Gifts for My Kids, How to Convert an Image in Photoshop For Use in a Gallery Wrapped Presentation, A Caesar Salad Recipe + Music Videos

A while back Ethan mentioned that he would like to have some mom made art to have once he moved out and lived on his own, but he did not really want to be the subject of the art. He reminded me that it would be a bit odd to display photos of yourself, alone in a photo, in your apartment; I understood that. So I decided to create gallery wrapped images printed on rice paper in my encaustic class at Anderson Ranch. The goal I set for myself was to pick three images (good are is often displayed in odd numbers) that represented each kid's trip without having people in the pictures. I really liked how they turned out.

(Three photos from Ethan's, Larr's and Doug's trip to northern Washington state. These images are from the Hoh Rain forest.)

(Three photos from Ellie's recent trip to South Africa near East Cape.)

I love the way they look printed on the rice paper, mounted on a prepared wood panel, encaustic medium added and gallery wrapped. No need for frames when done this way. I used a natural rice paper that had a digital coating so that it could be run through a regular color printer. I love the warm yellow undertone it gives the pictures.

One of the really useful things I learned about at Anderson Ranch was how to get an image ready for a gallery wrap using Photoshop.

Begin by picking out an image and a wooden panel that has had the top and sides painted with gesso. (You could skip the gessoing if you wanted the color and grain of the wood to be somewhat visible through the image.)

Measure the top surface of the panel; even though it might say that it is 5" x 7", in may in fact be a bit smaller or larger. This was the case with two of my items. Then measure how deep the panel sides are. Now, figure out the size you need your completed image to be. Let's say that you have a 5" x 7" image and a panel that is 1 3/4" deep. I would make my print so that it is 9" x 13". Now, you don't want the important parts of your image to show up on the sides, so here is the trick that I learned.

Open you image in Photoshop so that it is 5" x 7" with 300 dpi resolution. Now, go up to image and select "canvas size," and make that canvas 9.25" x 13.25". (This extra room in the image will allow for extra to make sure there is enough image. This should get cut off once you are mounting your photo.)

Look at your layers palette on the right hand side of your screen. Make sure that you are on the layer where your image is. Next, pick the selection tool (the one with the dotted line). Start at the upper left-hand corner and drag it diagonally toward the bottom right-hand corner of the canvas that aligns with the upper part of the image. If this is confusing, just look at the image below.

Use the selection tool (the thing that looks like an arrow) and use the arrows on your keypad to move the dotted line box down into the image, stopping with the upper dotted line is just inside of your image. Now, copy it (ctrl+ C). This has now copied the part of the image that is inside of the dotted line box. And then you need to paste (Ctrl + V) it (if you forget this step, when you move the selected area, you will change your main image.)

Now you are going to use this to create the image that will be visible on the border of the wood panel. Do this by using the transformation tool (ctrl + T). You will know you have done this correctly when a new box with handles (little boxes) appears around that same image. Click on the handle that is in the center of the bottom of the box and drag it up so that it meets up with the top of your canvas. As you do this, you will see a mirror image display there. Repeat this process at the bottom of the image. When you are done with this part, your image will have mirrored sections at the top and bottom of the image, but still show canvas on the sides.

Each of these new parts are on their own layers. You need to make this your whole image in order to move onto the step. You can do this by selecting the top layer, Click on the 3 lines to get the pull down menu by the layers palette. Select Merge Visible. You will know that you have been successful because it will be back to one layer.

Now you will do the same process, but with the sides instead of the top and bottom.

Once this is printed, you are good to go onto attaching it to your panel. First you need to figure out exactly where your panel will go. Do this by placing the printed image right side down on a light board, or hold it up to a sunny window. Position the panel where it goes and draw the lines with a pencil. Make sure you are writing on the back of the image.

To gallery wrap your image you have to choose whether you want to wrap the edges like you would a present, or trim it with tabs so that there is not so much overlap. If you are going to choose that option, do those cuts at this time.

Use Nori paste and a small spatula to apply a very thin layer of the glue to the area that you have marked out on the back of the image. Make sure that you have your printed image on a clean piece of paper so that nothing gets on it.

