Taking Aim

[kerry_nf]

Probably better suited to some other method, like carving or wood burning...

[WyvernWench]

Hope this is within the parameters of this thread ... but here is what I would do with the winter scene photo. It will take quite a while to complete but I wanted to show what I did do this morning.

crop 1 : crop the image to the important story

The story of this photo is captured inside the frame. This shows the barn, pine tree, foreground litter, middle ground tree cluster and the sky line. The areas outside the frame add nothing new that has not already been said inside the frame. So dispose of this outside area.

crop 2 : invert or negative the image.

I have inverted the image into a negative. This lets me see the picture in a new perspective. Instead of seeing trees, barns and branches I now see connecting areas of white and black.

crop 3 : reduce more unnecessary info.

I am disposing of more unnecessary info and confusing info. In this case it is the row of background trees that interfer with the branches in the middle ground cluster of trees. To my eye the middle ground cluster is the one that shows the bend of the branches because of the weight of the snow. I am also beginning to open areas inside the branches of that middle ground cluster as it would be the large bent branches that are important, not the fine iced end branches. By opening areas in the fine end branches I put importance onto the bends and curves.

crop 4 : Work into the ground area.

That same opening process will be taken down into the ground area. I want to remove the individual downed branches so that the piles of broken branches become important.

crop 5 : Decide what needs to be added

The barn roof is lost in the original photo because of it's mid tone gray coloring. I will want to re-establish where that roof is. I also want a straight corner to the barn wall so I have removed the branch that is lying against it. The reason I want a straight wall and a clear roof line is that these elements are angular in contrast to all the curves of the trees.

OK .. I have to go do some real work as I played all day yesterday. I will see what I get done later this evening and post whatever that stage is.

Susan

Opps, forgot to say! If what I have done gives anyone a new idea or something new to work with "go for it". Meaning if you can take one of these crops and use it to finish the pattern please do so and post it.

[Gill]

It'll be interesting to see what you come up with, Susan. I think this is going to be a huge learning experience for all the rest of us .

Gill

[sammeli]

I did some gimp processing on the image... i lassoed the tree areas and used Tools->Colour Tools->Thereshold on them and same for the building then some other other areas of the image and finally the whole picture. Then i did small Selective Gaussian Blur and Filters->Enhance->Despecle and applied Thereshold on the whole picture again. After that i hand painted some white lines so the image had one whole area and then used select contiguos areas on the white, inverted selection and filled the selectioni with black so there are no more holes and that's about it. That's the best i can do... (my 2nd portrait work with gimp) but i hope it's atleast little useful.

- Sammeli

[I-saw]

It may interest scrollsawers to visit the website workhorsevisuals.com

This is the site of stencil graffiti artist Logan Hicks.

The portraits we produce on our saws are actually wooden stencils.

Hicks (& all stencil graffiti artists) cuts stencils out of paper with an X acto knife (or scalpel), he takes a photo & creates layers using software like Photoshop, then each layer is cut as a separate stencil & sprayed with spray paint over the last.

The result is a multi layered image.

Listen to the sound of your jaw hitting the floor as you look at his artwork & wonder how on earth a person could be so incredibly patient...it certainly puts the portraits we cut into perspective.

Hicks' stencils have tens of thousands of individual cuts.

[JimSawyer]

This has been one incredibly long thread!!!
I don't, (or haven't yet), done any real portraiture. I've learned alot about it though. I do remember Gill mentioning something about interpretation vs realism. Myself, I try to simply bring the viewer somewhere. I'm definetely trying to illicit a feeling. No one has mentioned inlay, which is what I do most. There are limitations involved. I think that the way we overcome these limitations is where talent comes in. I don't usualy try for realism, but I like to create an interpretation that seems real, at least in effect.

[Tor]

I just read over this thread for the first time. Lots of great ideas on how all wood art that we do here is rendered. I, like Jim, work with a form of inlay, and find myself tending towards as few pieces of veneer as possible to achieve an effect that evokes (this may be a poor way of putting it) in the viewer the memory of seeing that scene or a similar one, which they superimpose (not realizing they do so, most likely) on my work.

