Recently in Digital Art Category

Date: June 1999.

In a June 1999 Digital Photography course for my undergraduate degree, I created this wonderfully colorful collage from photographs of classic cars I had taken the previous month at a Goodguys Rod & Custom show at the Alameda County Pleasanton Fairgrounds. An 8" x 11" printout of this design was framed 11" x 14" and still hangs in our living room.

Date: Fall 1998.

In an introduction to digital imaging course I took in the fall of 1998, I created this as my self-portrait. (I've blurred the faces of the people to protect their privacy.) It has all the stuff that makes me who I am.

From top left corner (left to right in rows):

• My favorite kitty, Cleo
• Me at 11 months
• Sea turtle in the lagoon next to the little blue church in Kona-Kailua, Hawaii
• My best friend Tamela in 1998 (she asked me to take some nice digital photographs of her)
• My hubby and one of our Kawasaki jet skis
• Greg driving the boat on Lake Tahoe (August 1995)
• Stuffed panda bear
• Business cards from 2 places of employment (the law firm I worked at for 12+ years and the systems integration firm I was at for 18 months)
• Cleo and Jasmine jumping after a snack (err, piece of rope) inside a Coors box
• Lake Hogan at sunset
• Me and Tamela in 1978 when I was 15 and she 13
• Lake Tahoe (taken during the trip with Greg in August 1995)
• Baby Cleo in August 1997
• Sunset in Kona, Hawaii
• "Sunday Naptime" for Jasmine and her dad
• Bubba wants "Attention Now!" while I'm studying
• Me and hubby in the Wasatch mountains near Salt Lake City, Utah (estimate 1994?)
• Bubba the "Attack Cat"
• Baby Greg in March 1979 (about 5 days old)
• The 16x20 jet ski cross-stitch I designed and made for Bill for Christmas 1987
• 4 generations: Greg, my grandfather (Mom's dad), my Mom, me on Christmas Eve 1994
• Greg riding one of our jet skis
• Baby Bubba
• Girls' Camping
• Novell CNE Certification logo
• Clumbsy Cleo with her leg in a cast

Date: August 1999.

This red-and-gold colorful nightmare was created in a 3D imaging course in August 1999. I was having a difficult time thinking of something to create. 3D isn't "my thing" and using the SoftImage software program hurt my right wrist so I wasn't inclined to sit for the hours and hours necessary to make something "just right". I used my increasing frustration to create this expression of my feelings about 3D imaging. It was fun to let go of realism and just do what I felt!

Date: Late 2000.

(OK, the finger tips in the photos bug me. I may try to take these photos over again - without finger tips in the way. Or maybe not.)

I took a book-making course as part of the requirements for the Digital Graphics option of my undergraduate degree. This was my final - and best - project.

It is an accordion book containing a poem called "New Beginnings" I wrote in April 1999.

The front and back covers are 1/8-inch illustration board covered with Garden Fern paper (purchased at The Art Store in Berkeley). The images are rose petals scanned into Photoshop (the rose petals came from roses a neighbor let me cut from her rose bushes). Overlaid on top of the rose petal images are binary 1s and 0s of the words in the poem. I printed the pages onto Rives BFK Off-White paper using the Epson Stylus 600 Color inkjet printer I had at that time.

The poem is:

New Beginnings

An empty nest
is natural.
Growing up
to be
on your own.
My job
is done.
Another life
begun
for me.

A note inside the back cover says:

The poem is about new beginnings after my son went to college. The imagery represents the merging of my technical and creative talents in the new phase of my life.

I made 16 limited edition copies of the book to give to family and friends. The book photographed above is number 5 of 16.

Date: Completed 1999; photos taken December 2002.

This framed set of digital images was a final project for a digital art class I took in 1999 as part of my undergraduate degree. I made it as a gift for my mother and kept the colors of her home in mind.

One of my neighbors has a beautiful garden of a variety of rose bushes. I got her permission to cut many roses from the bushes. I then pulled the petals off the flowers and layed piles of petals of assorted colors on the glass of my scanner and scanned them. Using Photoshop, I enhanced and altered the colors and used a multitude of filters and other Photoshop techniques to get the images to be the brightness and texture I wanted. I cut the mat, purchased the rose-colored frame and glass, and framed it myself.