First off, let me explain what I mean when I say “Replaceable Art”.  This is a term I just created out of thin air that means any art that is changed out monthly, seasonally or every couple of years.  I ask this question because I have personally seen many friends and people in my social network talk about how they like changing up their house decoration every so often…including the artwork or personal photos that hang on their walls.  My wife and I are guilty of the same act of recycling and changing our home decor.  We find ourselves constantly changing what is hanging on on our walls based on the season.  We go all out for pretty much every season and then we take it all down and start again.  It is kind of nice to have a stockpile of photos and art that are stored when you don’t need them but we can always break them out when the season…or our taste requires.  That is what brought up this question that I posed in the title.  Is replaceable art just a fad?  Well, I have some thoughts on the matter.  I also have a few ideas for folks who don’t think it’s a fad and think of it more as a lifestyle choice.

I think there are a couple of factors at play for people who like to change things up in their abode rather than investing in one or two expensive pieces of art to hang on their walls.  I think the economy over the past couple of years have gotten people thinking about thrifty ways to decorate their walls which has lead to this huge surge in a DIY (Do It Yourself) movement.  Another reason is personal taste.  Some folks would rather have family photos adorn their walls than expensive art.  But photos can go out of date rather quickly so new ones will pop up each year.  And at last you have folks (like my wife and I) who just simply get bored at looking at the same stuff on our walls for more than a couple of months.  I am sure there are a bunch of other factors too like the difference between the Baby Boomer generation and Generation X…and Y but I don’t want to get too cerebral here.  This is just an opinion but I think that people will continue to gravitate toward having art that is easily replaceable on their walls than invest in something that will stay on their walls for 10 or 20 years.  Arguments are welcome.

This opens the door to all kinds of fantastic ideas that you can use to keep the art or photos on your wall fresh and exciting.  I have some ideas about using a mixture of photos on canvas, photo paper, and art canvas prints that can be used throughout the year and is a relatively smaller investment than a one of a kind piece of art…And who is to say that the stuff you create isn’t one of a kind…of course it is.  And that is what makes it even better.  I am going to use the example of decorating by season.  Here are a few ideas that you can use to decorate your walls throughout the year (and please add your own in the comments).

Spring

• Go grab some photos of some wildflowers or go to a field and take photos of your kids flying a kite.  Those could make beautiful canvas prints or go smaller and just print them as photos to put in smaller frames…You don’t always have to go big.
• Photos of your family in your Easter Sunday clothes.  I can see great wall collage of the photos from the Easter Egg hunt.  Be sure to photograph the details…that is what makes a great photo canvas collage work.
• Spring is a time of fresh greens.  Have your kids do an art project of all different shades of green.  Now this is something you can have forever and display each Spring.

Summer

• Take some photos of your kids at the pool or at the beach and display some on photo frames that you can rotate the photo in and out of and print one as a photo canvas to be the centerpiece
• Think about 4th of July and doing a few pieces of word art as a wall collage – great sayings like “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and maybe include a line from the Star Spangled Banner.  Use different tones of Red, White, and Blue in your art.
• Think about what color Summer makes you think of.  Go to a local hobby shop, grab a canvas and that color and paint something…anything.  Use a stencil or paint by numbers or trace it on the canvas first then paint it.  Just try it…it’s fun.

Fall

• Of course you can have a ton of fun with Halloween.  You can even do a few online searches for creepy images and get those printed as canvas prints or have them sprinkled around your house in photo frames.
• Take pics of your kids in their Halloween costumes and display those as desktop photos to add the the fright fest.
• Thanksgiving conjures up images of fall leaves and cooler days.  Go out and find those changing leaves and take some close up photos of them.  A single orange or red leaf or collection of leaves can have a bold but playful impact as photos on canvas.  You could even just dry out the leaves and frame them for a unique piece of natural art.
• There are a ton of craft activities that you and your kids can do together…One of the best is the painted hand print turned into a turkey…classic.  You can do that on a nice cardstock or water color paper that you can buy at a hobby store then frame it and have it for Thanksgivings to come.

