Blog Number 1
Maggie
Welcome to my Blog!
Firstly I would like to introduce myself, I am Anna and with me comes my rescued Boerboel dog Maggie. I am also a Granny, and known to all my grandaughters friends as ‘Granny Anna’!!
Maggie in Hospital - thanks to Anderson Abercrombie Veterinary Hospital
We have had a busy couple of months here in East Sussex. Maggie injured her ACL (a ligament in her knee) at Christmas following chasing a squirrel down the garden and had to have an operation which has meant that she has not been able to go for long walks and is only just starting to get back into exercise now. This has been hard for both of us as we really enjoy walking over the local footpaths and getting into nature and it gives us both a huge wellbeing hit. I also had a considerable amount of holiday to use up at work before the next years allocation so we embarked on a long holiday together. As I am not one to sit around doing nothing I decided it was overdue time in me getting my website up and running and sorting out the piles of artwork I have now accumulated. To this end I have invested in a new camera which has allowed me to photograph all the paintings and drawings and following this I have now accomplished the task of getting them all scanned thanks to Neal Scrace. The reasons behind getting them scanned has been:
When trying to photograph the images I found that the background colour of the normal paper would still show as an off white when trying to reproduce the images and the actual colour of the painted image when printed with a normal photo quality printer was not of a true likeness even with the new camera. I then spent many hours trying to manipulate the images in Lightroom and Photoshop but many piles of attempts later I remained very frustrated and no further forwards. I even spent hours taking out the backgrounds of many of my pictures in Lightroom in an effort to produce a good enough quality background but it just was not right and didnt look professional. Plus when doing this with white or off white flowers I could not cut out the actual petal parts.
I needed to store the images in a protected format if I wished to print them as Giclees or turn them into cards
I wished to use the images to produce cards, giclees and other items like notepads, bags, cushions, mugs etc and for this I required high quality images that would withstand being made into larger sizes.
My Picture Framers, Adrian at Wealden Framing Services Ltd, who I have known since school then put me in touch with Neal Scrace of Fine Art Services, who has been fabulous and explained that the calibration of my screen and the use of a 4 colour printer is where things went wrong. Suffice to say Neal has now talked himself into scanning all my paintings !!
So I am currently waiting on the Giclee proofs and then it shall be all systems go !!
In the meantime I have uploaded the images of all my paintings onto the website and put descriptions of them in preparation for when the Giclee prints are produced. All that is left to do is to upload the sizes available of the Giclees and also once the card proofs have been approved I can go ahead with the cards/postcards/notebooks etc. - keep watching this space !!
Meanwhile Maggie is now up to 10-20 minute walks and we are both feeling much better about life.
I hope you are all having a lovely time watching spring wake up all the plants
Love Anna and Maggie x