Can You See Me?

Can You See Me?

2009 Copyright  Louise Ann Stowell

This was one of those happy accidents that occur from time to time and actually work.

Look closely...what do you see?

The woman in the photo came from a picture of Marlene Dietrich that I manipulated in Photoshop!  Playing around with the textures and special effects I got the following results.  Here is the neat part, in case you haven't spotted it yet...there is another woman in the photo.

See it yet?

The woman is the silhouetted black figure starting under Marlene's chin and jawline.  Can you see the hat and head outline and the big puffy dress sleeve on the right, under Marlene's hair?  Pretty cool, huh?!

Your Family as Art - Creating Bead Patterns

(copyright 2011 - Louise Godfrey - All rights reserved)

My Grandma, Elsa M. Carlson

(created for peyote stitch)

One afternoon, I got out the scanner and thought it would be interesting to take some of the vintage family photos and old postcards and put them on my computer to "play" with them.  Using the bead graphing software I had purchased (I am looking for one now that is easier to manipulate and has better customer support than BeadCreator), I downloaded my grandma's photo from the 1920's and was astounded at what came up. 

The graph above, shows exactly what the photo would look like as a bead mural.  Getting excited, I also downloaded a photo of my uncle, Gus Gustofson, who was a drummer for Woody Herman, Les Brown and many other Swing and Jazz greats.  This photo was taken during the Korean war....

This was created for a loom.

"Uncle Gus" - copyright 2011 - Louise Godfrey - All rights reserved)

It got me to thinking about what great and definitely unique presents you could make for special events, such as weddings and birthdays or for a very intimate, special gift.  But that wasn't all...

I realized photos of all kinds of thing could become a bead graph!  Here is one that I took of the Eiffel Tower at "The Paris" in Las Vegas.

The Paris   (copyright 2011 - Louise Godfrey - All rights reserved)

This one I played with on PhotoShop first to get just the right effects in color and saturation before downloading it to the bead graph software.....and again with "Painted Desert" , below, a photo of the Black Rock Desert near Gerlach in Northern Nevada.

Lake Lahontan    (copyright 2011 - Louise Godfrey - All rights reserved)

The options are endless...all the way from creating something in a size 15 bead for a Christmas or window ornament to huge murals!

If you are a bead artist that has a favorite bead graphing software, let me know.  I'm dying to try one that is recommended by another fellow artist instead of just going by the advertising out there.

 

Vertigo

"Vertigo" 2006 - Copyright - Louise Ann Stowell - All rights reserved

The day that I came up with the concept for this picture, I had just gotten through watching the classic Hitchcock movie, Vertigo.  Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak were sensational.  The location of San Francisco in the 1958 took me back to when I was a kid being taken by my Dad and Grandmother all over the city.

I have a fear of heights that I have tried to get over since I was in junior high.  I could understand the problem Jimmy Stewart was portraying trying to deal with climbing up the Stanford clock tower.  I went to Coit Tower in 2008 and went up the overly packed elevator up to the top.  I was fine until I got to the window and saw the coins laying on the sill ledge and then my eyes traveled past the ledge to the concrete below. My breath hitched in my throat.  Pure terror!   Back up against the inside wall, it took everything I had to remove my clawed fingers from the plaster, to pose for a picture with my former husband, Tony, standing with our backs to the window.  I felt like I was going to tip over and out the window, even though I knew it was impossible due to the heavy Plexiglas covering it. Breathe...breathe, focus on something...oh, look at the big circle of open space above me.  Nope!  Gotta get down...NOW!!!

Vertigo was fun to put together and play with. It was originally composed as a photo using graph paper and a clothes hanger hook. The graph paper was turned from a positive to negative.  I then placed a photo on top of it and began copying it and digitizing it in PhoroShop, layering the pattern, Next I printed it on matte paper and added lines with chalk/pastels and rubbing wet fingers to smear out lines.  It was much more fun than the few minutes atop Coit!

Musee Mechanique Woodcut Stamps

Copyright 2008 L Stowell. All Right Reserved.

Framed by the Golden Gate, the Musee Mechanique is every bit as much a golden treaure as the arches greeting the bay.  

This was a piece I created in 2008 after a trip to San Francisco and to the Musee Mechanique.  I turned several of the photos I took there into a series of old tyme woodcut looking "stamps".  This piece is a combination that I originally published on my old blog Breathing Thru My Eyes.

