Fine Art Friday

Do you like to look at art? I love to, and that's what makes my job so cool. I get to stare at it every morning! Below are some of the pieces I worked with over the past month. Art classes were always my favorite in grade school and college. I'm so excited that Madeline has art class at school, usually twice a week. She is very creative already, so I think she'll enjoy it as much as I did. Below I accompanied the pieces with some famous quotes about art...


Best of Show II by St. John

• The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. Michelangelo

Repose II by Coulter

• Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master. Leonardo da Vinci

Modern Space I by Bellows

• A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art. Paul Cezanne

Main Street I by Abbott

• Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it. Salvador Dali
  

Lady in Red II by Coulter

• Creativity takes courage. Henri Matisse

No more bedrest

Last week after all of the family left we took Penny to the vet to get her stitches removed from her hernia repair surgery. Since she healed up great the vet took her off exercise restriction...which worked out perfect because our neighbors asked us to dog sit this past weekend while they went on a Las Vegas getaway. Penny hasn't been able to play with her friend Starla in over a month so she was happy to have her over the whole weekend!

Penny and Starla played and wrestled like they normally do but they got tuckered out real quick with temps outside rising to 109 this past weekend! So they both spent a lot of time laying on the kitchen floor cooling off. The kids loved watching and playing with the dogs.

Today I took Penny back to the vet, she was scheduled to have her heartworm test and start on her heartworm preventative meds. Thankfully her test came back negative (I hear it's pretty costly to treat for heartworm). So now Penny takes a pill once a month to prevent it. With all the bugs and heat here in Texas, chances of contracting heartworms is high.

Other latest news...both Stephen and I have been putting in extra hours at work. For me it's voluntary so I can make up the hours I missed when family was in town (since I'm part time I don't get vacation pay). For Stephen it's involuntary overtime, actually they have been put on mandatory 6 day work weeks since their NPS rating is low...some rating to do with customer service. Stinks because he is salary, so he's working this overtime for no extra pay. O'well hopefully it'll end soon.

We've been pre-approved for a home loan so we've started the house hunting process. It's quite difficult weighing the pros and cons of each house we look at and deciding if it's one we want to invest in. But we definitely want to buy before the end of the year so we qualify for the 8K stimulus tax credit.

Lastly we're trying to decide if we want to take a day trip down to the Texas coast for the 4th of July and visit the Corpus Christi area and the nice beach town of Port Arnasas. Stephen took a vacation day...so we may just go. Might as well take advantage of our free Hertz car and gas!

What I Do

Looking Fixedly by M. Drake

Well it's been a little over 3 months now since I started my new position at work...about the time the owner and art director felt it would take me to train, learn and be comfortable & confident in my position. I definitely feel like I've come a long way and really enjoy my job as a Prepress Color Specialist. I thought I would share a post explaining what I do and sharing some pieces I've recently finished prepressing and getting them published. Basically my job is to "prepress" original artwork that comes in. To "prepress" original artwork I start out by scanning it on a sophisticated Cruse large format scanner. Fortunately this scanner does a great job leaving the digital raw files with not so much "touching up" needed. I then compare these digital scan files with the original art. I sit in a neutral gray room with special lighting and have a special color calibrated computer monitor, so I can match the colors as close as possible. Some pieces of art are easier to prepress than others. Some will only take me 1-3 rounds of proofs, others can take me 15-20 rounds of proofs! With each proof round I go over the print of the digital file and compare it with the original piece of art with my art director. He'll give me instruction for example with the piece above that the blacks need to be more saturated, and some particular blue brush strokes have too much of a cyan or magenta hue that need to be removed, or I need to bump up the contrast in a particular area. It then is my job to figure out the easiest way to make those fixes to the digital file using Photoshop.

