Another Nuance Gallery Visit

Went to the artist reception for Chuck Weidemann yesterday at Nuance Gallery/Studio in Beresford, SD.

Chuck Weidemann is a realist painter and definitely paints from the heart. I think I learned more about fine art in 20 minutes of that visit than I have during the last 20 years of my commercial art career.

I have a feeling my color pencil work is going to take a very good turn in the coming months.

Fireproof

Time, again, to tip my hat to other creative efforts. This time, it's the movie Fireproof with Kirk Cameron.

It's a wonderful message well presented. It is a very direct Christian-based message about love. The main relationship was about a marriage, but it also exhibited parent/child interactions, love for friends, love for strangers, and did so without apologizing for taking the messages from the Bible.

It was most decidedly a message about having Jesus Christ and his love be the center and basis for one's life. Yet the theatre was packed--on a Tuesday evening no less. And, at the end of the movie, the audience broke out in applause. That doesn't happen often.

If you get the chance to see the movie, it is well worth the time and money. 

--KH

Everyone's An Artist: Color Palettes

RGB, CMYK (also called PROCESS), SPOT, INDEX, GRAYSCALE

If you have been thrust into the world of desktop publishing simply because your computer can make pretty documents, you will be able to get the output you want if you understand how the different color options are defined and when to use them.

RGB = Red, Green, Blue

CMYK = Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black

SPOT = numerous options here, most popular with printing is the Pantone Matching System (PMS)

INDEX = mostly associated with GIF files

GRAYSCALE =  as the name implies, shades of black 100% to 0%

PC's do most of their work in RGB in an office environment. (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Web Browsers--RGB files work fine.) Desktop printers can print RGB files with little or no surprises.

If you take your documents to a commercial printer, they will want files in CMYK, SPOT or GRAYSCALE. Converting RGB to CMYK will most likely change the way some of the colors look. That's just the way it is unless someone REALLY skilled does the color conversion.

SPOT colors are the most difficult to create when using standard desktop publishing software, especially if you mix bitmapped files with vector files created in different programs, which they most likely will be. (see previous tip about file formats). If you must print in spot colors, make sure the printing firm you choose has the correct software to redefine the colors as needed.

If you are creating something that is a single spot color, you can actually create it in grayscale and it will work just fine at a commercial printing firm.

Web colors have so many different types of computers and displays that interpret the intended color, it is almost impossible to get consistency. That's why the web safe colors were defined. Monitor adjustments are still subjective so even then, the limited palette you use is not a guarantee match. For the most part, a well compressed JPG will work fine. 

--KH