Circus Libris

Button-Making: Urban Gardening

karenzeller8@gmail.com (Karen Zeller) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:07:00 -0800

What else is there to know, except 'make it circular?' Well there are other subtleties as well; however doing your graphics as vector graphics enables you to rescale and repurpose the content for other forms of collateral: such as a flash animation, a poster, or postcard.

I did this graphic for an upcoming event on what everyday citizens can do to help the environment. This image is about urban gardening, where the text hints at the theme and also serves as architectural details I didn't want to get into. I liked how the words got cut off sometimes too and became "urb gardening" like herb gardening.

It'll be nice to eventually turn the image not just into a button, but a flash animation that grows upwards from the landscape.

Enjoy.

Self-Portrait, Collage

karenzeller8@gmail.com (Karen Zeller) — Thu, 5 Feb 2009 10:55:00 -0800

So I'm working on a self-portrait collage using all natural materials found in my studio or home. There are a few tips I'd like to pass on to those who haven't undertook the task:

I created a posterized image in Photoshop based on a photo (Image | Adjustments | Posterize.) This helps reduce the amount of detail and noise you need to deal with, as well as shadows and tones. The simplification helps you focus on which essential elements, such as expression, facial features, really define the subject you want to explore.
Second, absolute try to get access, and use a light table. I put a piece of acetate on top of my 8x10 inch photo, set it on a light table and then began pasting away my materials
The smaller your objects, the higher the fidelity. Think about how a printer works and even monitor resolution; the higher the ppi or dpi, the better the image quality. For fine details, I used materials such as cinnamon, black tea and quick-oatmeal which is less than a mm square.
Use brushes to apply your glue. I just used plain Elmer's, but you can use PVA or wheat paste if you glue onto tissue paper. The finer the brushes you use, the better the detail. Also, check out what painter use for effects and use those brushes to get closer to those effects (even in glue!) Remember to wash your brushes immediately.

Well, that's it for now. Hope you enjoy the collage.

Painting in Photoshop

karenzeller8@gmail.com (Karen Zeller) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:20:00 -0800

So I've been working on some graphics to use on website and am tackling the theme of album covers as an exercise is using the Photoshop brush palette.

There's some pretty cool stuff in there to simulate textures. This example uses the sponges to create "virtual parchment."

Enjoy.

Creating Your Own Font

karenzeller8@gmail.com (Karen Zeller) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:53:00 -0800

So it's time to experiment and branch out more into the digital world. I've been creating a simple guide on all the letter forms for the pointed-pen calligraphy that I do, and it was suggested to me that I create a font based on it. Right now, I'm downloading and playing around with Font Forge, with is free and open source.

There's a great blog where I found an overview on this i love typography. Isn't it amazing what you can learn?

Chameleon Flipbook

karenzeller8@gmail.com (Karen Zeller) — Sun, 7 Dec 2008 13:33:00 -0800

So here's me demonstrating a flip book created using Adobe Premiere and Adobe Photoshop. You don't even need the full version of Premiere; you can use the Premiere Elements to output your video as individual frames\jpgs, then you use Photoshop to print out rows of images on a page. Detailed instructions to come.

On Blogging

karenzeller8@gmail.com (Karen Zeller) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:46:00 -0800

So I'm a bit newer to blogging as a way of publishing, and I heard different things about it: 1) that it is like having a public diary, 2) or it's an alternative to a website. I find it to be a little more more of the latter from the blogging I've wanted to do and from the blogs I've read.

Most of the popular, and even award winning blogs seem to center on a few central themes: 1) technical stuff, new, cool and sometimes involving media, 2) gossip, 3) politics (mainly with)\(sometimes without) gossip. Number one is to be expected given the audience for blogging and the types who are interested as blogging as a way of communication, 2) is predictable given human nature and what is popular in all other forms of media, and 3) goes along those lines too. So even in the blogosphere the social center of mass seems to cluster itself, creating dominant media outlets (in this case, just via another technical media.

What is different about blogs is the ability to have many other niche publications, such as blogs by moms in a region ("Silicon Valley Mom's Blog" is one example I read) which brings a more personalize aspect, like the diary of MANY people for all to read. It's much more democratizing and liberating for blogs to be a platform of personalized (even politically personalized) publishing.

Well that's about it for now. One wonders, how do you find your audience\niche as a blogger?

Books Begin Early

karenzeller8@gmail.com (Karen Zeller) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:42:00 -0800

Not necessarily early in the day, but early in life. One of the best ways to spend quiet time with someone is to read them a favorite book. It’s a great way to learn new things, and to appreciate learning through reading. I've even read out loud to myself in order to help learn a foreign language (German.)

With my young son, I try to read him at least one or two books per day. You can listen to his favorite story these days:

Happy Chameleon Day

karenzeller8@gmail.com (Karen Zeller) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:32:00 -0800

So we don't own a cat, or an orchid now, but our chameleon did take a walk on our neighbor's orchid.

He was the subject of a short video I took and converted into a flip book, using Adobe Premiere Elements, and Adobe Photoshop. In later posts, I plan on describing how you can create a flip book too.

Welcome

karenzeller8@gmail.com (Karen Zeller) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:54:00 -0800

Glad you were able to visit my new blog dedicated to my favorite creative endeavor: book arts.

So you ask, what exactly is "book arts"? It's the subject of debate even among dedicated book artists; scholarly articles are written on the nature of "bookness" and "what is a book."

The best way I describe it is to say that book arts is the discipline combining all arts and crafts required to build traditional and modern-day books. Everything from the monks of old and how they created what now precedes modern typography to web design technologies that people now use to publish about, and visual describe the world.

So I guess in a sense, a blog, is a the latest generation of many thousand of years of technologies and innovations used to illuminate and illustrate life as we know it.