This section of the site is for my 2-dimensional artwork.
I hope to be paying attention to this section in 2022!
Apologies for the jumpy layout spacing in this section. Building a website is not for the faint of heart!
EARLY CARD EXAMPLES
Below find stories of the Valentine cards images and examples of past cards.
Building upbeat digital-art images begun late in March 2020 to bring smiles to Facebook friends as we all began adjusting to the then brand-new reality of Covid.
My first collection of Valentine cards. All the cards are blank inside, ready for writing a personal note, perfect for sending happy smiles to friends and family .
Card #1 “Skating Your Way”
This was definitely the most popular card.
The skater carving in this image is fastened to it’s mica base, (similar skater carvings are for sale in the Winter section.). I photographed it outside on a sunny day after fresh snow, with some loose snow was pulled in to cover the edges of the mica.
I had spent many hours and many photos wandering the woods and fields to find actual ice puddles to use. What a surprise to discover all I had to do was put the mica down on the snow! I love how the reflection of the skater shows up on the “ice”.
For those interested in the nitty-gritty of Photoshop..the lines of words are added later on different layers, two for the top line, and two for the bottom. On the top lines I added some addition white “paint” for the snow drips.
Card #2 “Chipmunk with Hearts”
My first idea of how to do this was to use wooden hearts, made to look like the candy hearts.After many tries it became clear that I wasn’t going to get cute chipmunk, and readable heart in chipmunk’s hand in the same shot… thus began the layers of hearts in Photoshop adventure.
For those interested, some details of the process :
I made and photographed wood heart of the right size. All of the hearts in the air are actually the same heart. Each one on a layer, changed the colors and sometimes flipping them. I then added words, arching the letters to fit the angle of the heart. (It’s not perfect and the errors are screaming at me as I type!). Extracted image of the candy hearts scattered in from of the Chipmunk, enlarged it a bit, removing some of the background to use them for the scattered candy outside of the frame.
There is a longer story about “Survivor Chipmunk” carving in the Small Sculpture section. The carving has since been sold.
Card #3 “Warm Wishes Bunny”
The carving that was photographed for this card was a simple magnet. Magnets are by far the easiest to photograph because all the “cute” is on one side. As opposed to sculptures, where getting the perfect angle for the face might mean some other details are hidden.
Card without Valentine greeting.
This grew out of an image shot of 2020 Hanukkah carvings, I just added the words as an experiment to remind me of the idea to make and offer personalized Hanukkah print or e-cards ahead of Hanukkah 2021.
This came out so sweet with such an old-fashioned look. It was going to go in the e-invite I was building to send out to mailing list but it didn't make the cut. It didn't sit well next the the super cute other images. If anyone wants this for cards message me. Could be an e-card or one for printing.
Card drawing after the carving was completed. Ms. Bunny waiting to see the mail delivery rabbit, who she's sweet on was one of the stories.
The drawing came after the magnet carving. The story is Ms. Mouse was preparing for the garden party when dear friends showed up early. (thus her slippers). She's delighted to see them and not at all flustered that they are early.
And here is a photo of the card, combined with a photoshop border and words.
A hand drawn card to go with a gift card for treats from a very fancy gourmet chocolate shoppe.
An image done for an e-invite to a Fall show. I forget who has this carving!
This original and I think first printed Valentine card was made in a set for Joan, a collector who had followed my work from the beginning Her family has continued her collection, adding additional custom carvings to represent the rest of the family members.
Decades ago, one of my very earliest adventures with Photoshop. Every new tool was such a discovery! Moving the mouse to "paint" the orange stitching around the pale yellow frame was a thrill. I didn't know about layers, so it was all done on one piece.
Fedco Seeds out of Maine is the best seed company! I made this image for a card for them.
An early effort of superimposing carvings into photos. The idea developed further in the section below.
The beginning of the idea of “woodland art”
Covid-world began a new reality at the start of Spring. I began combining photos of my carvings with photos of the outdoors and digital paint to add some positive thoughts with goal of posting daily cheerful images on Facebook. thus the “Woodland Art” part of this site. All the photograph used were older photos of carvings long sold and now in in private collections, if any belong to you, please let me know!
This is an example of what I mean. I took photos of daffodils, a photo of an interesting tree, and a photo of a previously sold carving . ..then cut and combined them with fore ground digital painting…
This was the first one I did. Playing around with layers in Photoshop.
This was the second, I was going to try to keep a dance theme going.
Day 3.
The dance theme didn’t last, but I tried to keep the butterflies as theme.
This third one was where I started to get “painterly” and new creative possibilities opened up.
A beginner job of background removal from the photo of the bunny, but I was amazed to be getting this far…
Day 4.
The original background photo was a friend and I standing with our backpacks next to this lake in the White Mountains… I took patches of the water and put them over where we were standing to remove us from the image. We had been approx. in back of where the bunny’s now standing.
I layered in the bunny image, skills mproving re. background removal from the bunny character photo, so it settled in better. (back of head came out best, front of head and around walking stick still looks fake). The foreground is digital painting, combined with a patch of photo of moss. I also digitally painted over the bunny’s clothes to knock down the details which didn’t look right.
Getting those butterflies in there was a project!
Day 5.
I don’t know who owns this carving now, but I had a photo of it from the decades old images posted on my original website LNicholsWoodcarving.com I had to paint in the floor and change the edge of the rug to make it look right. I was starting to get the feel of what I wanted to convey.
Day 6 .
Continuing project of trying to add cheer and balance to the then just adjusting to Covid-anxiety days of early Spring.
I don’t know who has this carving, it has always been a favorite of mine.
I can tell the photo was from before she was completed as I know the drink had a lemon slice and ice in it when the carving was completed, and no doubt a ladybug!
The image was just the carving, all else digital painting on a white background, except on the far right edge where you can see I had tried putting in a bit of a forsythia branch photo, It had been a whole forsythia bush there but that didn’t balance well so it got cropped out.
Day 7.
Still working with my photos of Spring forsythia branches.
I learned if you’re going to try to remove background from branches, photographing them against a white or solid color background rather than just as they grow makes a big difference! Foreground is digital paint.
The actual bunny carving was sold not too long ago, to a collector I know really well and I’m stuck on remembering who because I wanted to send them the experiment…argggg!
Day 8.
A collector friend had stopped by a month earlier, bringing some of her collection for me to photograph.
This was the original carving of “Nan”, referenced in the “Nan’s Corner” portion of my actual booth that held quilting theme carvings.
The original wall plaque carving was on a carved rug, but I had to extend and paint in some to get it to look at least somewhat like it was on a flat floor. The background is a photo of a page from a wallpaper sample book, with a little cream yellow digitally airbrushed in to settle it down.
Day 9.
This carving had been in the LNHC Hanover retail gallery, which unfortunately closed recently from the economic outfall of the pandemic, I think it might have been purchased from there.
About the carving; I thought, what a clever idea!, I’ll make a little cart out of a slice of plastic egg, and put rolling wheels on it. Several hours later, perhaps not so clever. Won’t be repeating that one!
About the image; my digital painting of groundwork is definitely improving.
Which brings us to Day 10, and back where the post started.
This is the same photo flipped. It has a completely different feel to me. My eye goes right to the hollow in the tree trunk first in this view. Much to learn about how this works.
I look forward to sharing future experiments, let me know if you’re interested or have ideas I should try!
Looking forward to Halloween!
This image just a straight photograph, before I knew one could mess about with photos! Stay tuned!
April 17th, 2020 I made my first real animation featuring my carving! It isn’t much, but it was an amazing new world…I am setting up to return to the effort in 2022. Click on the mouse at her apple computer to watch.
