VINTAGE MONTAGE USING PHOTOSHOP

Filling Her Shoes. Photo Montage. 9 x 12"

This piece reflects upon the relationship between the child and the grandmother, who in this case was the parent.

The montage images of the child and the grandmother were placed in a frame using layers in Photoshop. Portions were erased around the grandmother, to leave the child's photo dominant. The erase tool was used in paint mode, a large, #65, to create a blended edge on the cutout areas.

The background, the chest of drawers, pitcher and bowl, and the antique shoes came from a present day photo in an antique store, Lincoln Park Antiques, in Greeley. The frame was angled slightly, using the perspective tool to create the illusion of the photo turned to the left.

Color saturation of the modern photo was reduced using Image> Color adjustment tables. The antique photos were tinted slightly using a sepia color at about 20% value in color mode.

If anyone has additional questions about the Photoshop techniques used here, please ask. Also I would enjoy comments from you.

Comment
"Your photo montages are.... like someone's special dreams you're allowed to peer in on. I find them as rich and interesting as looking at my Grama's curious things, her button collections, from dresses I remember. Her fine leather boots - which seem so improbably matched to anything I ever remember her doing. Her crazy daisy little hats that were linked with had stories of her zany sisters..... I continue to think of them, and how they made me feel to see them at the gallery and your home; they certainly give tremendous mileage of thought, feeling and memory. The feelings they evoke still linger and ...are all tatted in now with the narrative threads of my own Grandmas and Aunts." Julia and Renee


Art images and writing are Copyrighted by Ruth Zachary.

MIXED MEDIA

Dreams Gone By Mixed Media.
Giclee Prints, 12 x 14"

Mixed Media; The Best of All Worlds (for complete expression of artistic vision.

This original mixed media montage was created using a variety of techniques, and was accomplished before the availability of Photoshop.

The photos were heat transfers of color xerox enlargements from old photographs, ironed onto the paper background so they would all be on one surface. (The back of the piece still has scorch marks from the iron.)

The images chosen to combine into one included childhood photos of my mother and father, an old house which had been their honeymoon home, the house they later bought and where I was born.The porch was reversed from the same photo used in a previous etching (The Homecoming) shown earlier on this blog.

The next step was the use of doilies, and living flowers and plants, laid directly over the transfers, to serve as stencils. Some of the photos were protected with paper to retain the photographic details. Green and brown spray paint were selectively painted on the stencils, through to the paper. After this was dry, and stencils removed, a checkerboard pattern was drawn selectively onto the paper, the squares filled with colored pencils, to suggest quilt blocks, and the country flavor of this nostalgic memory.

The use of the mixed media enabled more choices than only one would have afforded alone.

I have started a new blog, rzwritestuff.blogspot.com. The new blog will be about writing, and so I will gradually be moving posts about writing, in this blog, over to that site.


Permission required for use of writing and images Copyrighted by Ruth Zachary.

CREATING FROM MEMORY

The Homecoming. Etching with Chine Colle. 15x18"

Creating this etching was a way to recover a memory of a time when I was seven. The house pictured was actually the house where I was born, a farm house in rural Michigan. My parents had moved away for several years, but then they returned with my sister and me.

Moving there was both scary and exciting and as we explored the empty rooms, there were actually things I remembered from the previous time. And later on, I also remembered the sweet smell of Black-eyed susans and St.Johnswort in the long prairie grass that grew everywhere. I made a reference to that fragrance by including flowers over the house. In the cement porch, I wrote a poem about the memory, (written in reverse to make a readable version) and it became the texture of the decaying cement.

Several printmaking techniques were used. Thin paper was rubbed with pencil over a lace texture to make the curtains. A copy machine was used to copy photos of myself as a baby, the candy bar wrapper, and flowers on rice paper. (the grey areas) These copied shapes were carefully cut out and interspersed with the etched portions of the plate using a method called chine colle, which glues the pieces to the print paper at the same time the inks on the plate are printed.

The backs of the small copied pieces were coated with flour and water paste, and carefully placed. The wet paper is laid over all, covered with press blankets and printed with much pressure. When all works properly, the rice paper copier images stick, and blend perfectly with the etched portions on the print, to give it a two color effect. This is an example of both montage and collage. It is also related to other pieces I have done in the Vintage Montage genre.

At this point I am offering these images as a smaller giclee print, separately numbered.


All images and writing are the sole property of Ruth Zachary.

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Montage- Compressing Time

Concert After the Rain


This piece was completed this year and won
first prize in Photography in the Greeley Art Association Show, "Art from the Heart."

The old man in the background was my great grandfather Alfred, who made violins. My mother, was raised in his home, and he gave her one of his violins for graduation in 1920.
She is shown at right. I inherited the violin from her, but to my dismay, it fell apart, but unable to part with it, I kept it in its case.

My daughter did not play it, either, but my grandson Josh does play violin, and just joined a High School concert group in Grand Rapids, MI. His teacher restores violins,
and was able to put Alfred's old creation into operating condition, and I gave it to Josh.

I used Photoshop to bring three eras together in one frame. I used old family photos and the one of Josh and the background is mine. I found a puddle image to create the reflections, to
further express the idea of reflecting upon the passage of time.


Permission required to reproduce images and writing, which are the sole property of Ruth Zachary .