Sketchbook 3

Sketchbook  3

First some sketches I made a while ago... actually quite a while ago....

 Bottles and Brushes

View of neighbors houses

Simple still life

Tomatoes in a bowl

Recently learned of this challenge from Making a Mark by Katherine Tyrrell .  Haven't used my flickr account in a while and since I am always on the lookout for challenges that can keep my creative juices flowing.  This is a challenge called Every day in May.  They have a complete list  for the daily sketches!!! Really neat!!!

Day One   Favorite Food

One of my favorite food is the simple pita bread. Fresh and warm 

dipped in olive oil and zarta past

Olives on the side!!!

Day 2  A tree nearby

On the border of our yard a large Cypress Tree or as we call them Brosh

Day 3 Curtains

Curtain from my computer  room.

Framing I'll Get Better

Framing  My First Attempt

This is FAR from perfect... but the concept is good ... I have to get better at my carpentry skills... I am going to go to my hardware store to see what tools, not too expensive,(not going into the framing business) that can help me develop better cutting ... that's the main secret  --- good clean straight cuts..... In spite of the not so perfect results I totally enjoyed the process...

I have yet to see in any frame shop here (Israel) where I can get a  floating frame... so that took me on my quest...had to find a way frame my small paper works of about 8 x 8 " .  Searching Google didn't really yield much. Recently one of my workshop artists Ilana Landau had an exhibition. Generally Ilana paints on wooden panels and I was amazed seeing how she presented her work in a very simple manner. She made wooden frames similar to frames on stretched canvas and painted the sides black... They looked stunning!!!

I head was churning with that idea... paste the paper on matte-board or heavy cardboard and make a wooden frame on the back.  Then I chanced on this video by Jon Peters who made a great floating frame. So I decided to try it out... with one change  .... instead of pasting my image on 3/4" in plywood panel would make a frame of 3/4" x 3/4" wood molding and then make the frame with 1 1/2 x 1/2 " molding around that to form my outside frame

My moldings

The bottom molding was cut from a 1 1/2" by 3/4" strip!!! Going to the lumber yard was also quite an experience for me... I was worried how they would be for a pensioner wanted to buy a few strips of molding!!! I was so surprised how very nice they were. After cutting the strip they cut it in 1 meter lengths so I could put them in my car.  Then another surprise.... the owner was one of neighbors sons....he recognized me and even gave me a discount...

So now for the final result::: The Duck crayon drawing is from my last 30 x 30 challenge run by Leslie Seata this past January.

 Front

Here I made the mistake ... the side moldings should

be on the top and bottom

 From the top

From the bottom

Workshop Challenge

Workshop Challenge

Heleni gave us 2 topics for our first concept challenge this year.  The first is Eretz Nehederet, which literally means A Wonderful Country.  There is a very popular TV show of that name which is a very satirical. In my work I chose to go the conventional way and try to show my love for my adopted land.

I also made the choice of doing both projects digitally.  The main reason being that I love PS and have neglected its creatives aspect mainly compositing.  At first I thought to find a painting by one of Israel's famous painters but  in the end chose one of my own landscapes.  I wanted to work with text so I chose a poem that expressed my feeling called Song for Love  words by Ayelet Zioni . I did some digital painting on my image plus placed the text in Hebrew as part of a frame element. I haven't worked much with text so this was quite a challenge and I learned a lot. Also since Hebrew is written from left to right I had to write it backwards... couldn't use copy and paste because PS mirrored the text.

Click to enlarge

 The second project was a phrase from the marriage vows:

Behold, you are consecrated to me with this ring according to the law of Moses and Israel

I chose for this concept a wedding image from my daughters wedding.  I used the text from The Prophet by
Khalil Gibran on marriage.  I used Topaz simplify filter.

And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

The Prophet by Khalil Gibran 

I will be photographing all the work by my workshop artists and will put up a link here.