Part 1 of Van Gogh’s Cafe Terrace at Night
I decided to make another painted/quilted fabric postcard of a Van Gogh because his work is very expressive and painterly and I’ve always enjoyed this particular piece. So, I thought it might be fun to show some sequence photographs of a work in progress. Cafe Terrace at Night was painted in Arles, France in 1888 when he first moved to the region. I also found out that this was the first of his night scenes. I suppose if I had thought this out before I would have started with this one, but I didn’t.
So, here’s my technique: I used Photoshop to resize the image to roughly postcard size, in this case 4.75″ x 6″. I printed a copy of the painting out and using a ruler and pencil, have drawn a grid onto the copy to help me transfer the image to my fabric. I used roughly 1″ increments. I hope to be able to show more progress photos later today or tomorrow depending on how much I get accomplished.
I’ve been playing around with my template and banner a little bit. I would be interested in feedback because I’m not sure how the colors come across on anyone else’s monitor. Is it hard to read? To shocking colorwise? I’m just curious, so let me know.
One last thing before I get to work…I don’t normally pimp products or things unless I really really like what I’m using. So, here it goes: I love Skype! I had seen it mentioned before on websites, but never really looked into it and didn’t really know what it was. But, a friend of mine moved to London about a year ago and international phone rates prohibit talking frequently. He turned me onto Skype…you can talk for free provided you and your callee both have Skype. It’s basically VOIP and all you need is a pair of headphones with a mic to plug into to your computer. It also has a chat function if you prefer doing that, and you can change your settings to show when you’re online, busy etc.
I have another reason for loving this! A few months ago, my husband and I cancelled our land-line and I had no real way of calling my step mom who lives in Germany without buying a phone card and going to a pay phone. With Skype, you can call land lines for a small fee. I can talk with her for .021 cents a minute over the internet! Right now, until the end of the year, Skype users can call landlines in the US and Canada for free.
One word of caution though, I was playing around with my account yesterday and I decided to let anyone see that I was online and boom, I had 2 creepy guys trying to chat me up. I quickly changed my online status and now only allow contacts to call or chat with me. Skype maybe old news for a lot of you, so sorry if it’s a repeat.
