Thursday, April 24, 2008
Expressive Plein Air Work
In my quest to get back to nature in my drawing and pastels, I have been posting about my Plein Air Project, and over at The Colorist, the Wolf Kahn (drawing) Project. Continued snow, and other frictions are keeping things slow, but I do plan on posting a display of some of my recent works that have evolved because of these projects.
The work of David Cornelius of Scotland has been hitting the nail directly on the head. So free and loose are his plein air pastel drawings, that I will be looking in on his work at the same time that I look at Wolf Kahn's for lessons in how to stay loose. Don't miss his posts here and here, where he shows off his new works and his lightweight outdoor kit.
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12 comments:
How did you do that Casey? - I mean the screen shot of my yesterday's posting.
Not only am I amazed at your ability to do that but also well chuffed with your appreciation of my work for which I am very grateful!
You are the man!
DAVID
When I read it again you have me in the same breath as Wolfie Khan and I get a sense of vertigo!
Both of us are obviously standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the (multi-coloured) shadow of a great Master!
Well, see here, David, in America "chuffed" is what the cowboy gets after a long cattle drive. But, I read the Brits enough to see that means something good to you.
I have well-meaning people appreciate me with WK once and a while, and of course he is the uber-artist. But, consider this. I don't care if you are a beginner or an experienced artist, there are long-time artists out there who wish for the same freedom of expression you have wrought in these pictures.
And, don't forget that the value scale you have used is part of this. Brilliant, really.
I wanted to e-mail you to ask permission to post some of the jpegs there, but went with the screen shots instead. If it must be told, I went to the secret inner sanctum at Google where they watch all of us net users and...
Just kidding. I go the long way 'round, since I am just a piker at the computer. I open a doc. in Open Office (perhaps you use Microsoft Word) and then go to the blog page and hit "print screen" on my keyboard. Then I go to the doc. and hit paste. There is an image of your screen, but now I must (this is my long convoluted way) convert her to a PDF file. That feature is right there on my Open Office Document, see.
Now I open the PDF in Photoshop and save her as a jpeg. The whole mess takes a few seconds.
Keep up the great work.
I know it looks like I unsubscribed, but i really just put you in googel reader!! Great post and I loved your friend David's post on his kit!
A knock-kneed man goes into a pharmacy and asks for some talcum powder.
The bow-legged assistant says:
"Certainly, sir, walk this way".
The man says: "If I could walk that way I wouldn't need the talcum powder!" :o)
Over here we would call it "chaffed", but still doesn't affect me, having been born on a saddle but never seen a horse!
"Chuffed" does indeed mean very pleased.
I was doing great following your instuctions on capturing a screen page until I got to the bit about converting to a PDF file. I can't see that option in my MSWorks. Thanks for sharing anyway. It was all new to me, and I did like the Print Scr. function. That was the first time I ever even saw it on my keyboard!
Thanks again for your appreciation,
DAVID
David,
I've enjoyed your blog and your drawings and am thankful to Casey for linking to your work and featuring your site in his recent post.
I thought I'd jump in on the screen capture question. Another approach to what Casey described is to press Print Screen (on my computer you need to press Shift and "PRT SCR"). Then go to Microsoft Paint. Paint comes with all Microsoft computers and can be found in the Accessories folder under Programs (or "All Programs"). Paste the screenshot into Paint. Other programs like Photoshop allow you to crop more easily than Paint will but you can do it here as well. Select the tool that looks like a dashed or dotted outline of a rectangle from the assorted gadgets that Paint provides (usually at left on the screen). Your cursor will now look like a little crosshair. You can now click and drag to select the area of the image that you've pasted that you want to save. Click on the left button on the mouse to start to box in the part of the image that you want, then - while still holding down the left button - drag the mouse until you've got the whole area of the image you want enclosed in the dashed box. The go to the Edit menu and select "Cut" - the part of the image you've selected will go blank (since you've cut it from the image). Now go to File and select New. It will ask you if you want to save the image you are working on (the full screenshot) - I usually say "No" to this. When it gives you a new blank image space, go to Edit and click "Paste". The part of the screenshot that you selected and cut will now be pasted in as a new image. Finally, go to Save As and save it in the image format you prefer (I usually use JPG) and save it to your computer. Now you can add the image to any blog post or document you choose, or can email it just as you would any other digital photo. Older versions of Paint didn't provide teh option to save as a JPG file but you could save in BMP format instead - just as good, really, but it will be a larger image file.
My apologies if this was long and convoluted. It is easier to do than I probably have made it sound and can be done very quickly on any Windows PC without additional software.
Good luck, David - looking forward to your future posts. Yours, too, Casey!
Brian, thanks for the organic solution. I appreciate it.
Another way is to download a PDF converter (free) from Adobe. I don't know if that turns out to be a better, simpler solution, or if it requires more steps. And, it's one more doo-dad on the PC.
Screenshots are (I guess) not proprietary and an easy solution for posting a relevant image.
While we're at it, I might note that if you click the Alt and Print Screen buttons on your keyboard at the same time, you'll take a screen capture of the active window only and not your entire screen. If you don't mind the browser frame and menus appearing in your image, than you won't need to do any cropping at all and can save the image directly in MS Paint or using Casey's approach. Beautiful day here, by the way - I just came in from some outdoor sketching.
That's terrific Brian (and pleased to meet you too), thanks for these instructions - very straightforward, not convoluted at all, and what's more it even worked for me! Now I'll be using this function all the time!
Here's another question for you two techno-whizzkids: is there any way of recieving notification of replies to comments made on another persons blogsite? I get emails from my own site but I lose track of comments made on others and even forget where I've been!
I sure don't know the answer, David. Maybe there is a need for such a "device".
Blogger protocol has it that replies are not necessary. You can see the reason, as it's too hard.
Thanks for your answer Casey.
I know my additional question was a bit off subject but I thought that both you and Brian had covered the subject of screenshots to my entire edification!
I'll just need to sharpen up my memory better, or keep a written note of my travels in cyberspace.
I notice at the Widget Box type sites, they offer one to design one's own widget.
You should sell the idea to a tech master somewhere. Except, of course, that all of these things are free ware...
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