Category: Art

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Art Create Web Development

I’ve set up a new store!

If you’re a repeat visitor, you may have noticed the My Store menu button up top.  Last week I set up a store on the site using WooCommerce and will be moving my downloadable woodworking plans over to it from FetchApp, my current store and fulfillment platform.  Turns out WooCommerce for WordPress does everything that FetchApp does, minus the hefty monthly fee!  As I migrate my downloads to the new store platform, if anyone has a problem accessing the download link, please shoot me an email and I’ll respond right away.  Also, the detailed plans will always be available as blog posts, and you can still link to them from the woodworking drop down menu.  Also, I’ve added some of my coffee bag wall art to the store as well and will gradually be putting some of my other artwork up as I have time.  Thanks!

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Art

Using Photoshop to Figure Out Values

As I’ve been developing my drawing and painting skills, it doesn’t matter whether I’m taking a class or watching online tutorials, I’m constantly reminded of the importance of value.  If you’re reading this post, you’ve probably heard a hundred times that values are more important than shapes and proportions (even though they are important too!).  But values are the foundation of a drawing or painting.

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Art Create Home Improvement Woodworking

New Coffee Art Series

I’ve been working on a few new pieces of wall art made from coffee importer bags.  These things are so cool!  I recently picked up a few bags, but wasn’t sure exactly what I would do with them.  The visuals on the bag caught my eye and they just have this cool coffee shop vibe that I wanted to come up with a way to experience.  Then I ran across another piece of decorative wall art printed on burlap, the two ideas collided and here are my first two pieces…

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Art Plans Woodworking

How to Set Up a French Cleat Wall Easel

I’ve been trying to figure out how best to position large canvases for painting since my current easel isn’t all that great and I’d rather spend the limited time I have painting rather than constructing another easel (which I’m sure I’ll do at some point).  One of the challenges I keep running into is how to position my canvases, particularly the bigger ones, vertical instead of at an angle.

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Art

New Facebook and Instagram Profiles for my Artwork

One of my goals this year has been to focus more on my sketching and painting work and to try and develop some consistency and some continuity of themes, which in the past have totally been all over the place.  That’s an exercise that’s been particularly challenging for me because in addition to a busy workload as a part of a startup company and family responsibilities in a house full of teenagers time is very scarce and creative energy often has to be subservient to the necessities of life and the thought of being able to establish some kind of routine is, I’m afraid at this point of my life, more a pipe dream than a process.  But that’s not to say I’m not trying!

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Art Content Marketing Create Marketing

Creating a “Torn Paper” Frame Effect in InDesign

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One of the recent issues that I ran into with InDesign is that the program doesn’t have the same brushes and advanced masking capabilities that Photoshop does so when it comes to creating a document element like an object frame that looks like it was made from torn paper, InDesign presents us with some challenges.

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Art Create Woodworking

Awesome DIY Cork Art Project

Wine-Cork-Art-Project

I’ve been saving wine corks for as long as I can remember.  I can’t bring myself to throw them away – the natural ones – because I just think they’re cool.  I even find myself picking bottles of wine based on which ones have real corks vs. synthetic.  There’s something tactile and visceral about them that totally intrigues me, from the smell of the wine-soaked end to the elastic resistance I feel when I roll them about with my fingers, to the almost limitless variation of patterns and colors.  And I’m amazed by the fact that cork comes from trees and start out living and organic.

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Art Create

DIY Art Canvas: Standard Sizes

Make-Your-Own-Canvas

Unless you are purposely making a custom sized canvas, One of the things I recommend with DIY art canvases is to stick to standard sizes mainly because you can save big money on custom framing.  Especially if you paint or print on large canvases, the difference between a custom frame on a non-standard canvas vs. a standard canvas can literally be hundreds of dollars.

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Art Create

How to Make Your Own Canvas

 

Make-Your-Own-Canvas

I just uploaded a new video to YouTube on making a canvas, specifically a gallery wrap canvas.  This is the first video I made, but it’s just the middle part of the process that I shot for a complete painting.  I’m going to try to get to a video on the building of the frame which is easy and cheap if you do it yourself, then the whole process of priming it and then, maybe, painting the whole picture.  For small canvases I recommend going to the local art store and buying one, but for the larger ones, you can definitely save money making them yourselves, assuming you have the tools.

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Art Create Plans Woodworking

Build Your Own Float Frame

I think that the Float Frame (or floater or floating frame as I’ve heard them called) is a particularly stylish way to display canvas art from paintings to canvas photo prints (also check out my video on how to stretch your own canvas).  The thing I particularly like about float frames is that they’re easy to build, look great and they’re pretty versatile as far as framing different styles of art.  In addition, if you want to frame non-standard sized paintings or prints, you can save a ton of money doing it yourself!  In this post, I’ll cover building one from start to finish.  And, if you stick with me until the end, I’ll show you another cool float frame project!

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