Disk cleanup

I've spent two days doing computer chores I haven't had time to do for months. Last year I bought a 200G backup drive to be sure I had the artwork for the book safely backed up. Unfortunately, I have a bad habit of tinkering with files, so every time I changed a directory or file name, the whole thing was backed up again on the hard drive. I don't know how many copies I had of all those images, which were TIFF and CMYK files--huge. That big hard drive was almost full. So I cleared out the duplicate files and removed my HP printer from my computer to make room for a new Epson that's on the way. Add/remove balked. It took me a long time to get rid of all the printer files on both hard drives and I finally got rid of the printer by putting in the installation CD and clicking all the .exe files until I found the uninstaller. Why do they make it so hard? That done, I defragged the C drive, which took a couple of hours. The backup drive is almost finished, after six hours. Now I remember why I haven't done it for months.

By the way, Charley Parker has a great blog on Walt Kelly , father of the Pogo comic strip, one of my favorites. Not to be missed.

Ultimate highs and lows

Last night I went to bed at midnight higher than a kite, speaking metaphorically. I finally finished the last of the captions for demonstration paintings included in my new book. Seven artists agreed to do these demos. It has been such a hassle, from the photography aspect to getting the information for the captions. In mid-October I expected to have the images my editor selected from those submitted. I got the list the week before Thanksgiving. Probably didn't matter, as I was having serious sinus problems in October and most of November. Nevertheless, the burden of getting those captions written was really stressful. I was euphoric when I finished last night and couldn't get to sleep for hours. That's the high part.

The low part--I turned on my computer this morning and Norton told me my hard drive was in danger of being corrupted if I tried to open Windows. Their GoBack program didn't work. I left the house to work out, figuring I'd try to resuscitate it when I got home. Turned everything off and let it rest. Poor thing must have been as overworked as I felt. So far so good. At least everything is on my second hard drive, but I hadn't backed up files for several days. Gotta do that next.

There haven't been any major problems with the book, but I like to have more control over the process and these past few weeks haven't been conducive to that. No doubt I need to learn to go with the flow, but sometimes I'm too busy paddling my boat to realize that. As someone wrote to me--take a deep breath. That helps.

It also helps to hold our new grandbaby or hug our little granddaughter. They were both here for two hours yesterday and it was a welcome break. There must be something in grandma DNA that shuts down all systems but love in the presence of the little ones.

More Art Book Reviews

Ron Ranson on Skies (Studio Vista, 1998) is for landscape painters in any medium who love to feature skies. The book shows techniques mostly in watercolor, but does include instruction on some other media, along with excellent photographs of cloud formations and many wonderful sky paintings. This is a great reference for landscape painters. I'm a sky freak myself and love paging through this book to look at the photos and paintings.

Colour and Light in Oils by Nicholas Verrall and Robin Capon (Batsford, 2004). The pages on Understanding Oils are very informative and user friendly, even to a beginner in oils like me. There aren't many swatches for visual comprehension, but the artwork throughout is dazzling, but not overwhelming as a possible goal for an artist to strive for. Verrall and Capon cover painting color and light, different types of subject matter and the working process, with a few demos scattered throughout the book in two or three stages.

The Digital Canvas: Discovering the Art Studio in Your Computer. (Abrams Studio, 2006.) This book by Jonathan Raimes almost makes me want to sell all my painting gear and just play with my computer. It's dazzling and I really think I could do it with this book as my text. The book has page after page of brilliant color effects with simple computer screen shots to show the tools for achieving them. Probably not for beginners, but definitely for creative computer artists.

Barbara McGuire has written Embracing Child Art. (Krause, 2001) to give adults ideas on how to encourage a child's natural creativity and ultimately help them to make a few treasured objects. There are wonderful suggestions for guiding Little Artists and helping them create projects with their own art to last a lifetime. The best part of the book is page after page of wonderful examples of child art.

Helen Van Wyk's Color Mixing the Van Wyk Way: A Manual for Oil Painters (Art Instruction Associates, 2000) has quickly become a classic since it was first published in 1995. She keeps the color concepts simple, emphasizing primarily color temperature and comparing a few basic palette choices for simple still lifes and portraits. This book would help beginners in oils to understand their colors and master color mixing of specific pigments.

Helen Van Wyk's Favorite Color Recipes. (Art Instruction Associates, 2000) expands somewhat on the previous book and introduces a greater variety of subjects with color recipes in oil paints that are her recommendations for painting them. This book ale effects in this book are understood, the painter would be well advised to develop a more personal palette of colors.

Barron's Creative Painting Series: Color. (2005) by Gemma Guasch and Josep Asunción contains a wealth of useful information on color and numerous beautiful reproductions of masterpieces to illustrate the use of color throughout art history. I love that part of the book, but I don't think the demo paintings do it justice. Maybe it's just the design of the book. Check it out, though, because it has a lot to offer.

Once again, thanks to McCallister's Art Store for providing books for my reviews.