Place the panel carefully in the glue applied area. flip it over, place a clean piece of paper on top of the image and rub it from the middle of the image outward. The purpose here is to make sure the image is fully attached, that there are no air bubble and any extra glue is pushed out. Be sure to lift the paper from time to time to check your progress. Once you are happy with this, use a brayer to repeat the process. Once you are satisfied, place it, face down, on a table to dry. After it is completely dry, add glue to one of two sides at a time and repeat the glue down process to adhere them. Once this is complete and dry, you are ready to engage in the encaustic process.
------------
While I was at Anderson Ranch, Geri and her husband, two of the head chefs, made a wonderful Caesar Salad. Ellie loves it, too, so I make a nice Caesar Salad last night:

Caesar Salad

Dressing:
6 cloves garlic, peeled and minced, 3 for dressing and 3 for the croutons
3/4 cup mayonnaise
5 anchovy fillets, minced or 2 1/2 tea. Anchovy paste ( 1/2 tea. = 1 anchovy)
1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 c. lemon juice
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup olive oil

1 head romaine lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces

Croutons: (from Damn Delicious Blog)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 (12-count) package KING'S HAWAIIAN Original Hawaiian Sweet Dinner Rolls, diced into 1-inch cubes

To make the dressing, place all of the ingredients in a food processor or blender and combine. While this dressing is wonderful right away, it will be even better if it sits for a bit so that the flavors can combine fully.

To make the croutons. In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil, butter, parsley, oregano, basil and garlic powder.
Spread bread cubes in a single layer on a baking sheet. Add olive oil mixture and gently toss to combine. Place into oven and bake until crisp and golden, about 8-10 minutes; set aside.

To serve you can opt to fully dress the salad with the dressing, topping it with cheese and croutons, or you can serve them separately.
------------
Kate Voegele


Anna Nalick

Gifts for the Kids ~ Van Gogh Magic in Photoshop + Baked Zucchini Fries Recipe

Today Larr and Ellie repainted the stairwell and the hallways upstairs. It is a big change. I think I will like it once the pictures are back on the wall. Once it is done, I will share photos of it with you.

A while back Ethan shared an image that he found on Tumblr that he loved. I think he may even have had it as his background for a while. I thought it was a great idea, so I decided I would make my own version. Here's the inspiration. (I am sorry to say that I don't know its original source.):

From a technical point of view, that is easy enough to do. It turned out that the challenge was in finding the right photos. Luckily, I found one of Ethan in Goblin Valley from about 2 years ago. The dusky light was just perfect and I am very pleased with the result:

(Ethan with a Starry, Starry Night sky, thanks to Van Gogh.)
And so of course I wanted to make one for Ellie, too. After looking at Van Gogh's paintings and thinking about what images I had of Ellie, I thought this was a fun combination:

(That would be Ellie and "Night on the Rhone" by Van Gogh.)

It was so much fun to make that I was sure they would love them. Then I happen to ask Ethan in a round about way about what I was making. He replied that it might be weird to have photos of just himself in the apartment he will get some day. I had not thought about that, but I had already done the art. In the end I decided to risk it and give the gifts to the kids. Larr and I figured that if they did not like them, we would keep and display the images. I had them mounted on wooden blocks with silver edges. It is a service that Walmart offers and they are lovely. It turned out that I think the kids liked them. I still love them, so I might make a second set. We will have to see about that later.

Here's a snack we tried out today:

Baked Zucchini Fries
via: Budget Bytes

1 lb. zucchini squash
¼ cup all-purpose flour
⅛ tsp salt
1 cup panko bread crumbs
¼ cup parmesan cheese
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning blend
1 large egg

Rinse and dry the zucchini. Cut the ends off and then cut each one into strips, approximately ⅓ inch thick.

Place the zucchini strips on a large zip top bag and add the flour and salt. Shake the bag to coat the zucchini in flour. In a wide, shallow bowl combine the panko bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, and Italian seasoning. Stir to combine. In a second wide, shallow bowl, whisk a raw egg with about 1 Tbsp of water until fairly smooth.