Lemon Branch by Krowitz

I work on many different styles of art, so it's fun to see the different pieces. We publish a lot of abstract but I've also worked on many botanical & floral, figurative, mixed media and animal & bird pieces as well. I have to say the impressionism and expressionism style pieces are more difficult to prepress. They can be challenging.
Silhouette in Red by Jones
After my art director approves my proof, I get my digital file ready to be published on our company's website and make several types of print files of it for our printing department. That way when orders come in via the website or phone, the print department just uses the print file I've made, prints the piece and frames it!
We Think We Know I by Jones
Some of the pieces I've worked on have gotten bought by our partner companies such as Z Gallerie, Crate & Barrel, Bed Bath & Beyond, Surya, Costco and many more, and then the limited edition prints are sold exclusively through there stores. It's fun to walk in some of those stores and recognize art pieces from our company and now some that I may have prepressed!
Basketball by Otterstad
I also get the chance to work with a number of local Austin artist that we do business with like this artist, Opie Otterstad. I've prepressed a similar basketball piece for him like the one above. Many of his original pieces are commissioned by professional teams and players and then he sells reproductions of them which he has printed by us. His style is really unique, he paints only with a palette knife, no brushes. It's a great experience to work with these local artists! I am very thankful for my job!

Show me the money :)

Classic Beauty I by St John

Today I had lunch with the owner and art director to discuss how my initial training went last week for my new position. We had a great discussion about the company. And I was also informed my new position warrants an increase in my pay - so they gave me a raise!!! :) A 11% increase in my hourly wage, woo hoo! I was thrilled about that and am so appreciative for the opportunities they are giving me. Work has been exciting and fun. I've started out doing some color corrections for our artist St John. I'm working on some pieces that he made based on some textiles in the Smithsonian. So I browsed through all of St John's pieces and posted these two, Classic Beauty I and Koi III. I like his style and these pieces remind me of some pieces I worked on back in college. In my Graphic Design program it was required to take "Life Drawing", boy was that a nerve wrecking class to take. Having these live models come every week and pose nude. But after awhile the uncomfortableness fades and it was an artistic challenge to render and draw these life forms. Really finding beauty in all shapes and sizes, seeing God's handy work. One of these days I will have to find my pieces and post them. I really liked St John's koi fish piece. One because it reminds me of my Dad's koi pond. And two because I worked on a koi piece in college too. It was actually Batik. The batik process is challenging, but you can create such beautiful colorful pieces using it.

Koi III by St John

For fun I thought I'd post this You Tube clip from Jerry McGuire.

What Laughter Looks Like

*Blogger is having trouble uploading the slideshow, click here to take you to the direct link.

I love to hear the sound of my children's laughter, I think every parent does. How does that famous quote go..."A day without laughter is a day wasted". After an intense 2 days of training at my job I sure needed an evening like this with my kiddos! My training was fantastic, the Photoshop guru that trained me was awesome...I learned many new things but most important he helped me retain many things I already learned but just had forgotten since I've been out of the industry for awhile. I feel more confident now, that I can ease into my new Print Client/Artist position. I sure have missed my hubby though...in the past 48 hours I believe I've seen him (awake) for a total of 8 minutes. My training has been from 8am-5pm and he's been working the 5pm-2am shift. We are so thankful to our friend and next door neighbor, Jimmena, to have watched Madeline and James the past 2 afternoons while Stephen and I have gone to and from work. So tomorrow I look forward going back to my half day work schedule.

Birthday, WYD and Possible Job Opportunity!

Today our nephew, Jacob (Bryce's oldest) turns 10! In the photo above is Jacob and Ethan at Disneyland on the Pirates ride. Jacob is such a sweet tempered boy. Very calm and reserved. We enjoyed hanging out with him while in CA. We miss you Jake! Hope you have a fantastic birthday!!!

Glitter Graphics @ SweetComments.net

Not sure if many of you are familiar with "World Youth Day", but it starts today in Australia. WYD is the largest youth event in the world! It's organized by the Catholic Church and brings together young people from around the globe to share in their faith.