Time flies when you're sorting photographs

Wow. Where did the last ten days go? I've been glued to my computer and haven't even had time to blog. What's up with that? I've been obsessively getting my image files reorganized onto my new external hard drive and reconnecting the files to the new PhotoShop Elements 5 program. What a job! I probably made more work for myself than I needed to by uploading my backup CDs to the new drive instead of selecting the files to save, but I was hoping to find some that got lost over the years.

Early in my computing days I scanned photos into my computer, but after I bought my first digital camera--a Sony Mavica--in 1998, I never used film again. It was so easy to take a shot and download (upload?) it to my computer that I didn't even mind that the resolution was so low--way less than 1MP in those days. But, as with most things electronic, I upgraded twice and by 2001 switched to a Canon G1, then in 2002 a Canon G2, and in 2004 a G6. Love those Canons. The G-series isn't as small as a pocket camera or as large as an SLR (the Mavica was too bulky for me) but is small and easy to handle, fully featured and has great optics. Plus, I love the swivel LCD.

My first objective in 2001 (my justification for spending so much on the camera) was to become a better photographer. I got fantastic closeups of wildflowers in Ohio, Colorado and Massachusetts and at the same time learned a lot about botany. In 2003 I focused on (pun intended) photographing our new granddaughter and have taken literally thousands of photos of her. The camera loves her.

By the time I got all these photos saved to the new hard drive and entered into PSE 5, I had more than 23,000 photos. After working diligently and not getting anything else done, I've deleted most of the dupes and the duds. The number is now down to around 12,000. I could probably delete a few more duds, but I've had it with photos for now. I do love digital photography, though, and I'm looking forward to photographing some of my work for the new book. Next year I'll be judging a show that may offer digital submissions, which will be interesting, too.

If you haven't gone into digital photography yet, check out my article on my web site for some guidelines on selecting a camera.

Have slides, will travel

Have had a very busy week without much computer time. I've been on the go since a week ago Friday when I got back from the Dallas workshop. Still don't have the workshop web page made. That Friday night we went to a concert of the Poulenc Trio, a wonderful new group out of Baltimore that plays unusual music for piano, oboe and bassoon. Apparently the signature piece for that ensemble is by Poulenc. All the music in the program was wonderful, with the oboe and bassoon ranging from witty to somber. Worth rushing back from Dallas to hear it.

Following the usual weekend madness after a workshop--laundry, email, post office, shipping--I went to Monday watercolor class and we discussed their project I had prepared for them for last week while I was away. I had coated part of a sheet of Saunders Waterford paper with acrylic gloss medium for them to experiment on. Most of them didn't like it. It was interesting, because the class in Dallas loved the unusual appearance of the surface, which resists watercolor and has random texture very different from the watercolor paper itself. Fun to try and you may have some specific subject or style that it would work with. You can coat the sheet uniformly or with random big brushstrokes.

I got a call Monday night that the speaker for my Otterbein College Women's Club, which I'm president of this year, wouldn't be able to make it. I said I'd do a slide program, as I expected my slides to be delivered by UPS on Tuesday along with my other workshop materials. Oops. Next day I tracked my UPS packages and they had been rescheduled for delivery on Wednesday. So I pulled a chair up to my bookcase and searched among the slide programs for one that would work for a group of non-artists who are interested in everything. "The History of Color in Painting" was the one I decided and it seemed to go well. One gentleman had a nice nap, but the rest were attentive and a few asked questions.

Wednesday I had an appointment with the opthalmologist to check the status of my cataracts, which aren't yet a real nuisance. So I got a new prescription for my glasses to sharpen things up, I hope. The macular degeneration that runs in my family is evident but so far very slight. Not much I can do about that, I guess.

Thursday I met with my editor and designer at North Light Books about the new book I'm working on. The book is due at the publishers in September, 2007 for publication in August or September 2008. More on that at another time.

Yesterday I went to a meeting of the Tri Art Club of Dayton, which is a very old artists' group for women. It's a wonderful group. I had hoped to see a demo on oil pastels, but that presenter, too, had to cancel, so they asked members to talk about their art careers. It was interesting to hear how many different paths have led to their lives in art.

In and around all this activity I've been transferring my image files to a 200G external hard drive. I never dreamed that I could fill my 60G internal drive. My computer was getting so slow and had only 7G of free space. I figured while I was at it, I mize-well install Photoshop Elements 5, since my PSE 3 was misbehaving. Everything is working great, but my PSE 5 can't find some of my files on the new drive. So I'm working through thousands of files and backup CDs to get everything reconnected. This may take awhile.

Our big family day will be Christmas this year, when our three boys come home. Our daughter, nearby in Wilmington, Ohio, is having Thanksgiving, so I'll be doing pumpkin pie and sticky buns. Not too much pressure this week, but if I'm not blogging it's because I'm Photoshopping.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving! Those of you in distant parts of the world--have a wonderful week, too.