I love the uniqueness of the old Musee that was formerly located under the Cliffhouse...the peeling yellow paint on the building, the clapboard sign that stood in front of  it and the old hanging sign.  It had the feel of an older time.  The smell of the blowing salt air coming in from Ocean Beach and the taste of the salt water taffy from the little gift shop above took me back to the years that I spent playing in the Arcade at Playland.  Many of the the Musee's games came directly from there, others were from the Sutro Bathes and Museum, which is sadly now is nothing but ruins below the Cliffhouse.  I will be featuring many of the other photos and art pieces I have made from that trip in later blogs.

The piece was taken from individual photographs of each of the four machines...Laughing Sal, Grandma Fortune Teller, the Monkey Orchestra and Jolly Jack the Sailor (still very creepy to me!)  I used PhotoShop to drop the color to a black and white.  Next, I texturized the photos giving them the "woodcut" look.  I then took a photo from when I had passed in our car under one of the beams of the Golden Gate Bridge.  I split the photo, mirrored it and used it to create the framework around each of the "Stamps".

The relatively new location for the Musee is located at:

Pier 45 Shed A at the end of Taylor Street
Fisherman's Wharf
San Francisco, CA 94133
Tel: (415) 346-2000

http://www.museemechanique.org

If you have never been there, it is definitely worth the trip...and make sure you take your camera!  There are so many things to photograph inside besides the machines.  The cases are handsomely decorated with woodcarvings and old brass work that deserve attention as well.  You are also located right at the north end of Fisherman's Wharf, which is an area that is so rich in photographic treasures it's unreal.  Make sure to pick up some ephemera from around the restaurants, aquatic museum and other places you can visit to add to your projects.  Have FUN!

Back in Business and "Vamp"ed to Prove It!!

"VAMPED" Copyright 2009 - Louise Ann Stowell - All Rights Reserved

Back in business again and grabbing all the stuff that fell out of my baggage... what I've lost, scattered, gleefully flung or neglected along the way. 

I'm feeling a little mean in my artwork right now...frustrated and pissed off.  Trying to find a full time job to pay the bills is proving to be frustrating.  Not helping my mood...Nope!  Not at all. 

So "Vamp" is what I decided to start my blog out with.  I have also featured some of my work on Altered Art on Facebook and on my own Facebook Page.

What I don't have room to put there is the poetry and stories and off the cuff rants that I have been accustomed to doing on "Breathing Thru My Eyes," my old blogspot site that for some reason I can no longer access and Blogger can't seem to authorize me for. 

Weird...

but then if you know me, you know that nothing in my life since conception was average or normal.  No one would believe me if I wrote my life story down...different sets of coincidences (which, by the way, I do not believe in...but there you are) circumstances, exasperated inspirations, different sets of values and ethics throughout my many reincarnations...bumping along people like walls in an underground and picking up bits and pieces of them as I stumble along the echoing tunnel.

"I'm like that black crow flying

in a blue, blue sky..."

Joni Mitchell  - "Hejira" album

The one thing that hasn't changed in me over the decades is my need to create.

I get moody and anxious, pacing from room to room, thumbing through well worn favorite books for little underlined fragments to set my mind free and my hands busy getting sticky in paper, mediums and paint.  I'll sit down and then get up moments later to pace again....waiting for those scraps to get thrown through the either at me.  The cosmic zookeeper fairy gets a little tardy sometimes in feeding her animals.  I silently rage and roar for my meal...it comes...eventually.

"Vamp" is a postcard in a series I have created dealing with women's emoitions and studies.  She was made from standard watercolor postcard stock, old clippings, and Conti dry pastel backgrounds with a PhotoShopped finish for textures and sharper color effects.

  Ah, Paris

 Hung Jury

 Ornament

 Exiled

 Ghosts

 I would like the...

  Chronicle

Signed, numbered prints of  "Vamp" , "Women's Spirit" (the top title artwork of the blog)  and others are available as 8 x 10 glossy or matte finish.  They are on a limited print run of 100 each.  Pricing details are coming soon!

Thank you for visiting and I hope you'll come back and share your comments and suggestions.

And to the "Archangel"....Michael...thank you for the inspiration as always....