Happy Halloween

My scary melting witch costume...

Have fun with all the little monsters tonight.

Lorrie

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wishing you a Happy Valentine's Day!

Having said that, and meaning it wholeheartedly, I must say that this is kind of a non-event in our lives.  I've been married 20 years.  I've spent Valentine's Day with my husband only once in all those years.  He attends Toy Fair in NYC every year and every year it falls over February 14.  He's out working hard, making money and dining well.  I'm at home working hard, not making much/any money and eating poorly!

Where ever your love may be, I hope that you know it is solid as the milk chocolate heart you enjoy scarfing down.  :)

Lorrie

Altered Photography Workshop - Kalamazoo Book Arts Center

On Sunday, I switched venues and taught at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center.  On a record-setting low temperature degree day (-9 overnight), what better place to be than creating in a creative environment?  Here's the work from the day...

This was Jaclyn's first attempt.  Wow!  Enough said.

I love the harsh, graphic background of this against the softness and color of the flowers.  Jaclyn is a high school student in a rural district.  She told me that she doesn't have much exposure to art at her school.  Her grandparents, on the other hand, are well known artists in the area and certainly provide her with inspiration and the inclination to create.

Jill is an excellent photographer to begin with so she had to work with idea of making an already good photo interesting in another way.  She worked larger (8 x 10, I think).  The flower bloom on the left was stunning in its new bluish, pink color and her background was beautiful.  The scratched in flower to the far left was a try at eliminating a flower that was already there in the photo.  I don't think she likes this part of her work as much.  But, now she can scan the photo and crop that part of it out.  Magic!

Compare this finished photo with the one above when it was still work-in-progress.  She used paint markers to adjust her background because the paper/ink combination wasn't taking the watercolors the way it should.  I like how she made lemons out of lemonade and wound up with a photo that pops.

This is the work of Stephanie (in the middle).  She's a senior in High School and takes some photography classes.  What could be better than hanging out at the beach with your friends?  She used it all here:  scratching, sanding, painting, pasteling, markering.  She knows Photoshop so I'm envisioning a scan of this photo with additional digital manipulation.  Cool.

This was also created by Stephanie.  She highlighted Diesel's eyes by painting the background in similar colors.  It also makes the dog pop.  In the original photo the dog was on a boring tan sofa.  Probably a super nice sofa, but not so interesting in the world of altering photos!  Notice the tiny, little holes that outline the dog. 

This photo was altered by Doreen.  Her color palette is much more peaceful and thoughtful than the loud colors I typically go for.  The background on this butterfly photo continued to evolve as the afternoon went on.  She sanded off almost all the background of the original photo but left just enough to make it interesting.  At first quite flat with only one/two colors, it changed as she slowly layered watercolor, oil pastels, more watercolor and a bit more.  Very nice!

Doreen was experiencing problems with the photos she brought because of the way they were developed with indestructible paper/ink.  So, she tried one of my photos and did a great job with it.

This is the work of Molly.  She has taken another class from me and I've come to know her through other avenues as well.  She is a fun lady with lots of talent.  This is Devil's Tower, Wyoming.  She has worked the entire photo by scratching into the Tower, sanding on a texturing plate for the sky then carefully adding color in the spots she wanted it.  The result is that the photo is more powerful than it's 4" x 6" size would indicate.  It think it's great.

If you've read through all the captions you've probably noticed that there were a couple of glitches with the developing of some of the pictures.  As an instructor, this is so frustrating.  As a student, this is so frustrating.  I feel like I know the techniques I'm teaching pretty well and then a wrench is thrown into the works.  We adjusted.  Jill and Doreen were patient.

If you're interested in altering photos you need to know what's going on in the world of photo developing.  In the past, photos were developed and after time they would fade.  A drop of water could ruin a picture in seconds.  Photos were easily destructed.  Now, like all technology advancing at the speed of light, photo developing has changed.  HP features photo developing that is guaranteed not to fade for 200 years.  Other companies are doing all they can to progress as well.  For 99.9% of the market these are good/great improvements.  For those of us purposely trying to destroy aspects of the photos this becomes a huge problem. 

I think/I hope everyone went home with an understanding of how to alter photos by hand, despite some photo developing issues.  What fun it can be!

Lorrie

Altered Photography workshop - Art Center of Battle Creek

One weekend in January I taught Altered Photography to two groups of creative folks. 

On Saturday I headed over to the Art Center of Battle Creek.  It was my first time teaching at there and it was a positive experience.  So, from noon to three on a freezing cold, blizzardy day, we played with photos, watercolors, pastels, markers and various distressing tools like sandpaper, awls, needles and texturing plates.

This is Donna.  She had quite a few photos to choose from and worked wonderfully with her floral close ups.  The one on the left was from a black and white photo.  The one on the right has a wonderful background that was achieved by sanding over a textured polymer clay pattern plate.

This is Kari.  She's a mom that needs her creative fix once in a while.  Maintaining sanity is kind of important!  She did a great job with quite a few of her photos.  The one on the right was printed in black and white then she went in and highlighted the clothing by scratching in an outline/pattern.  Adding color was the last step.  The building on the right has a new background that is much more interesting than the original.