Aaron--a computer that (who?) paints

Several years ago my son and I went to the Boston Computer Museum to see Aaron at work, arguably the first artist-computer (as opposed to computer-artist). It was fascinating to watch. Aaron is the brain child of Harold Cohen. If my memory serves me, the Aaron we saw was larger than the one shown in the article cited above. It painted portraits as well as still lifes and landscapes and had a distinctive style similar to that of the inventor. As the huge sheet of paper inched its way across a sort of platen, mechanical arms swung around the page, periodically moving to the jars of paint to refresh or change color. Sometimes there would be a long pause, when I imagined a mechanical or digital brain trying to decide what to paint next. I looked around, but didn't see a curtained screen with a mad-magician frantically operating the controls, a la Wizard of Oz. To learn more about Aaron, Google: Aaron computer paintings. As for the link above, it took me awhile to figure out what the writer meant about Aaron seizing animals, until I recalled that a few years back a museum exhibited a dead cow preserved in formaldehyde as an avant garde artwork. I hope Aaron sticks to painting.

Where did all the Gigabytes go?

My first computer was a KayPro "portable," 24 pounds of mean machine with 8K of RAM. No, "8K" isn't a typo. It was 1982 when I became obsessed with the idea of owning a personal computer. I read an article that said the Kaypro was reliable and less expensive than the new, more powerful IBM PCs, plus bundled software was included. It had two 5 1/4" floppy drives. After turning on the machine, I inserted a floppy with the operating system on it and loaded the system into the machine. Then I inserted a the word-processing program floppy. After loading the program, I removed the floppy disk and inserted a data disk. The machine had a "swap file" of a designated amount of space and would swap your work between the memory and the data disk as you worked with a file. When you were finished, you saved your file to the floppy and removed the disks after closing out the programs. I clearly remember saying, "This is so great, I'll never need more than this."

Power corrupts and computer power corrupts absolutely. I upgraded to a Kaypro II in a short time and, within five years, to IBM PCs. It wasn't long before I was talking megabytes and gigabytes. Which is why this is on my mind. My current computer is middle-aged (going on three in May). I thought it was a monster at 512MB RAM and a 56GB hard drive. Last week it was slowing down some, so I did some checking and discovered I had 4 GB left on my hard drive.

I couldn't believe it. I spent most of last week trying to recover some disk space and eventually got up to 16 GB (couldn't afford to buy an external hard drive so soon after Christmas!). The problem, of course, is the digital photos. I've gone through five digital cameras, starting with less than a megabyte up to 7 MB. Plus I save the best ones as TIFF files, which are very big, before editing. So I had all those files and different versions of them, when all I needed was the final file and the original. I'm sure I can save some more space, but I'm looking into PhotoShop Elements 3's backup-to-CD system to save the day. And I'll have to get an external drive eventually.

Did I mention that our only grandchild was born the same year I got the computer? That's where the Gigabytes went.

Grammy (that's me!)

Grammy

The computer swallowed Grammy.
Yes, honestly its true.
She pressed 'control' and 'enter'
And disappeared from view.

It devoured her completely,
The thought just makes me squirm.
She must have caught a virus
Or been eaten by a worm.

I've searched through the recycle bin
And files of every kind;
I've even used the internet,
But nothing did I find.

In desperation, I asked Jeeves
My searches to refine.
The reply from him was negative,
Not a thing was found 'online'.

So, if inside your 'Inbox,'
My Grammy you should see,
Please 'Copy', 'Scan' and 'Paste' her
And send her back to me!
-- Author Unknown

Making space for art

I love Hanna's excitement over her new art space. Everyone would love to have a state-of-the-art studio, but hardly anyone can have everything they want. Hanna's mother pointed out to her that a corner of her bedroom that had bookcase in it might make a good place for her to set up her arts and crafts studio. It worked! Now she has all her "toys" (read "tools") in one place, doesn't have to put them away, can walk in and create when she feels like it (well, maybe not when her dear husband is sleeping), and she is ecstatic. I know how she feels, having started out on the kitchen table. I had to put everything away at meal times. The next step was a corner of the master bedroom. Nice to be able to leave things out and ready to use. But eventually everything piled up and there was just a narrow path from the door to the bed, lined by matted and framed watercolors. We enclosed our porch to make a sitting room/studio for me, which was fantastic. But I still had to do my framing in the basement and eventually had to set up my computer in a bedroom so I could write my books. In 1983 I moved into my present studio, a renovated recreation room with optimal lighting, an area for painting, tables for framing and a computer and business space. Here's how it looks: my studio. While you're looking at studios, check out other artists' studios. (Not all links here are current.) It doesn't matter how fancy your studio is, just how it makes you feel to work there. It's important to have a place to call your own.

Computer haiku

This morning I came across an email post I saved from November of 2000. There are many variations of this on the web now. The haiku form of poetry consists of a strict number of beats in each line, in this case most are 5-7-5.

A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

The Web site you seek
Cannot be located but
Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.

Windows NT crashed.
Within the Blue Screen of Death
No one hears you scream.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies.
So beautiful.

With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.

The Tao that is seen
is not the true Tao, until
You bring fresh toner.

Stay the patient course.
Your ire is of little use.
The network is down.

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.

Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.