No Job Too Small

                           NO JOB TOO SMALL

Guardian in the Woods

That touch of enchantment is what makes a great painting a James Christensen. “As a fantasy artist,” he says, “I am fortunate to have such a broad range of icons to play with: Puffy Guys, mechanical things, beautiful women and floating fish. I can find a beautiful place in nature and paint it like a landscape painter but I get to keep going, to magic it up a bit. “The Guardian in the Woods is a Mother Nature-type guy (I think the two may have been an item at one time). He is the strong, silent type, which is why you may not have heard of him. He watches over the woods and all that lives there. Like Gandolf, we aren’t really sure if he’s mortal or not. He’s looks like a hermit and smells like one, too. “The inclusion of the Guardian in this scene sends it into the realm of make believe. On a hike I found a white tree that had fallen down. Flowers that looked like bleached crepe paper were growing in the bushes around the trunk. ‘What a great painting this would make,’ I thought. I just had to figure out what to add and wait long enough for the right character to appear. Now he’s visible, but for just a moment, because with a quick tip of his hat he disappears again like Santa Claus.” The Guardian in the Woods is a delicious landscape with Christensen magic. You can choose the 30" x 14" Fine Art Giclèe Canvas and frame it with nothing coming between you and this great piece of art. Or, you can frame the 27" x 12 1/2" Fine Art Giclèe Paper under glass. Either way, these rich James Christensen fine art editions are truly fantastic works of art. Sizing and Pricing Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Giclèe Canvas:Limited to 200 s/n. 30"w x 14"h. $395 Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Giclèe Paper:Limited to 250 s/n. 27"w x 12.5"h. $195

Lithography vs. Offset lithograpy

 The following is an explanation of the differences between  stone lithography and  offset lithography.

Lithograph

Offset lithograph

LITHOGRAPHY works because of the  mutual repulsion of oil and water. The image is drawn on the surface of the print plate with a fat or oil-based medium such as a wax crayon, which may be pigmented to make the drawing visible. After the drawing of the image, a solution of gum arabic, weakly acidified with nitric acid is applied to the stone. The function of this solution is to create a  layer of calcium nitrate salt, and gum arabic on all non-image surfaces. The gum solution penetrates into the pores of the stone, completely surrounding the original image with a layer that will not accept the printing ink. Using lithographic turpentine the printer then removes any excess of the greasy drawing material, but a hydrophobic molecular film of it remains tightly bonded to the surface of the stone, rejecting the gum arabic and water, but ready to accept the oily ink.  When printing, the stone is kept wet with water. Naturally the water is attracted to the layer of gum and salt created by the acid wash. Printing ink based on drying oils such as linseed oil and varnish loaded with pigment is then rolled over the surface. The water repels the greasy ink but the hydrophobic areas left by the original drawing material accept it. When the hydrophobic image is loaded with ink, the stone and paper are run through a press which applies even pressure over the surface, transferring the ink to the paper and off the stone.

OFFSET LITHOGRAPHY
High-volume lithography is used presently to produce posters, maps, books, newspapers, and packaging—just about any smooth, mass-produced item with print and graphics on it. Most books, indeed all types of high-volume text, are now printed using offset lithography
For offset lithographyhotographic processes, flexible aluminum, polyester, mylar or paper printing plates are used instead of stone tablets. Modern printing plates have a brushed or roughened texture and are covered with a photosensitive emulsionographic negative of the desired image is placed in contact with the emulsion and the plate is exposed to ultraviolet light. After development, the emulsion shows a reverse of the negative image, which is thus a duplicate of the original (positive) image.

TELEVISION OUT OF THE BOX

At the Paley Center in Los Angeles

The Warner Bros. Exhibit at the Paley Center
opens today, MARCH 7th, 2012                                    

http://www.paleycenter.org/p-television-out-of-the-box

THE JOKER

Here’s another example of an acrylic box display case.
Acrylic box display cases are unlike any picture framing and are a natural way to display sports memoribilia, or personal heirlooms that need to be seen from all sides.  
This is one of many masks from Batman Dark Knight that we produced which were  sent around the country.
If you see one somewhere, please let me know!

The Archives

It has been interesting doing work for the Warner Bros. Archives.

Actually, it is always an honor doing work for the Warner Bros. Archives.

I describe the huge facility as a Home Depot warehouse not stocked with building supplies but with an endless collection of artifacts from almost all Warner Bros.  Productions.   This includes of course film, but also TV, animation, memorabilia of every description.

Have you ever seen an indoor parking lot of Bat Mobiles? 

I was asked to help their amazing staff prepare some animation art as well as some television artifacts for an upcoming exhibit at the Paley Media Center.

From television, does anyone have an idea whose eyeglasses and necktie tie this is?

Tintype

The subject of the tintype shown here is my great-grand mother on my father's side, Emma.

My challenge in framing is that this piece is small and I want a large image to frame. I think

enlarging the image in Photo Shop and making a second cutout in the matting to reveal the original piece will work.  Using special acrylic to reduce the risk of ultraviolet damage is a good idea.

A moulding of Victorian design would be appropriate, I think.

According to Dave Mishkin, photos@maine.com a tintype is a photograph made on a sheet of iron instead of a piece of paper. In 1856 Hamilton Smith patented the process for producing tintypes. Most tintypes were brownish in color and the most common size was about 2 ½ " x 3 ½". Tintypes were popular from1856 until the early 1900's. Tintypes were also called ferrotypes and melainotypes. Many tintypes were put in cases making it more difficult to differentiate them from a daguerreotype. Many tintypes were placed in a paper or cardboard frame while others were used in jewelry or in photo albums. The photographer would frequently clip the corners to make the insertion in the paper or cardboard frame easier. You may find very small tintypes (about postage stamp size) in a photograph album. These were called Gem tintypes. Some schools had photographic albums for their graduating classes and they used the Gem sized tintypes for insertion in the albums. Tintypes were produced in the millions in the United States and are very commonly found today. Just like daguerreotypes, some of the tintypes were cased. Being cased makes it more difficult to distinguish the tintype from a daguerreotype.
After processing, most tintypes were varnished to protect the surface from abrasions and atmospheric conditions. Today you will find that many tintypes that were varnished are experiencing a cracking in the varnish coating. From the time it was introduced to the early 1900's tintypes were the preferred photographic process used by itinerant and street photographers. Tintypes were made mostly for portrait photography because of their relatively low cost and rapid development times. However, the image quality was not quite as good as other photographic methods.