Winter

• Of course there is the big obvious Christmas.  Christmas photos, Christmas crafts, and even lyrics to Christmas carols are things you can print on canvas and enjoy around your house for the season.
• Or you could go with the less obvious and decorate in the icy blues or new funky colors you see for the Christmas holiday.  Take a cue from department store ornament colors to help you create your color palette.  Bright fun colors are great to decorate with…especially if you have young kids.
• Start a tradition each year by taking a family photo in front of the tree or on your vacation and display it somewhere in the house during Christmas.
• Don’t forget about Valentine’s Day (That is still in the Winter season…right).  Remember when you were in grade school and your art project was to make paper hearts.  Do it again.  Make big ones and small ones and have your kids make them too.  Make paper heart garland and frame a few of your favorites.  You could also Modpodge a heart onto a blank canvas (or embellish a canvas print you already have).

These are just a few ideas that are floating around in this noggin’ of mine.  I would love to hear more ideas on transitional and replaceable art that you have going on in your house.

You know the one nice thing about back in the day when all you could take photos with was film…you actually got photos out of the deal.  Real, touchable, feel-able photos in your hands to look at.  In the digital age it is so easy to get in the habit of just leaving your photos on your camera or phone.  And so what ends up happening is that you take photos until your camera’s card is full…which inevitably ends up happening when you are out and about and want to take a bunch of photos.  But you can’t cuz your card is FULL.  Even your smartphone’s camera roll can get bogged down with waaaay too many photos.  Here is a fairly easy Workflow for getting the photos off your camera and phone and organized in a way that is easily accessible and viewable.  It also makes it easy if you do want to make prints from your photos or start a photo project (maybe a family album, photo enlargement, or canvas print).

This How To is probably an Intermediate to Advanced level.

What you will need for your photo workflow (and this is optional):

• An external / portable hard drive – You can pick one of these up for around $100 and they are a fantastic idea to create a backup of all your images and important computer documents in case something happens to your computer.
• Software to rename your photos with 4 digits. (Adobe Bridge, Adobe Lightroom, Photo Mechanic, & for you Mac users…Automator are all good programs to use to rename your photos).  Again, this is completely optional.

Here are the steps to creating your workflow:

1. Create a KEEP folder on your desktop – This is a Main folder that you will initially house subfolders that you will dump your images into.
2. Under KEEP folder create a NEW FOLDER that is named in this format: year-month-day description (YY-MM-DD Description).  For example the folder I put all the images in from Christmas day would be named: 11-12-25 Christmas.  Putting the year first ensures your folders will stay in order.  For each month and day be sure to use a 2 digit place holder.  So January 1st, 2012 would look like: 12-01-01
3. In each NEW FOLDER you set up is where you can dump the appropriate photos for that particular date.  If you have a ton of photos from several different days you can download them all to the KEEP folder first then separate them into their subfolders as needed.
4. This part is completely optional and is a little more advanced.  Renaming your images.  Renaming images ensures that no images get lost…so if for some reason a photo got moved out of it’s folder you would know exactly where it goes based on the name.  So what should we name these suckers?  Name them the same as the folder they are in (without the dashes).  So it will be – YYMMDD Description – then your computer will auto name them.  So those Christmas photos I will be taking will be named:  111225 Christmas 0001.jpg.  The only thing that will change in this name will the the 4 digit number (0001, 0002, 0003, etc)…and my computer will take care of that part for me.  If you don’t know how to rename your photos no worries.  At least you have them in a folder with the a name that will keep you more organized.
5. At this point I will copy the entire main folder (11-12-25 Christmas) to my back-up portable hard drive for safe keeping.
6. Subfolders – If you like to play around with Photoshop or other photo editing software then you may want to make a few subfolders within named event folder.  I like to make 2 subfolders to help me further organize my images.  I name them: 01EDITS, & 02DISCARD.  I put the 01 and 02 in front of them to ensure that they will stay at the top of the other image files in the folder.  Now I can go through and throw out any images I don’t like, and if I play with a photo in Photoshop I can save it into my 01EDITS folder so I am not saving over the original.  ALWAYS KEEP YOUR ORIGINALS UNTOUCHED.

There you go, in 6 steps(or 5 if you don’t want to rename your photos…fine, you won’t hurt my feelings) you will have a super organized and easy to look at photo folders.  Now you can find exactly what you are looking for the next time you want to order a canvas print or make a photo collage or just reminisce about your summer vacation.

Here is an example of what the general organization order is:

-KEEP (Main Folder)

-11-12-25 Christmas (Event Folder)

-01EDITS

-02DISCARD

-11-12-31 New Years

-12-01-16 Mom’s Birthday

And Here is a screen shot of what my Keep folder looks like on my Desktop here at work.

For this blog post our very own Caroline Cohoon will take the reigns.  Caroline is not only our amazing Director of Customer Service but she is also an accomplished photographer and world traveler.  Take it away Caroline.

