General Meeting - Wednesday January 15, 2025 6-8pm

Happy New Year Camas! Let's Art!

We are so excited to announce guild meetings will now be every third Wednesday of the month, at the Camas Public Library, second floor meeting room. 625 NE 4th Ave, Camas

Join us for a lovely evening of art chat covering upcoming events and a presentation from our featured guest. You don't need to be a member to check out our group - come see what its all about! This month, we're welcoming Tamara Dinius of https://www.womenwineandwords.com/.

Tamara Dinius - Women, Wine, and Words

By Blythe Ayne

It's easy to picture Tammy in a peasant skirt, boots, and blonde hair swinging, as she describes herself in the past when first attending the University of Washington taking art and creative writing classes, given her present youthful demeanor and contagious joie de vivre. 

She was determined, she says, to become an artist and writer. She took life drawing classes, pottery classes, and writing workshops.

Tamara Dinius in the studio

Inspiration

Tammy is inspired by bright, intense, and rich colors, and drawn to the textures of paints, molding paste, sand, and other textured materials, preferring to paint with her fingers. The textures themselves create shadows and highlights, adding dimension to her work.

Words are equally important to her creations. It is meaningful to her when her work is shared and inspires others. She finds inspiration in women who have found success without compromising who they are. She wisely notes, “(Women) often times worry more about being liked than we do about liking what we do.” 

She further observes that in the arts community women with a strong point of view work to quiet their inner critic, and let their creative soul emerge.

Artistic Process

Tamara starts her paintings using graphite, charcoal and water soluble crayons to create script and marks. She then adds watered-down watercolors that cause the colors to run into one another creating shapes and patterns, which she continues for two or three layers.

When the water colors are completely dry she adds acrylic paint and textural mediums, and will, by completion, have as many as 20 layers of marks, watercolors, acrylic paint, and textural mediums in the art piece.

She is fascinated by the mind-body connection during the act of creating. As she works, messages sometimes present themselves as a humorous or meaningful comment which she may embed in the work’s layers.

Artistic Success

When Tammy began to seriously pursue her arts career, her first sayings reflected her new-found freedom. In 2014, she’d launched Women, Wine, and Words – Art that Says Something, soon selling her art across the Pacific Northwest through nine sales reps.

A couple of her favorite and best selling quotes from that time, are:

“She chose freedom and never looked back.” 

“She learned to fly, so she started wearing her wings everywhere she went.” 

Artisans’ Guild of Camas

Tammy joined Artisans’ Guild of Camas in the beginning when Angela Swanson (who sadly passed away in 2023) asked her to serve as treasurer. Deborah Nagano, India Delanda, Tony McCarty, and Angela were among the founding artists.

“The Guild,” Tammy said, “is an incredible resource for everyone, whether you're new to art, an experienced artist, a hobbyist, or someone who simply enjoys being part of an art community. I love how inclusive it is.

“I was fortunate to find financial success early in my art career and genuinely enjoy sharing my knowledge with others, hoping they can also profit from their creativity. Being a part of this community is deeply fulfilling.

“Camas and Washougal have a thriving artisan community with a strong appreciation for the arts, beautifully showcased in the Washougal Studio Artists’ Tours.”

A Note of Levity

Tammy notes that among the things she doesn't like are her toes, while at the same time one of her favorite things is going barefoot. Hmm, artistic conflict … perhaps presenting an opportunity for her inner critic to become contemplative enjoying her lovely toes!

Tammy will be the featured speaker at the Artisans’ Guild of Camas first 2025 meeting:

Wednesday, January 15 at 6:00 pm 

Camas Public Library

625 NE 4th Ave.

Camas, WA

Questions, Comments?

Please drop us a note on our contact page.

Don't miss out

We would love to see you at the first meeting of the year January 15th. Don't miss out on the fun of this local inspiring group of artists.

November General Meeting 11/19/24

Join us for an evening of fun, whether or not you're a member. If you are thinking about becoming a member, we encourage you to attend a meeting to see what we're all about.

It is with great pleasure we welcome Shirley Bishop this November for a presentation of her work:

Shirley Bishop Studio 13 Glass Art presentation

Shirley's fascination with glass began at a very young age. In high school she took stained glass as a senior year elective. Life took over and didn't really take center stage until 2013 when she discovered the art of glass fusing.

What started as a hobby soon evolved into a passionate pursuit, leading Shirley to establish a small business that now occupies all her time in retirement. Started in a corner of her husband's shop, once they moved to their forever home, it now has pride of place, and this is where she grew her love of glass. She now has both a schedule of classes and new glass pieces that are showing in the new Red Door Gallery in downtown Camas.

https://www.studio13glassart.com/

We hope you'll join us at the usual time and place for this month's meeting!

Camas Library 2nd Floor, Tuesday November 19 from 6-8pm.

Tips for Photographing Your Art

As an artist, you will often be required to submit your artwork online. Since it is the first and perhaps only impression the juries will see, it is important that it is an accurate representation of your work.

