New Wave Meets Old School: Digital Art, Oils and Acrylic Painting

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, it’s been a varied and artfilled set of adventures and experiences for Martha and I over the past few weeks.

While Martha was taking the grand (kid) Art Tour of Texas including a wonderful stop to see the  outdoor Dale Chihuly exhibit at the Dallas Arboretum (I really wish I could have been there for that), I was busy taking photos and videos at three weddings and a funeral… Ok just one wedding and a private party with a concert in the woods. I, also, carried out a number of other creative art experiences, experiments and adventures at home and about town.

Along that line, I’m very pleased with the new direction I have been taking with my abstract photo art. Having been a bit inspired by the digital art presentation by Alicia Nutt the daughter of renowned landscape painter Don Nutt, I decided to get back into Photoshop and experiment with new creative projects there.

Although, I am not doing the same thing at all as she is doing with her graphic digital painting, I was motivated to do some experimenting with painting digitally by way using my own photos as a starting place. This new approach to digital art for me seems to hold a lot of promise and I have ordered some prints on metal and other materials that should showcase the depth and color of these new works quite well. Look for these to be in a show sometime in the next few months.

A top priority for this year has been to get our web pages up and running and with the help of my son Austin of Cosmic Atlas  http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/cosmicatlas , the Rod Daut Art Face Book page  and the Rod Daut Fine Art web page  at:   http://roddautart.com/   are now operational and getting more hits and followers every day. I find it rewarding that a number of the likes and followers are coming to these by way of the Salvador Dali’ http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/SalvadorDaliPage  Face Book page … that’s pretty cool.  

Since we have both returned from out of state the art has continued. Martha is painting another Central American woman and child painting and is doing some work on a few acrylic paintings adding more depth and intensity to the colors therein. And, she has of course jumped right back into helping the folks at the local emergency housing program with art classes and some of their clay pieces are firing in the kiln as I write.

And, while she has been painting and firing I have been culling, cropping and editing wedding photos and now need to get back to producing a movie from two sets of video from two cameras I shot at a private party with a concert at an undisclosed location in the mountains of Central Washington. This will be a fun and challenging project as there will be lots of editing and digital splicing involved. The sorting out dual soundtracks should prove to be quite a bit of fun… I can’t wait to get started on that.

Well, enough for now… and as so many busy events and activities of summer have come to an end, look for more frequent blogging in the weeks and months ahead.

'Liquid Steel' by Rod Daut

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The Seniorita, a Ghost Ship and a Flight of Dreams

Well, life and art go on for Martha and I. While she has been busy with grand kids and all the joys that go with spending the summer being grandma Nana, I have been busily continuing my photo and video project of documenting the transformation of the Pybus Steel Plant into the trendy market it will be by next spring.

So, each day I travel over to Wenatchee, takes some photos and video of the guys doing the work there and do a ride by on my bicycle to take video on the move that will eventually be spliced together to create a moving video version of a time laps photography. I’ve gotten a lot of great photos and video both inside and out of this whole transformation thing going on over there.

In a related effort, I have also begun putting together the basis of an historical video using old photos from the late 19^th century and early 20^th century as well as some mid-century photos and my own photos relevant to telling the historical story of the Pybus building and it’s founder E. T Pybus.  For this I have written my own narrative and recorded a preliminary voice over for the visual story. Further work will entail getting more and better historical photos and getting the right sound effects and music to help carry forward the story.

Other photo activity on my part has included taking some really colorful sunsets photos and using my new camera to take pictures of the craters on the moon. I’m putting some of those moon photos together with some music created by my son Austin AKA Cosmic Atlas. That’s a fun bit. We’ll see how it turns out.

This Monday evening I attended a meeting of various local artists and art advocates at the Pybus building. There we all put our collective heads together to see what if any art or craft venue could be put in place there. A lot of interesting ideas were floated about. We’ll see if anything comes of that.

Related to the Pybus project, I did publish the first short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5cWW0dKXWc&feature=plcp   of the work being done at the Pybus building and so far it has become pretty popular pretty fast. My son Austin has informed me that it has taken on a bit of a Twitter life as well. Hey, that can’t hurt.