Begin to preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with foil and then place two wire cooling racks over top. One by one, take the flour coated zucchini strips and dip them in the egg and then the seasoned bread crumb mixture. Place the breaded zucchini on the wire cooling racks. The wire racks keep the zucchini up off of the baking sheet and allows hot air to circulate underneath, which will prevent soggy bottoms. Also make sure there is a small amount of space between each strip to allow circulation.

Once all of the zucchini strips are breaded, bake them for approximately 15 minutes or until they are a medium golden brown color. Cooking time will vary with the thickness of your zucchini strips, so keep a close eye.

The Annual AVS Auctions

I am thankful for my artistic ability and my knowledge of Adobe Photoshop. I had fun designing the promotional materials for the annual auction that raises money for tuition scholarships.

For the live auction I made a batch of Dark Chocolate Chip cookies. They were paired with an organic orange creme soda and sold for $65. I was pleased with that.

For the online auction I made a bunch of different pairs of earrings. I tried to make a wide variety of designs. It is interesting to see who is interested in what. I was originally going to make something else, but changed my mind when the people who usually bid on my jewelry started to approach me with questions about what kinds of colors I would use this year.

The online auction runs until next Tuesday. You might want to check it out.

Dia de los Ellie - Part 1

For about two years I have walked around with this vision and a desire to execute it. I wanted to take some Dia de los Muertos photos. I find them so wonderful; just a touch macbre.

Recently I decided that this was the year to do it. Thankfully, my lovely daughter agree to help me. It was much more difficult to do the makeup than I had expected. I am pleased with the results and could play with them in Photoshop, but alas, I have to go to work tomorrow. Since I do not want to be Zombie Teacher (it is a week too early for that) I limited myself to a few variations. This is one that Ellie actually manipulated.

Here is one of mine.

Here's what it looked like before I played with it.

As you can see by this image that Ellie edited, she and I have very different tastes, but both of us produce interesting stuff.

Photo Shoot Practice with Ellie, Laurel and Rhys

I'd like to get a bit better at taking photos so I took an opportunity to do a practice photo shoot on Tuesday when we went to Monument to spend the day with Laurel and Mike. It was a lot of fun.

Rhys, who does not like having his photo taken, was a good sport, too.

Some of our shots were serious, others were silly.


I am taking the Advanced Photo Editing online class over at JessicaSprague.com and so I thought it would be nice to have some fresh images to work with.




The classes are great. These photos are not yet touched up.

Wednesday's theme was getting stuff repaired, or at least trying to. I had my van in the shop and was waiting for the Qwest guy to show up and fix our internet. He was a no-show. After a few hours on the phone, I got a great guy to show up on Thursday. Five hours later he got us back online. During our week long stint without the internet I was trucking down to Starbuck each morning to use their Wifi. I am so happy to be back online.

Too Many Meetings, Too Much Coughing and Too Little Free Time...

Where have I been? In too many after work meetings. In the last seven work days I have spent about 10 hours attending meetings. And I say, enough already, especially since most of it was data mining. I've also spent too much time coughing as I have come down with an irritating illness that causes me to cough all together too often and that makes it hard to sleep due to the wheezing sounds I head in my head. But, enough complaining. I have carved out a little time for fun, too.

Here's an example of something I made for a race flyer. You'll have to imagine what it looks like with the race name in that large, open space. The challenge here was to make something eye catching that is not too large as the flyer has two and a half pages of text.


I started out with this photo of Gabe and Mac. They are two amazing athletes on our team. This was taken at the Haystack Time Trial. I love their form and the look of hard work, as well as determination, on their faces.

However, the background was not so spiffy. Thanks to a bit of Photoshop magic I was able to turn it into a bucolic day with an amazing sky. I like this end result much more. Don't you?

I also took time to enjoy the amarillas that Lilia gave to me. The photos don't even come close to capturing their beauty.

They had a lovely pixie dust like shimmer to them.