Here is the mom/daughter team of Kim and Morgan.  While hard to see it in this photo, the picture of the lone person on the beach used to have two people in it.  It amazes me that by using the simple techniques of sanding and painting, you can completely eliminate things in a photo.  Morgan had fun giving her cat a spot of supreme importance.  Of course, don't cats always think that they are of supreme importance?

This one and the following were created by Sandy.  Sandy, an art educator for many, many years, is now working on her masters in digital photography.  She took this class to see if there might be a good marriage between the two skill sets.  Yes, indeed!  It does have possibilities for a good marriage.

Many thanks ladies for taking the class.  I'm so pleased with your results.  I think those reading this will be happy to see what you accomplished in one short afternoon.  Now, everybody, go make some more!


Lorrie

Altered Photography Workshop at the Battle Creek Art Center

Listed on my sidebar is my Altered Photography Workshop that will be happening at the Art Center of Battle Creek (Michigan) on Saturday, January 22. I've not taught here before so I'm looking forward to meeting some new folks in a new venue. An art friend, Kelly Parker, became the Director of Programming at the BCAC last year and she's added a slate of new, fun classes/workshops. Happily, mine is included.

You can find information on the class to the right of this post. Or, you can go to: the Art Center of Battle Creek. Or, you can contact me and I'll try to answer whatever questions you have. There is a bit of prep (you must get some photos developed ahead of the class) for this, so if you're interested and have Saturday open, get yourself registered! You can register for the class online.
Here's a sample of the types of things we'll be doing:

Here are pictures of work done by past students:



Fun stuff! Come join me.



Lorrie

Altered Photography with the Altered Sisters - Honorary Member for a Day

Here's another post about the altered photography play session with the Altered Sisters.  School was out at the time so I brought along my 11-year-old.  She had great fun playing around with the pens, inks, watercolors and scratching tools.  Here are her results...

Sculpture in Seattle

Turning her brother into a court jester on the soccer field.

Dash Abdo

Pelican on Marco Island

Our beloved Taylor looking like she has never looked before!  I really like what Alicia did with the palm tree trunk.


Altering photos can be a successful effort for creative people of almost any age.  Go for it.

Lorrie

Altered Photography with the Altered Sisters

by Jeme Baker

Recently, it was my turn to teach a technique at our monthly Altered Sisters meeting.  Everyone seemed enthused when I showed some of my altered photography results a few months ago so that became my gig for the morning. 

It must have been a successful meeting and technique because for the first time in recent memory, even the die-hard lunch goer-outers didn't go.  We stayed working and playing for a couple of hours.

As is typical for me, I forgot to take pictures during the time we were together.  But, I do have some of the results of the morning from a couple of the Sisters.  Hand altering photography is such fun and offers great potential to turn even bad photos into something really cool.

So, now, please enjoy the work of Jeme Baker, Lynn Contos, Joanne Huffman and Cathwren Warner.

by Jeme Baker

by Jeme Baker

by Lynn Contos

by Lynn Contos

by Joanne Huffman

by Joanne Huffman

by Joanne Huffman

Self Portrait by Cathwren Warner

by Cathwren Warner

I think these are just amazing.  Dig out those photos folks and see what you can do with them!

Lorrie

More Altered Photography...

More before and after samples from the Altered Photography class...

Naples pier, Florida

Sculpture park in Seattle, Washington

Fort Worden in Port Townsend, Washington

Hand altering photos gives bad photos a new life and can make already decent photos more interesting. You can make them colorful and silly or go with the look of your choice: classy, serious, ghostlike, beautiful, scary, thoughtful...

Lorrie

Altered Photography class

On Saturday, from noon to about 3, I had the pleasure of teaching an Altered Photography class at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center. Thirteen very cool ladies took the class and it seemed like they had some fun. Of course, most were from the Kalamazoo area but Lansing, Ann Arbor, Battle Creek and Chicago addresses were in the mix too. I'd like to say that my reputation is building but the Chicago and Ann Arbor gals were in town to visit with their moms. :)

As is typical, I got caught up in the activity and forgot to take pictures to show you. I do, however, have scans of the photos I altered in preparation for the class. All these photos have been hand altered (no digital playing here) using sandpaper, an awl, watercolors, pastels and/or markers. I don't think they are "done" yet, but it's a start...

Most everyone in the class played with their own photos and wound up with some very cool images: a beach scene is now in bright turquoise and pink with "1950" scratched into the background; an already beautiful close up of a flower now has a grid-like background that helped to highlight the flower even further; a playful dog in the back of a pickup truck is now painted an even more playful bright blue; a self-portrait was outlined and the background painted so that the figure became almost ghostlike; many vintage ladies (including Amelia Earhart) in brown got makeovers and became more colorful versions of themselves; and, even a moss covered phone booth from a Washington rain forest got to make a statement. Now that your interest has been piqued, I'm so sorry I don't have pictures of it all.

This class was full. In fact, we actually had to turn a couple people away. With this kind of interest I'll be offering this class again in the summer.

Lorrie