Last night, I took an excursion out to Soap Lake, where I visited with Gavin Seim the photo pictorialist. He really is an awesome photographer. After, visiting with Gavin at his studio an learning about the various projects he has going, I went on down the road to the 3^rd Wednesday presentation put on by the Soap Lake Art Guild. I was interested to see and hear the presentation there by a young computer graphic artist, who is herself the daughter of the well known landscape painter Don Nutt. I write more about my visit with Gavin and the graphic art presentation in my next blog for Arts in the Valley and Beyond.

On the way back from Soap lake I couldn’t help but stop and take some photos of the Ghost Ship along the highway and try to get some good landscape and sunset shots as the smoke in the air was really creating some impressive sunset color.

This morning, Martha called from Texas first to tell me that she received and email that one of her paintings the ‘Seniorita’ has sold at Two Rivers Gallery and that I am to take something down to replace it when I go to gallery sit this morning. I’m going to miss that piece, but it’s good that it is going to a good home to live. so I am taking her Flight of Dreams painting down to the gallery later.

Well, now it’s time to get over to Wenatchee to do my photo/video work before I ride the loop trail with the ‘B’ Team and docent at the gallery. There I should be able to finish putting photos to this blog and publish it later today.

Bye for now,  the Artful Blogger…. Hmmm, I like that. Perhaps that will be my new moniker.

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link to my latest rock styled video of the Pybus Project

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String Theory, Demo Video, and Cosmic Atlas

Well, it’s been a busy and productive weekend for Martha and I and our various art projects.

On Thursday, I sat done to write a blog for Arts in the Valley and Beyond for the Wenatchee World.com.  I did something a little different with that blog than I have done before. Instead of simply writing about the various art events that were happening around the area, I digressed into some artful musings on certain questions of art. It was a new twist for the blog and of course I hoped that folks would like it (they did).

Friday I had a much anticipated business meeting the execs from the Pybus Market regarding my Pybus photo and video project. This was a good meeting with the execs getting a first view of the video I produced of the first week of demo work being done at the building. The proposal was reviewed and the idea of narration vs. captions was floated and really intriguing questions about a much bigger video project… more on that later. After the meeting I, of course, gathered more photos and video at the Pybus site before heading out for a 45 mile bike ride... whew! Was it hot.

Having returned from my long hot bike ride, it was time to  get ready to head out to Leavenworth where we had a meeting scheduled at the Peak View Haus Bed and Breakfast before going to the ‘String Theory’ art opening reception at Icicle Arts Gallery. The meeting at Peak View Haus included the owners Lori and Mike and  Sherrie, a good friend and fellow member of the Icicle Arts Gallery. This was a very productive meeting in which Martha the B&B owners and Sherrie made plans for a really exciting art class idea. Let me just say the adults only class should be a real fun and creative endeavor for all the participants. Look for more on this later as the whole things comes to pass sometime in October.

The B&B owners really loved Martha’s art and of course asked her to do a mural for them in their home. They had a good idea of what they were looking for and Martha is going to be able to really run with their idea and they will have a great new addition to their very creatively designed and decorated space.

After the meeting at the B&B it was time to visit the gallery and meet the artist Jim Huber. I was really interested to see the art and to talk with Jim as we have something in common. His show is aptly titled ‘String Theory’ as is one of my abstract photos. Some readers may recall that my ‘String Theory’ is currently on exhibit at the Confluence Technology Center in Wenatchee.

Jim was a fun and interesting guy and he, Bryan Miller and I had fun discussing String Theory and Chaos Theory and art. It was also good to get feedback from Anna  Miller and others on how much they liked the new tack I had taken with my blog on ‘String Theory and Questions of Art’ in the Wenatchee World Online.

 Saturday morning before getting more photos and video yet of Pybus, I went riding with my morning bike buddies. My bike buddies are all fascinated with the whole Pybus Market and my photo and video project of same and continue to ask questions about it and what it will turn out like when it’s done. It seems that wherever I go people are interested to learn more about what the whole thing is going to be at Pybus and are truly excited about everything I tell them about the project and the cool place it’s going to be.

