by Dan Zimmerman

For Work-in-Progress Month, I’m using as a departure point a photo that I took in the kitchen with my first digital camera and a tripod. I hadn’t shaved in several days and the idea was to capture the ‘low landscape’ that had grown on my face. I was especially pleased with the play of shadows on the right side, and the swing of the fold in my shirt. I also really liked the window and the quality of the light which brings everything into such satisfying relief.

For this series, I’m interested in exploring as many combinations of photography, drawing/painting, computers, and the great outdoors that I can come up with, using the above photo as the unifying theme.

My first experiment was to lift the original photo out of its kitchen-context and set against a detail of one of my branch-pictures. I start these branch-pictures outside, in my backyard. I place branches, leaves and sticks on the canvas and use alternating runs of black or white spray-paint to produce unexpected results (these results feel very mysterious to me, much like to the old black & white movies I’ve always been fond of. It’s my own brand of Sfumato, or chiaroscuro you might say.) After I finish with the spray-paint, I bring the canvas inside to work on it further by applying color or more drawing. I also sometimes project photos of trees onto the picture and merge these images onto the developing composite.

I combined the initial kitchen portrait with the branch-picture in Photoshop. I had to zoom in close so I could erase around the hairs and retain the stubble look. I still haven’t learned how to make ‘areas’ transparent, so I just laboriously erase everything I don’t want in the layer (can anyone out there release my inner Photoshop nerd?)

Typically I go back and forth between “accident” and “intention”. I have become very bored with my own “skills”. So, the work is an ongoing effort to court surprise, and be ready to respond to it.

Next week I’ll try to do something different with the picture…

Hello everyone! This is Rachel from the Danielson Famile. For those of you who don’t know, I am also a clothing designer and am part of a handmade children’s clothing company called Mamma Made (www.mammamadedesigns.com). I am very excited to take you through the process of how a garment is developed from start to finish though a series of blog posts.

I’m currently working on our line for Spring 2008 and I really love to design dresses. There is nothing sweeter on a little girl than a special dress that can showcase her personality and simply make her feel beautiful. The dress that I will be working on and sharing with you will actually be available in the Spring—so you’ll have a sneak peak!

I have a little black sketch book where I doodle, but as my sister Megan tells me, I design backwards. Usually designers make a sketch that they love and then find the perfect fabric, but I find the fabric first and then the dress creates itself. I prefer to use 100% cotton fabrics. They wash and dry well, they are sturdy and lend themselves practically for children to wear and thrash, and you can find some really cool prints. I prefer quilting cottons because the quality is higher. When you feel the fabric, it has a solid yet soft feel. When you hold it up to the light, you can’t see through it and it has a nice drape for skirts. Here’s the quilting fabric I have chosen for this dress:

Now I am going to my sketchbook to work on some ideas. You aren’t allowed to make fun of my amazingly horrible sketches. The truth is that when I have the fabric, I see the idea in my head but I have to put in on paper just to make it a bit more solid. You can’t really see what the final garment will look like because you can’t see into my head, but I will share my elementary sketches with you anyways.

I’m going to mull over these for a bit and maybe even change things around. After we get our idea finalized, we will begin to create the pattern. I would love to see your comments and ideas as we are going through this process together.

Love, Rachel