Artists in Our Midst with Sally Gooding
Well I was definitely inspired after going to Sally’s showing during Artists in Our Midst last weekend. Her images are mounted onto wood panel and then finished with this cool encaustic (hot wax) process. Her colors are so vibrate, and detailed – there were even a few that had collaged text within her photography.
I’m in love with the bottom left one – I believe that one got snatched up pretty fast!
Sally also sells her work as prints or as cards.
My photos really don’t do them any justice. I believe she has some of her work at Gallery Eclektica if you want to check it out in person or visit her website.
Artists in Our Midst
Need some inspiration or want something new to hang on your wall? Sally Gooding of Sasa.B Designs is part of the Artists in Our Midst Open Studio Tour in Vancouver this weekend. Sally is an amazing fine art photographer and mixed media artist. You can view her work on her website or drop in this weekend and have a look for yourself!
Imagery and Type
Here are a few images that I’ve been working on working using type. I’m not completely happy with the result yet.
It’s Alive!
Remember the original “Lost in Space”? The Robot was so cool, flailing his arms “Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!”.
Anyways he inspired me to do some of my own robots.
Strange Things I Find Interesting
I love taking my camera out and taking pictures of whatever I find interesting.
My Struggles with Calligraphy – Part 2
Gothic Script, the class I began to pull out my hair, well not really, but it certainly wasn’t as relaxing as Uncials. Our instructor, John Suter, at the Main Artery Gallery, presented us with our project. Some text with a nice border around it and a bit of illumination.
Gothic proved to be a bit more challenging – keeping the nib at a 45º. My lines didn’t look straight anymore and at some points I had to turn the pen with my fingers. I also was having trouble with the nib, the points on it kept coming apart – I think I was pressing too hard and my spacing was way too tight.
One other thing that kept ticking me off is I was constantly spelling things wrong! I’ve never been a good speller, but that wasn’t even the problem, I would concentrate so much on the letter that I wasn’t looking at the word! I believe I had to redo the text 3 times before I finally got through the whole quote without spelling anything wrong.
I’m so use to my ‘command z’ on my computer – working with ink is very unforgiving. Even if I wasn’t completely happy with the look of my piece there is only so many times you can redo it. So 11pm the night before I had to have the script inked in I settled with what I had. I would have loved to have another week to redo it but we had to put the gold leafing on the next class.
Illumination
I was overzealous and erased all my lines around the illumination so I was told to make 4mm squares all around my letter. So I created this checkered effect and decided to paint the checkers 2 different colors but have them blend in the middle. It didn’t quite have the effect I wanted…
Command Z, Command Z!
So I scanned it in and I’m trying to decide on a pattern that somehow makes it better.
or
Right now I’m just scared to try anything with ink.
Playing with Type using Animoto
I found this cool video tool called Animoto. It takes your still pictures and any music you choose and makes a video for you. Every time you remix it a new video is produced, they claim that there are no 2 videos the same. I’ve alway loved type in motion so I thought I would give it a try.
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
My Struggles with Calligraphy – Part 1
In January I had the sudden urge to try and hand drawn my own type. What a disaster! If I had kept some of my attempts I’d show them to you now, so you could laugh your butt off like I did. It’s been a long time since I tried to draw anything – I think since art school, so what processed me to suddenly think I could do it?
I’m not sure why I actually thought I could do it, but I really wanted to, and I find it extremely frustrating when I can’t do something I want. So I did the logical thing – I signed up for Calligraphy classes at a wonderful little Gallery called The Main Artery Gallery.
The instructor, John Suter, started us out on “Simple Alphabet”. This reminded me of grade school when I had the cute little lined notebooks that we learned to print in. I discovered I sucked at this also, but with a little practice I managed to not look like a first grader too much 
And finally with our finished project I at least could do a nice straight line and circle but still needed some work at my spacing and line-heights.
Next John taught us Uncial script. I love it, it’s so beautiful and so relaxing to draw.
After that it all fell apart for me – our next class we started Gothic Script.
What is Pica Workshop?
I’m usually very neat and organized with my design work. There is nothing chaotic about it. The Pica Workshop is a place where I want to get messy, a place where I don’t have to worry about neatness, a place I can work through my process and show my mistakes. I believe that there are happy mistakes – a design that takes us in a different direction then we originally thought and the final piece or the pieces along the way are a map of how we got there.
Dynamic Typography
This month, artbreak, released the video of their new single ‘Asymmetrical Girl’. Singing is one of my favorite designers, Chip Kidd and the video is directed by Gary Nadeau with typography by dress code. The type works perfectly with the song and ‘dances’ to the beat. I think this is great use of “dynamic” typography.
Another fantastic video using type is the Uruguayan band Cuarteto de Nos. I have no idea what the song is about but I don’t really care, it’s fun and beautiful to look at.
For more examples of Type in Motion check out Smashing Magazine.