One of my favorite outings during my week in Savannah, Georgia, this summer was an afternoon trek into the city to see shopSCAD. Its a store for students, alumni, and faculty of the Savannah College of Art and Design to sell their work, and it was such a find! Housed in a gorgeous little corner shop facing a tree-lined square just blocks from the waterfront, the shop was jam packed full of odd, interesting, inspiring, and beautiful stuff. And now they have finally launched their online store! I especially recommend checking out the jewelry and the original art sections.

Posted by katybeck at 08:19 PM | Comments (2)

Its amazing what a little light can do. These lovely photos of the clutter on my studio table were taken at night using only one lamp, and are unedited save for reducing their size. The first taken under a compact flourescent reflector flood like you might find in recessed lighting. The other is taken under a 6500 K compact flourescent. Both are around 15 watts, with similar light output (lumens).

But something I didn't know until recently is that bulbs, flourescents in particular, can also be categorized by their color temperature. Household bulbs, even those advertised as "white" or "soft white," range from 2000 - 3000 Kelvin, and have that familiar yellow tinge to them that only gets magnified by a digital camera. But if you want to take pictures that aren't yellow, grab a bulb with a color temperature around 5000 Kelvin (the second photo above is from a bulb that is 6500K). To the human eye this light seems cold and blue, but it looks awesome to a digital camera.

Of course you can always correct for yellow light with a camera's white balance settings, or in Photoshop (excellent photography tutorial over on the Switchboards). But why not correct it beforehand and spend your time elsewhere?

Posted by katybeck at 09:42 PM | Comments (1)

As is the usual for me, what began as a simple weekend project grew and grew until it was neither simple nor contained within one weekend.

It began with an assignment in my design class - create a radial composition of repeating outlined shapes; then implement an analogous, complimentary, or monochromatic color scheme within the forms that result from all the overlapping shapes.

I somehow allowed myself to turn this into a complex, six-color silkscreening project that was to be printed on CD tray inserts, CD labels, two sets of christmas cards, and the aformentioned class project.

So I spent my weekend exposing screens and printing the first two steps of color (I chose monochromatic, by the way):

I ran smack into an issue with trapping - I had not built it into the screens and I really should have - although luckily the design sort of looks cool with its parts all out of whack.

Will post more as I get more parts completed!

Posted by katybeck at 04:28 PM | Comments (1)

I printed feverishly during the Thanksgiving holiday, and finally have a few finished pieces to show for it!

More than a few cards were sacrificed to the learning curve gods, I have to admit. I also printed a few cd labels and jewel case inserts for this years holiday mix, but the quality of the paper was different and they didn't turn out quite as nice.

As a result of this project, my new favorite store is ActionEnvelope. They have tons of envelopes, plus matching paper and card stock, in an extremely organized storefront. I ordered some pearlized red cardstock and some metallic copper paper and each one looks great! I can't wait to print on them. The paper for the cards shown above came from Recollections, but I think it might be the same manufacturer as ActionEnvelope because the colors were similar.

Posted by katybeck at 11:22 AM | Comments (3)