The photos and video I took at Pybus on Saturday involved getting up on the roof of the adjacent building to get angles and views not possible from the ground.  While there I got literally a bird’s eye view of a pair of ospreys in their nest with their juvenile chick. From their too I could see my bike buddies who were doing another lap of the Apple Capital Loop trail and gathered some video of them while they were riding on the other side of the river. Unfortunately when they passed by right below me I was in the middle of videoing the ospreys and missed my two second opportunity to get video of them riding right below me. Oh well, maybe another time.

After my Saturday ride, I set to work reworking my recent Pybus video and replace ther captions with narration and made some really good adjustments to the audio of the video and music to make a really great new version of the video. At the same time I was addressing important web page development issues with my son Austin of ‘Cosmic Atlas’ who is working with me to develop two new web pages... one for Martha’s art and one for mine. That is really coming along. Meanwhile, the new Rod Daut Art Facebook Page is now up and running and people are ‘liking’ it and like the art and video posted there so far.

Well, enough for now as I need to get more photos and video at the Pybus and work on other art projects. Have a very artful day.

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Zion, Pybus, New Oils And a Long and Winding Road

Well, it’s been a busy couple of weeks for Martha and me with our art and art projects.

As I have been taking photos of the ongoing work at the Pybus building and even riding by on my bike to take video of the project nearly every day for my long term Pybus project Martha has been busy with her art and getting ready to see grand kids in Texas.

In the Pybus project I am chronicling the transformation of the old steel plant into a Public Market with lots of cool shops inside. My idea with taking video from my bike is to create a movie that shows the transformation one swipe at a time as I go by left to right and right to left on my bike until the project is done and open to the public at which point I will ride my bike right into the entrance video running and show the vibrant active market place it is going to be by then.

And, as I have been riding and photographing like mad, Martha has been painting some intriguing new oils up in the oil studio. She has to have a separate studio in the house for oil painting due to the fumes. We both can work with acrylics, water colors and clay in the studio off of the den, but the oils have got to be AWAY! In any case the work she is doing is new and as I don’t go up into the oil studio every day, it was a bit of a nice surprise to do so today and see what she has been working on up there.

Last week, we went together to pick up her giant tropical birds and my steel eagle from the Icicle Arts Gallery in Leavenworth. It was a fun project but it seemed a sad end to what has been a long and winding road with these birds. Now, they are in storage till Martha makes something new out of her birds and I take on the task of recreating my eagle by stripping off all the paper Mache cardboard and such to make way for an all metal exterior. Look for this in future blogs as that project starts… hmmm… sometime ahead. We also, delivered our completed two sided painting of an old school door to the Soap Lake Art Guild at the 3rd Wednesday event last week. That was fun.

With all the bike riding I have been doing and video recording from my bike, I couldn’t help but to make a fun little video which is on Youtube called ‘Bike Surfing the Swamp’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkiHW7oY0Aw&list=UUNvpiC1XcVKVH-EiXJCMCsA&index=1&feature=plcp  . It’s pretty fun and so far everybody that has seen it tells me they like it. One viewer was so pleased after watching it she asked that I video her daughter’s wedding. The wedding was a lot of fun by the way. Another video I posted on Vimeo about a week ago is called ‘Morning Tour at Two Rivers Gallery’ https://vimeo.com/45756067 . The Director of the gallery was very pleased with this video.

The other big project I completed this past week was submitting an app for an Artist-in-Residency program at Zion National Park for next year. That project would entail producing videos of the park taken from… you guessed it, a bicycle. Let’s hope that comes through. It should be a lot of fun and a great challenge all at the same time.

Well now it’s time to get back to helping Martha with her kiln firing of the clay work of her student from the local emergency housing program.

So; bye for now and have a very artful day.

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Firworks, Floods, Demolition and Exhibiting with Greatness

 

Well, it’s been an exciting and fun filled week of art and art adventures.

