Studio Gliese Newsletter
April — June, 2005
Greetings!
Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter and welcome to the new subscribers. Since our last newsletter, we have been busy at work on many different and exciting aspects of our art, and we hope you will enjoy this update.
Marian Gliese
Since our last newsletter, I have been busy painting four new images for "Inner Venus," one new image for my series of intimate and passionate flower portraits, three new images that explore the nude figure and one self-portrait. All of these new images can be viewed in the New Work gallery on my website.
For the Inner Venus series I am working on images to complete the series. I have already made four new images and have made sketches for many more. The new images will work well together with my earlier work but will show other dimensions.
I have only painted one more picture for my new flower series lately but with summer arriving, I have lots of ideas for more and I can hardly wait to see the results.
The new series of nudes that I am working on was inspired by one of the first nude paintings I made in the class I have been attending at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. I have chosen to paint the nudes in this series simple and with sort of an abstract quality to them. The plan is to make a series of at least twelve nudes exploring how different colors change the "body language."
Finally, I also made another self-portrait. This was an assignment that I did for the class I just completed. It is fun but also very difficult to paint portraits. By continuing to make self-portraits every so often, I hope to learn more about how to add more expression. To me, that is what a great portrait is all about.
Ulrik Gliese
Most of my efforts the past few months have gone into achieving a good digital image processing flow and finding a way to make the most expressive and sensuous prints for my "Ouroboros" images.
Looking closer at my scans of my 4x5" transparencies, I found that my scanner profile produced a color cast in the deep shadows of the images and produced some slight non-linear behavior over the entire tonal range of the images. Correcting these problems without having to invest in overly expensive software took a bit of learning and experimentation but the resulting scanned image is much better to work with. Based on this work, I am planning to add an article in Ulrik's Corner on my website about scanning and scanner profiling later this year.
To refine my image processing workflow, I have upgraded my software to Adobe Photoshop CS that enables me to work with 16-bit images in layers. It is a marvelous step forward as more sophisticated and complex image processing can be done without destroying the delicate tone and color fidelity that I find so important for my images. The drawback is very big files. Starting out with a 600 MB image file, the end result easily becomes a 1.5 GB file when all the image processing layers have been added. This really slows the computer down and presents a file storage challenge but it is worth the hassle. An article is also in the works for details on my image processing workflow.
Ever since I started working with ink jet printing, I have felt that my color prints of my "Ouroboros" images, although beautiful and radiant, were lacking a tactile dimension. As a result, I have spent the last few months experimenting with printing papers and varnishes, and have finally arrived at prints that achieve the sensuous qualities I was looking for. All of my "Ouroboros" images are now printed on Arches Infinity Fine Art paper that I hand varnish after printing with a glossy varnish. This results in luscious and radiant prints with rich colors, great depth and wonderful organic surface qualities. The image area has the same leathery look and feel as fiber based black and white prints, and the paper border has a nice smooth velvety feel. You can read more about this type of prints and the work that lead to them in the article "Searching for the sensuous print" in Ulrik's Corner on my website.
Online Guest Book
Based on requests as well as personal desires, we have worked on making our guest book available on our websites. We are pleased to announce that this work has now been completed. Check out our new Guest Book and please contribute your thoughts, opinions, comments and feedback by writing in our guest book. It will make us very happy to hear from you.
Studio Remodeling
As mentioned in our last newsletter we had started remodeling our studio. This was quite a bit of work but it was needed to provide both of us with adequate work areas. We are glad that we did it and are happy that it is now behind us so that we can better focus our efforts on our images.
Upcoming Exhibitions and Events
We are now actively working on initiation of exhibitions and other events related to our work. At this time, we are pleased to announce two upcoming events:
- Open Studio: Studio Gliese, Columbia, Maryland, Fall, 2005.
- Exhibition: East Columbia Branch Library, Columbia, Maryland, April, 2006.
We will keep you updated about new events on our website and in our quarterly newsletters.
Print Terminology
With both photography and printing rapidly changing these days, there is an increasing confusion about what a print is, what type a given print is, what process it has been made with, what the originality of the print is, what quality it is made to meet and what a print edition is. Therefore, we have decided to present our personal view in the short article "A point of view on print terminology" so that there is no confusion about the terminologies used on the Studio Gliese websites for our prints.
Print of the Month
If you are interested in our work we would like to make you aware of our print of the month program. Through this, we offer 8x10" prints of a new image every month for sale at a discounted price.
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The prints in the 2005 Ulrik Gliese Print of the Month portfolio are from "Ouroboros" and will represent a mix of old favorites and new images.
The prints in the 2005 Marian Gliese Print of the Month portfolio are from "Inner Venus" and will also be a mix of old favorites and new images.
Very Affordable Art
To make art affordable for everybody, we are launching a series of small paintings of sizes 8x8", 8x10" and 8x16" in the price range of $75-$95 including frame. For some of Marian's images, we also offer reproduction prints in the size of 6.5x8" matted to 11x14" at the price of $35. If interested, you may find these affordable artworks in the "store of Marian Gliese".
Thank You for Your Support
If you know someone who would like to receive our newsletter please forward it to them and invite them to sign up on our mailing list.
We look forward to share our work with you through our websites and would love to hear from you through our Guest Book.
With thanks,
Marian and Ulrik Gliese
Recommendations
Below you will find a few recommendations for local art shows as well art related books that we find interesting and relevant this quarter.
Current and Future Local Shows
"A Celebration of the Figure II" at MOCA DC / A&M Galleries, 1054 31st St., NW, Washington, DC 20007 (Canal Square in Georgetown), July 8-29, 2005.
"Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre" at National Gallery of Art, March 20 - June 12, 2005.
"The 48th Corcoran Biennial: Closer to Home" at Corcoran, March 19 - June 27, 2005
"Shomei Tomatsu: Skin of the Nation" at Corcoran, May 21 - August 29, 2005.
"Visual Music" at Hirshorn, June 23 - September 11, 2005.
"Irving Penn: Platinum Prints" at National Gallery of Art, June 19 - October 2, 2005.
"Gyroscope" at Hirshorn, January 1 - December 31, 2005.
Past Local Shows
"Dalí" Salvador Dalí retrospective at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, February 16 - May 30, 2005.
"Modigliani: Beyond the Myth" at The Phillips Collection, February 26 - May 29, 2005.
"André Kertész" at The National Gallery of Art, February 6 - May 15, 2005.
"Uncommon Vision," Bill Newman and Friends at the Arts Club of Washington, February 2-26, 2005.
Books
"Dalí The Paintings" by Salvador Dalí, Robert Descharnes and Gilles Neret.
"50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship" by Salvador Dalí.
"Modigliani" by Amedeo Modigliani and Christian Parisot.
"Real World Adobe Photoshop CS" by David Blatner and Bruce Fraser.
"Real World Color Management" by Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy and Fred Bunting.