallery, but I've decided to refine the photographs uploaded to only black and white images from today through the end of April. I'm enjoying the challenge of taking photographs that make strong black and white images.

All of my Instagram photographs are taken with my iPhone camera. I'll share some of those on this blog shortly. If you just can't wait, go to @kweststudio8 on Instagram and see for yourself!

Show Time! Featured Artist Display in Redlands, California

As I type this in Spokane, WA my featured artist display of paintings and photographs is going up at the Redlands Art Association Gallery in Redlands, CA.

I still consider Redlands as "home," even though I moved up to Washington state in 2003. I lived in Birch Bay until 2011, when I moved to Spokane where I've been now for almost three years. Oh my! Has it really been that long, and my sister Mel Slater still puts up with me? Bless her and her roof over our heads!

The Featured Artist Show: I've been a member of the Redlands Art Association for over 30 years, and volunteered while I lived there in a number of capacities such as gallery manager, put together the newsletter, librarian, board of directors, workshop instructor, et cetera. A lot of time and effort was poured into that community art organization, just ask my sons!

With that background, I was tickled pink to be able to provide artwork for this featured artist display back in my hometown. Since I cannot be there, one of my other sisters, Sandy Davies, accepted the responsibility to mount the work for me.

The logistics have been a little different. The cost of shipping framed artwork to another part of the country would have been beyond my fixed income budget. Ever one to adapt, all of my paintings in this show are under 11" x 14" as are also the matted photographs. Nothing is framed. I kept to this size restriction so I could pack EVERYTHING in Medium Flat Rate USPS boxes. I'm told everything arrived in good order and Sandy is now using little metal clips to hang the artwork in a professional, albeit alternative, manner.

I'm thrilled that my friends and acquaintances who are interested can see what work I'm currently creating! I've already sold one of the paintings in the show and am thrilled about it!

I'm uploading photos of the paintings with this blog entry. Hope it all displays well for those of you who are interested and not able to make it to Redlands.

My show runs from April 19th to May 9th at Redlands Art Association Gallery at 215 E. State Street, Redlands CA. Their phone number is (909) 792-8435 where you can call about prices, and you can access their website www.redlandsartassociation.org  for hours and other information about the benefits and services they provide the community of Redlands and environs.

Birch 11 x 14 acrylic

Blossoms 11 x 14 acrylic

Amalie  9 x 12 acrylic

Blush of Morning 11 x 14 acrylic

Eucalyptus 9 x 12 acrylic

Daffodils in Blue 11 x 14 acrylic

Dusk Along Coast 11 x 14 acrylic

Mokume Gane 11 x 14 acrylic

Moonlit Geraniums 8 x 10 Acrylic/Colored Pencil

Night Wind 9 x 12 acrylic

Outside In 11 x 14 acrylic

Silhouette 8 x 10 acrylic/pencil

Stuck With a Way Out 9 x 12 acrylic/graphite
(This painting is already sold)

365 days in a year ...

And today is the 14th day. I came across an article referring to artist Noah Scalin's project to make a representation of a human skull every day for a year. He used a wide variety of media, from spaghetti to  ... well, you just need to google the project and see for yourself. It is awesome! The creative focus and discipline appealed to me. Lord knows I can always use more discipline! So, I made a decision to snap random shots and upload it to my blog. There won't be any rhyme or theme. I tend to photograph close up images, so I'm going to try to look up and capture some of those images. I'll be using a variety of cameras and my old iPhone camera, and I won't be editing these images. You'll see them as I snapped them! Won't this be fun? I hope so.

I decided on this project a few days ago, so I'll share today's image (01-14-11) and then work backward. This is an iPhone shot of red birch driftwood on cobble beach. You can see a little snow on the bark.

01-13-11 I happened to have business at the Bellingham courthouse and shot these two looking out the 3rd floor window toward the courthouse rotunda.

 

01-12-11 Same area as the earlier two photographs, Horizons at Semiahmoo. Attracted to the organic bare, red spike branches in front of the wood plank formed concrete with horizontal lines and six small holes.

01-11-11 Loved this bare, red budded branch in front of a couple of boulders and a formed concrete wall. Great contrasts and textures.

01-10-11  It was starting to snow again. Loved the fluidity of the grass contrasting with the icy concrete walkway.

01-09-11 Shot with my iPhone looking west from Semiahmoo spit.

I usually take photographs each and every day, but for the purpose of this 365-day photo project, I'm not going to hazard a guess as to which images were shot on which days. It will be fun to see if there's any pattern to my daily images. I'm looking forward to the spontaneity of these random photographs.

And away we go .....

A question of authenticity ...

Another thought comes to mind when considering selling my photographic art.

How is a creatively manipulated photograph generally received; the ol' question,"Is it real or is it Memorex?" (Egads! Maybe the significance of that reference will be lost on readers under a certain age!)

Nonetheless, I'm having a lot of fun with digital images and using different filters and software programs to play around with my initial photographic image. That's one of the many attractive features of creating with digital cameras and working with digital files. If I have taken the photograph and I am the one choosing how to use software applications to enhance my images, I claim it as my creative imagery.

However, I think there will always be purists who feel the photographer should not alter the initial image, in order to keep it authentic.

I'm reminded of great photographers who used all sorts of tricks of the darkroom to enhance their images. There are viewers who are knowledgeable about such skillful processing when printing from film negatives, but generally I am certain most viewers don't even consider the logistics involved in producing an image. They just know what they like, or don't like.

So, since I'm not a great photographer and I'm not a photographer per se, but merely an artist using a camera, I think I'll just keep having fun dinking around with my images.

I just hope you like what you see!