On Sunday in honor of the Tour De France I nursed my first injury of the season by only riding a few miles and taking the time to gather some more pre redevelopment photos of the Pybus Building from, of all the places, the roof of the building next to it. I was so lucky to have found someone there on a Sunday to let me in and on top of the building. Great views were to be had up there to be sure. Views of not only the outer structure of the Pybus Building as it will never look again, but also of the river and the park along the bike path.

Having taken some really good angular and scenic shots from up there, I went on over to Walla Walla point park as I had taken notice the day before of how high the water was there when I rode through with the ‘B’ team… readers who have followed this blog since last summer will recall that the ‘B’ Team is a great bunch of bike riders that includes Ed Farrar the father of world class bike sprinter and winner of a stage at the Tour De France last 4^th of July.

When, I got there I was not disappointed. In fact though the water seemed slightly lower than the day before, scenically it was much better for photography as the sky was a gorgeous blue and there was just a hint of clouds here and there. The water as it was formed a nice little water fall of sorts just below the foot bridge to the little island which normally forms the swimming area. All in all some nice photos were to be taken. I noticed there were quite a few others taking photos that day as well- including some Japanese tourists. I did my best to get up close and personal with the water to get the kind of shots that I really like to get.

Later in the week, I was called to come over and get some more photos of the work beginning at the Pybus Building. Little did I know that they had worked on it on the 4^th of July. Had I known that I would have been there… at least for bit mid-day before the party started. Oh yes, there was a party and it involved playing all the games we used to play in the yard when we were kids and of course a video of the same… with fireworks I might add. The video is now on Youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJD_4MuFjyI&feature=youtube_gdata . If you don’t like fun and the 4^th of July, don’t watch it.

Back to the Pybus project… I went on over on the 5^th and got to ride up in a lift with Rusty McDonnell the Vice President of Production with Blodgett Construction, to get some good shots of the demolition work that had been done to that point and some video as well, which will eventually go into a video documenting the transition of the Pybus from a rusted looking hulk that once was a steel plant to a hip and cool public market with all the bells and whistles that will make it quite the ‘happening’ place to be and to go to on a date I am sure.

I also got video from two of my favorite local vantage points of the guys working with their heavy equipment taking out the glass and other materials which will be replaced with all new artsy stuff. And, while I was in that neck of the woods, I stopped by Two Rivers Gallery to get a sneak peak at the art work for the new show before the First Friday Reception which will be tonight. I got some good shots that and it looks like it will be a nice show. We’ll have a guest - Deborah Ann who does Original Fabric Art from Yakima there with us tonight. We met Deborah at the Peggy Lewis Gallery in Yakima just a few weeks ago when we went there for the reception for the 45^th Annual Juried Arts Show put on by Allied Arts of Yakima.

Later, after a morning of photo and video taking for the ongoing Pybus project and getting that sneak peak at TRG, it was time to load up the car with some of my large photos to go on exhibit over at the Confluence Technology Center. Laura Jaecks the Manager had met me at one of the Pybus Building meetings I attended and photographed the week before and asked that I come down and meet with her Administrative Assistant Tricia Degnan to scope out the facility to see how it looked and if I would like to show some of my work there. Having done that before the 4^th, I had decide to show there and so, yesterday I took some of my larger pieces over and installed them with a little help from Martha Flores.

Martha and I were really in awe of the art there by Jan Cook Mack. A few of the smaller pieces we had seen before or at least prints of them. But, the large pieces were new to us and just amazing. I hope my work shows well there in the presence of greatness. We also like the pieces there by photographer Frank Cone.

Back home at the studio Martha has put a few minor finishing touches on her Hotel Girls from the old Siloam Hotel based on a photo from the heyday of the mineral bath / sanitarium / hotel era of Soap Lake. And, I have made some further progress on my painting of one of the old mud bath buildings from that same era along with a model T pick-up traveling along one of the old dirt roads leading to the mud bath building. It’s coming along… a few smaller buildings in the mid-ground and some further work on the main building and it will be done. And, of course the painting of my pride and joy little Adriana is getting closer to completion. I can’t wait to take it to her on my next visit to California.

                                                                                                                 

We, enough for now as I have work to do, clients to see, and places to go. Have a good and very artful day.

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