Tools of the trade

Today we're talking about modern good of the trade, nothing da Vinci etc. worried about. Today we live in the digital age where we can take and share hundreds and thousands of pictures all the time and that can be a real help in the art world.
I mostly take photos of my own work.

I use a Samsung point and shoot, it's not an amazing camera but it's pretty effective. I have a very crude set up and no real photographic trading. I general use natural light, lay my work on the floor (not directly) shoot several photos from above and try to get a variety of angles.
Then next step is to upload the photos to my computer and crop them using a free program called Irfanview. I also sometimes use Corel paintshop pro when I want to polish my images a bit more.
I have on ocassion had professional images taken and I've gone to David Hawkinson for that, he does a really good job and I believe his rates are reasonable.

Museums in the Bay Area

I just got back from a trip to Palo Alto and San Francisco and my family indulged my love of art while we were there. I was able to go to three museums while there and saw so much amazing art. It was interesting and sort of sad, as I went through with my camera, I had to remind myself to actually look at the art and enjoy it while I was actually there, rather than focusing on just taking pictures of the art I liked. I think that's a real challenge of this day and age, to be there in the moment, rather than just documenting.
Anyway the first museum we went to was the De Young in Golden Gate Park. Golden Gate Park is sort of the Central Park of the West, I'd like to see more of it some day. The De Young was not on the top of my list of things to do with our afternoon and evening in SF but I was pleased to learn that you can get into both the De Young and the Legion of Honor for $10. You could pay about that much or more than that just to see a museum at a college campus, it's an incredible deal. If you only have time for one of the two, my personal preference would be the Legion of Honor, but that's a matter of taste. You can see from the De Young's very architecture that it is more of a modern/contemporary focus. The De Young does have a wonderful collection of American Art, like the beginning of America onward.

We went to the Legion of Honor next. The Legion of Honor is closer to the coast, there is a beautiful view of Golden Gate Bridge from the grounds.

The building is neoclassical and very beautiful. There are several Rodin's that highlight the collection and work's by all kinds of big name artists. It is always a thrill for me, an art nerd, to see works by artists I've studied and looked up to: Degas, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, etc.

 

They also have some beautiful and very exciting ancient pieces: Egyptian, Greek, Roman, etc.

The last museum was the Cantor Center for the Arts on Stanford University Campus. We were there for graduation and it had been a long hot day, so I wasn't able to fully see the museum but what I saw was fantastic. The art museums I make it to most frequently are two college museums and they have some wonderful things in their collections but it's hard to compete with the money behind Stanford, the Cantor has an amzing collection and it's free to attend. There are more Rodin's and some Greek/Roman, and other cool things that I'm forgetting, I was in there for less than a half an hour.
If you're ever in the area, check these museums out!

Tools of the trade

It's been a while since I've shared a tool of the trade but these thave been a game changer for me.

While I often draw the patterns I use by hand, I have loved having these two stencils! It can be very difficult to create a tesselating pattern with accuracy, there's still room for error using the stencil but it takes off some of the time and pressure.
You'll likely recognize these from my work.