Key WYD08 Statistics
Up to 225,000 registered pilgrims are expected to take part in WYD08 events each day, including 125,000 international visitors.
100,000 Australian pilgrims are expected, including 40,000 from greater Sydney
An estimated 8,000 volunteers will assist
An estimated 2,000 clergy will be present
An estimated 700 Cardinals and Bishops will be present
Between 3,000 - 5,000 media are expected to cover the event
3.5 million meals will be served to pilgrims
100,000 will sleep in 700 schools and parishes
Up to 40,000 will be billeted as part of the HomeStay program
Approximately 20,000 will stay in Sydney hotels. The remainder will make their own arrangements.
Up to 500,000 people are expected to attend the Final Mass at Randwick Racecourse and Centennial Park (which is open to all)
The four official WYD08 languages are: English, French, Italian and Spanish

The WYD08 theme, received from Pope Benedict XVI is:
'You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses.' Acts 1:8
This passage occurs after the death and resurrection of Jesus, just before his ascension to the Father. It represents the birth of the Church. Stephen's cousin, Britt, traveled all the way from Iowa to attend. What an awesome experience for her, can't wait to hear about it! I know the love of God and His grace will be surrounding those youth this week.

Here's the update on the job situation...
Stephen's boss has yet to promote anyone to the level 2 manager position. Although Stephen is still feeling confident he can get it. And just the other day while he was talking to the area rev manager during their conversation he said something like, "and after you get promoted you'll do this...". But Stephen said he didn't want to look too much into it. We're praying that on Stephen's year anniversary with the company next month, they will review with him and promote. So please keep him in your prayers, thanks! So every now and then I browse the job postings on Craigslist to see of any job opportunities that might work for me. It would have to be a job that offered a flexible schedule so we could work it out that either I or Stephen could be home with the kids. So I came across this Advertising Director position for our local county newspaper. It's great because they are located right here in Kyle. Anyhow I emailed my resume last night and they called me this morning to set up an interview! My interview is on Friday @ 11am. It would be great if I could land this position and work in the mornings while Stephen was home. So prayers that this becomes a great opportunity for me would be much appreciated! If I could earn a little more than I earn with my agent job for West At Home that would give us a comfortable cushion in taking on a home mortgage, one of our main goals right now.

Parents arrive tonight!

I thought I'd post a little update, seeing I probably won't be online much this next week with my parents visiting in town.

Hopefully by now most everyone received our Christmas letter and the photo of the kids. I thought their portrait turned out pretty good, both smiling at least, right? I'm also happy to say I finished the remaining of our Christmas shopping last night. Headed over to the 24 hour Wal-mart last night around 10:30pm by myself. Now my only problem is all the gifts that are stashed in my guest bedroom need to be moved since Mom and Dad are coming tonight!

Stephen's been super busy at Hertz. Working overtime almost every shift - too bad he's salary and doesn't get paid for the extra hours. With bad weather hitting all over the country, flights are delayed and customers are grumpy. Poor Stephen has been stressed on some days. Thankfully he has all next week off for vacation time. And we'll be taking a road trip with my parents to Houston to visit family.

I've been in a lull with my WAH job. I initially signed up to train for the agent skill with Virgin Mobile USA. But after 4 hours of online training, I realized these calls I would be taking would be dealing with the same stuff Stephen dealt with selling for Wireless Advocates in the past 2 years! Wasn't looking forward to talking on the phone trying to sell different phone plans or dealing with angry customers who have problems with their phones. So I decided to resign from that assignment and was hoping to sign on as an agent for Toys'R'Us. I've been back and fourth with HR all week about signing up. And unfortunately I just found out today, Toys'R'Us currently isn't taking any new agents. So I may do a contract with Sears instead. I'd just like to get the ball rolling, finish my online training and start taking calls.

The kids are good. Madeline is SUPER excited Oma and Opa are coming tonight. And she's just thrilled anytime she gets a birthday gift in the mail. We'll probably be doing a few smaller birthday celebrations for her over the next week - with family in Houston, with our friends/neighbors, and her at home on her actual birthday. James is WALKING all over the house! The past 2 days he's really showing interest in standing up and walking everywhere rather than crawling! I also think he's cutting a few more teeth. So he's also been a bit grumpy throughout the day. And boy does he get mad when he's hungry! He wakes up mad, cause he wants to eat immediately! And he grunts at us, when he's sees us eating and not sharing. It's actually quite funny!

Okay, so that's the latest! Hope all of you are staying warm. Temps have dipped into the 50's around here. I really dislike it, and miss our warm Texas weather!