I would like to share with you the process and lighting setup of using an actual camera as well as using natural lighting with your phone camera to achieve the best results.

Digital Camera

1. Position artwork parallel to your camera.

2. Use a tripod.

3. f you are photographing art that is already framed behind glass, you will need to angle the light source to minimize glare as well as diffuse light with a diffusion fabric. It is best to photograph art before framing if possible.

4. Properly Light your artwork.

Equipment: 2 lamps or bulbs, stands, clamps, diffusion fabric, tripod, and camera.

You can purchase inexpensive lights housed in a bracket that has a built-in clamp at Home Depot or Lowes. You can use any type of white fabric as diffusion, pillowcase works great. The idea is to just soften the light to prevent glare, especially when photographing canvas.

A) Artificial Light – You can use lamps or strobes. Do not use flash.

Use Daylight Bulbs if you can. As they are the most natural spectrum, this is important because you don’t want the temperature of the light to affect the colors in your artwork.

Setup:

Place the 2 lights on separate stands at a 45degree angle from the artwork you are photographing. One on each side with your camera in the center of the two lights. Place diffusion material over the front of the bulbs (careful not to place it directly on the

bulb.)

Camera Settings:

1. Be sure your camera is set to an ISO of 100 as this will allow the proper sensitivity of light entering the camera's light sensor and will not become grainy, or pixilated. If you use a high ISO you will have a pixilated image.
   

2. When photographing on manual mode you want to adjust the f-stop or aperture, of your DSLR camera. This controls the amount of light the lens lets into the camera’s light sensor. Typically an aperture of f8-f10 will create the sharpest image.
   

3. The sharpness of the image is directly related to too wide of an aperture and camera shake. Camera shake can be avoided by using a tripod and setting your camera’s timer to four or five seconds so that when you press the shutter button it doesn’t cause a shake in your image. The aperture should not be open farther than an f8 or some of the elements in the image will become blurred, this is known as depth of field. If you’re photographing with your camera on auto just be sure you don’t have any of the filters on as they can interfere with your artwork colors.
   

4. Position the camera on the tripod to ensure maximum sharpness. Make sure that your camera is parallel to the artwork. The lens should be aimed in the center of the artwork. Use all focus points/autofocus.
   

5. Be sure to fill the entire frame with your image. This will avoid unnecessary editing and too much cropping, which will change pixels size in your image, sometimes rendering it too small to print or display properly.
   

5. Avoid Keystone Angles. This skews the image. Hold the camera straight and parallel to the image.

6. Photographing 3D or Sculpture Artwork.

7. Select a neutral background. Make a background with a curved piece of paper taped to a wall. Place the sculpture on top of the paper to photograph. This will isolate the object from distractions of a horizontal line from the wall or unwanted textures.

B) Natural Light

Equipment: Diffused light inside, open shade outside. Camera/Tripod

1. When photographing inside with natural light, select a room with lots of window light, and if you have blinds that diffuse the light these work really well. However, don’t close the blinds or curtains if they block the light entirely and darken the room. Face the artwork toward the window light and place your camera between the window and your artwork. Avoid direct sunlight on art
   

2. Turn off any fluorescent and incandescent lighting, as this will cause a blue or yellow tint respectively.
   

3. Photographing in outdoor light is an option. Just be sure to find a spot that is not windy.
   

4. Avoid direct sunlight as it causes too much contrast and creates unwanted shadows.
   

5. Open shade is the best. Open shade is found anywhere you find shade, but the sun is still present around you. For example a covered patio or deck, a deep door well, an umbrella (just be careful if it is colored as you will get color cast onto your artwork.) between buildings, etc. Just be aware of going into a total deep shade with no surrounding light as this will cause the temperature of the light to be much cooler.
   

6. The sunlight should be behind you if you are unable to find open shade.
   

7. Avoid dappled light.

Smartphone

1. Hang art on the wall inside of a room with good window light.

2. Turn off incandescent and fluorescent lighting, as this will cause a yellow or blue color cast respectively.

3. Use a tripod if you have one

4. Position artwork parallel to your camera phone.

5. Use the Grid on your Camera A) Camera Settings: Launch Settings-Switch Grid On-Close Settings-Open camera app.

6. On the viewfinder, you will see two crosshairs (yellow and white), if you are not level with the image angle. Adjust until you see only one yellow crosshair. If the edges are curved you will need to move farther away from the artwork.

7. Take multiple images. Also, turn Live off.

8. Crop image

A) Edit-Crop (icon)-straighten-pull corners-done

Additional Editing. It is not advisable to edit with any type of a filter when photographing your artwork as it will not be an authentic representation of your work. However, it may be necessary to slightly boost contrast or exposure or sharpen an image without changing it’s integrity. You can use an app like Adobe Lightroom or just use the settings for these small tweaks on your phone's camera settings. Be very light-handed, you don’t want someone to be disappointed when they see your actual work and it doesn’t match your digital image.

9. Avoid Keystone Angles as this skews the image. Hold phone straight and parallel to artwork.