Learning New Skills

Here's a photo I took this morning and then fiddled with in PhotoShop. Actually, I started out to take some photos of unfinished high rises downtown with the idea of using their general structure and/or shape to create a new series of etchings. However, I wound up playing with them in PhotoShop, at least at this point. This one in particular turned out to have a rather interesting texture. I spent time working with some photos of etching plates as well. This seems to be a way of adding a new dimension to my work.

I spent quite a bit of time today talking to one of the printmakers who is currently showing her work in Gallery 21. She teaches printmaking in fact, and I originally heard about her class about five years ago. It meets on Wednesday nights which might turn out to be more convenient for me eventaully. I'll stick with the one I'm taking now, but later who knows. Anyway, it's interesting to see their show and to look at some of their methods. The teacher herself does quite a lot with aquatint and that an area that is something of a weakness for me. For that reason, I can see working in her class. But my current professor talks about the same thing and suggests I move in that direction. So that's one of my goals right now, along with doing pieces that are multiple plates.

I have various plates that are ready to etch, so really, I need to do that next. I keep thinking I'm going to put plates in the etching solution, but I keep doing other things instead. I need to refresh the solution, which seems to have become weak. Jon gave me a new container that is larger and I'd like to use it for some of the larger pieces I've created recently.

Tomorrow after I leave the studio, I have plans to go to a bead show with my cousin. I'm hoping I can find some of the spring ring clasps that I can't seem to find here in town or even on the internet. Hopefully, I'll find some at the show. I'm sure there will be lots of other things to tempt me as well, but I'll try to resist because I'm going to Los Angeles with my same cousin next week and there's a bead supplier there that I particularly like.

The one good thing is that we did figure out what was wrong with the wi-fi here in the Village. So it's fixed now. It's really very convenient to have it working. I used it today to look up the spelling of a word for one of the artists who was looking for a title for one of his enamel pieces.