It was glorious for about a week. Now they have faded and I am going to research how to take care of the bulb with its remaining stem and leaves so that it can shine, or rather, bloom again.

Another Rather Colorful Poster for the ACA

Here's what I created for the ACA Awards Party for the Adults. I had lot of fun creating it.

A Little Photoshop Magic, A Gift from My Heart, in Part

I'm working hard on getting an important present done for Ethan. I am not sure that I will make the deadline. I'm having fun with it now that I have some sense of the artistic feel that I want for the book. Here are a few of the new pages.













Did you notice how some of them look like old photos? That is cool stuff I do to the photographs in Photoshop. The beach pictures have two textures applied with a hard light. I then erased some portions so that the pictures would still be clear. The textures I used on most of them are GrungeBox TOTD # 112 and Doctrine 9-24-09 TOTD # 75. These are both from the textures that SkeletalMess offers. He is the same guy who has the amazing blog, Shadowhouse Creations, that I featured yesterday. As I said, I applied a hard light burn to them. The fonts featured in most of the pages include "Bleeding Cowboy,"( Grungy, fancy font) "Michael" (typewriter font) and "Futura XBLK BT." I think you can find most or all of these on dafont.com for free. The fun flourishes come from a round brush that I love from the girls over at House of Three. The papers are from Lynne Grieveson's Antiquities Paper. I also used some bits of Katie Pertiet's Made to Remember templates. I love the stuff they have at Designer Digitals and House of Three.

What's All the Fuss About Full Color or Photos Altered in Photoshop

I've been working through the free class I am taking over at JessicaSprague.com. I think her classes are wonderful. I had intended to do each day's assignment on the day it came out, but I fell behind. Today I caught up. Here's what I created:






Cool places to get textures and inspiration for altering photograph in Photoshop include:
Skeletal Mess in Flickr.com
Sheispretty in Deviant Art
PhauntActions.com/blog (especially the masking tutorial on April 21, 2008)
KimiKreations.blogspot.com
FudgeGraphics.com



Here's the video that the kids love today. It is Stop Motion with Wolf and Pig. I think it is pretty incredible. Enjoy!"

Photoshop Final - Blacksheep Flyer

Next Wednesday we will be presenting our final, independent project in class. I wanted to make something that I might actually be able to use so I made a brochure for our bike team. Here's the result. I am not as happy with this front/outer panel as I am with the inner panel. The panel with the logo, the first panel that you would see, is kind of boring. If you happen to have suggestions for improvement I would love to hear it.

I like this section best. It was a killer assignment with a ton of requirements. I will be doing a 15-20 minute presentation on the process and the thinking behind the piece.

This afternoon, after Ethan returns from work, the kids and I will be heading to Salida to spend a few days, do a little bike racing, a bit of gallery visiting, perhaps a little jewelry making and eating of amazing handmade goods ( like crescents) from a little bakery in town. We will be san the computer so I will not be updating this blog until then. However, may everyone feel like it summer time and a chance for a little relaxation!

Taken This Broken Wing and Learn to Fly...

This morning was a great day to see flowers and dogs during my bike ride. I rode down to North Cherry Creek. I usually go to Whole Foods and have something to drink then head back home. Today there seemed to be a fire on the roof of the building. The alarm was sounding, the employees were in the parking lot and the fire hoses were connected to the fire hydrant. I skipped that scene and rode around looking at the preparations for the Cherry Creek Arts Festival that will happen this weekend. Along the way I got to pet a Harlequin Great Dane, a geriatric poodle and a set of cocker spanail puppies. The flowers were in all their glory, especially the mums and those in the daisy family.

I thought you might be interested in seeing what is happening in my PhotoShop CS3 class. Here is my midterm project and most of the photos I used to get there. The class is still kicking me in the butt, but it is getting easier. It is a rendition of "Blackbird" by The Beatles. Creating it was sort of like trying to sew in the wind. I knew where I wanted to go artistically, but not knowing the progrma as readily I a wish I did made the process clunky. I still enjoyed it although it was difficult and I did not end up with what I wanted. I do like what I ended up with.