Thanks Eric!  You know, selling original paintings is a wonderful thing but it comes with a price. Not only meaning it comes with a large price tag, but also the fact that you no longer have the painting around. Making gicleé canvas prints is a great way to get even more out of your art.

The art market often takes a big hit when the economy takes a down turn, and be able to offer more affordable options for you art through gicleés you can help keep business thriving. Offering gicleés in no way diminishes the value or desirability of your original painting. Originals are truly one of a kind and show a depth and texture that won’t always be identical in the gicleé copy. You can also embellish each gicleé after printing so that each one becomes a new and unique piece with even more value.

Some places offer scanning services but unless you are in a big city you may not be able to find somewhere capable of scanning large paintings. You can also hire a photographer to take digital photos of your art in a studio but both these options may add a lot of expense to your reproduction budget. Here are a few tips to getting a good digital photo of your art that will make for good quality gicleé reproductions.

Make sure your camera settings are correct. You want the highest resolution available. While cameras today are often 10+ MP you can set them to a lower setting to get more photos on a memory card. For your reproductions, always make sure it is on the maximum setting. Check the compression level as well; you want a large JPG file that won’t compress the photos causing pixelation. This usually looks like stair steps or a pie piece, but it may also be described as “standard, fine or superfine.” You want “superfine” or the pie piece. If you don’t have a good quality camera you might consider renting one for a day from a local camera shop. Tell them your plans and see what equipment they recommend.

Lighting is key. You want the most even light possible. If you like to varnish your paintings to make them glossy it is best to photograph them before adding that varnish to reduce any glare. Make sure all the lighting is the same. If you have daylight from windows in the scene as well as indoor lights the colors will not reproduce correctly. You could shoot outside in shade for even light, or indoors with only one light source but try to make sure there are no shadows. Turn the flash off. It will only create shadows and glare.

Put the camera on a tripod to make sure it gets a sharp picture. Set it to be straight on the art and as close as possible. You want to fill the image as much as you can with the art to maximize resolution. Try to get the painting as level as possible. If there is a slight angle then the painting will not appear square in the finished digital file.

Take extra shots. Don’t take just one, take a few to make sure. You may also experiment shots in different lighting to make sure you like the end result.

The digital picture will likely need some touchups to make sure it is the best possible copy of your painting. Color and contrast adjustment, as well as touching up any glare spots or leveling the edges to make sure it is square. If you have some knowledge of Photoshop you can try these adjustments yourself. Never save over your original, give the edited version a new name and save it as a copy just in case you need to go back to the original. To maintain quality, if you crop the photo make sure you don’t change the resolution and make it smaller. When adjusting the image size always make sure that “resample image” is unchecked. Also save as a JPG at the maximum quality level which in Photoshop is number 12. This is the same setting as the compression level we discussed setting for the camera. You can also have Canvas Press do these tweaks and cropping for you with our basic retouching option that only costs $15.

If you aren’t satisfied with your results then you may want to choose to have it professionally done. Get in touch with some local artist groups and see if they have recommendations or perhaps have a discount setup with someone who can make digital copies for you.

Making gicleé prints on canvas helps bring your paintings alive. Since the texture matches that of an original painting on canvas it adds realism and makes an incredible copy. Again, it won’t be the same as your original but it will make a beautiful piece of art with excellent value.

Andreas Gurskey recently made big news in the fine art photography world for selling a photo for 4.3 million dollars.  Pretty insane right.  Well the photo has been object of a lot of criticism and acclaim over the last few weeks, but the one thing you can not take away from Andreas Gurskey’s work is his ability to see the whole picture.  Gurskey has a knack for seeing patterns in the environment, in crowds, and in places you wouldn’t expect (like the 99 cent store).  His work proves that you and should inspire you to look for art EVERYWHERE.  Sometimes you just to take a step back…maybe even way back to get a different perspective at what you are looking at.  Always ask yourself, “I wonder what this photo would look like if I took it from over there?” or at this angle.  The other thing Gurskey is known for is that when he displays a photo, he doesn’t hold back.  He normally prints his work to ginormous sizes.  The print that sold for 4.3 million was around 12′ wide by 7′ high and had impeccable detail and texture.  All of his work does.  Here is a look at some of his work.

The 99 cent store

Kuwait Stock Exchange II

And here is the photo that sold for 4.3 million dollars to a private collector.  Let us know what you think about that.