I think this is something like what Jim said about an interpretation that seems real in effect. Within the medium of wood, it is not possible to create a perfect representation a wolf, for example, but not only does the viewer see a wolf in the work, you probably "saw" a wolf, just by reading these words, which look nothing like a wolf.

Perhaps it would be good to try stopping the discussion of words to images (nothing on word art), as it may not be fruitful to this thread. I bring it up only to show how far the mind can go in turning abstract shapes into an image of something real.

Tor

[Gill]

It's great that this thread is still active and hasn't become a fossil. That's how it should be. As more people join the forum, we encounter a wider range of styles and when people start to design their own patterns we see the world through another pair of eyes.

When I started this conversation, I was trying to explore how we see the world around us and how we adapt this view for the scroll saw. In many ways, the conversation isn't about scrolling so much as the process that leads us to choose what to cut. It's about our vision and how we can communicate that vision to others. In many ways, it's also about philosophy. Fundamental to this thread is the question, "Why should we scroll a project when we could just take a simple photograph?" I like to think of scrolling as an under-exploited art, not a craft. You've only got to look at the stuff Toni and Sue produce to appreciate its potential. That's not to say I don't think there's a place for more traditional work such as inlay or shadow portraits - a large part of this thread looks at shadow portraits in depth.

I believe there's a place for all forms of scrolled work, provided it's good. The trick is in defining what is 'good'. As I've mentioned elsewhere (probably earlier in the thread ) there are some paintings of people who mean nothing to you, yet you can look at them for hours because they're so pleasing. For me, Pinkie is one such painting; others might prefer the Mona Lisa or van Gogh's self portrait, even a lily pond by Monet. It doesn't matter.

The one thing that all these paintings have in common is that the artist is limited by the medium he uses. However, what's so impressive is the way that the artist uses the medium's limitations to his advantage. Take a look at the picture of Pinkie again. I bet she never looked like that in real life; Vincent van Gogh certainly didn't! Yet there are so many scrollers whose goal seems to be a realistic representation of their subject. To my mind, that's a wild goose chase. You can never make a faithful, accurate representation of your subject so don't try to. The true skill of the scroller is in communicating what is seen in the subject, in using the saw to make someone else empathize with the feelings that subject provokes in you. Otherwise you might as well concede the game to Fox Talbot.

I took a peek at Logan Hick's website and he's very talented. We can certainly learn from him! In fact, I use a similar technique to him in my pattern designs but I prefer to use Inkscape rather than Photoshop. Not that I've anything against Photoshop - it's just that Inkscape is free and it suits me so well that I've never really felt a need to stray from it. Coming back to Logan Hick, much of his work reminds me of airbrush artists who use all sorts of templates. There are some excellent examples of these people on YouTube although unfortunately I don't have a link to any. I've seen some people on this forum use airbrushes to finish their work, and very pleasing the result is too. But wouldn't it be exciting to take the next step and integrate the airbrush into the project, using it to express yourself and supplement the scrolled work? Sue and Toni have developed their use of leather dyes in just this sort of way.

In the last issue of SSW&C, Shannon said in her editorial that "We're going to explore ways to connect the scrolling world to the broader arts and crafts field." I look forward to seeing more of this. I've already written to her on the subject but the notion of incorporating airbrushes into our work didn't occur to me at the time. Perhaps she or Bob will read this thread and think, "Ooh, there's an idea" .

Gill

[Back2Jake]

"In the last issue of SSW&C, Shannon said in her editorial that "We're going to explore ways to connect the scrolling world to the broader arts and crafts field."

In light of recent events, I suspect the term "broader arts and crafts field", isn't exactly the same thing as you imagine Gill. Through discussions with others, it's become obvious that the word "art" has to be removed from the word "craft" in any context if you want to change the audience.

As a reader of SSWC, do you think Shannon (SSWC) will be able to make that connection?

Exposing the art world to all that can be done on a scrollsaw has been the focus of Chrestensen Burghout Designs since it began. As you can imagine, Sue and I would absolutely love to see someone answer the door we've been knocking on.


Take care
Toni

[Gill]

Thank you for taking this aspect of the conversation to a different thread, Toni. It's definitely worthy of a thread of its own.

Gill