Cyanotype Silk Scarf Making coming up

Digital Rebellion!
Give your Hipstamatic a break. Try making a cyanotype printed scarf and get a feel for what photography was like long before the digital age. I'm teaching this fun workshop on 11/23 so sign-up!

Cyanotype Silk Scarf

Sunday, November 23rd 11-1pm • $50   

You’ll create a silk scarf using the very same Cyanotype photographic process that Anna Atkins, famed first woman photographer, used in the 1840’s. The shadows and silhouettes from the objects placed on the scarf create white and light blue highlights that are surrounded by a deep “cyanotype” blue.

Like sun prints, this is a photogram technique which means it does not use negatives or an enlarger, just objects and a scarf coated with a light sensitive cyanotype mix.

 

Use it as a gift or keep it for yourself. It is a great way to create art that you can wear. Once you learn the technique, you can create designs using a wide variety of materials—a great way to make a custom gift for the holidays.

No prior photography knowledge needed, and all materials will be provided. You will go home with one completed cyanotype scarf.

Please note: This is a weather-permitting workshop. If it’s too rainy, you’ll get the process demonstrated and have the materials to make your own at home on a rain-free day.

Sign up for this fun class!

Drugstore Photograms

Processing the Drugstore – a project where artist, Kate Farrall spent a lunch hour at the local drugstore buying supplies to make photograms (camera-less photo images) right in the store. She purchased the film and light-up objects then exposed the 35mm film in a light-safe bag that she created using a coat purchased there. The exposed film was then developed and printed in-store which means that these photos were created start-to-finish in the drugstore.

Consumer and producer are the roles Kate plays while the drugstore is also a participant in the production - without them, this project wouldn't be possible.

Watch the video. The resulting images follow the process you see on the video.

A big thanks goes out to my friend and artist, Amy Green, for helping to bring this project to light.

thank you open studio visitors!

Thank you to all of the 140 folks who came out to visit me during Sac Open Studios! It was such a fun weekend getting to share my work with you! And getting to say hello and reconnect with friends I haven't seen in a while.

I was in awe by all of great questions you had and was especially delighted to see people that came out last year visiting again. I got to see some of my little photo babies go to happy homes which means so much to me and it encourages me to keep challenging myself to make more and push the edges of what I create.

I was really flattered by the people who visited and then came back with their spouse or friend to show them my work. You guys are great!!

Thank you bunches!

-Kate

Getting Prints Ready

Getting ready for CAST Sacramento Open Studios! Laying out prints to frame and I'm half way through. It's taking longer than than I thought but I really like how the framed images look! Seeing how they are relating to each other is a lot of fun.

www.sacopenstudios.com

Pinhole Camera Workshop

Pinhole Camera Workshop - taught by Me!

Location: Delta Workshop, 2598 21st Street, Sacramento, CA 95818

Thursday, April 24, 5:30-8pm & Saturday, May 10, 5-6pm (optional) • $45

Register here

Note: this is a 2-session class (second session is optional)   

Celebrate Pinhole Photography Day by making your very own pinhole camera with me! In this workshop you’ll create a pinhole camera from a Jell-O box that uses 35mm film. This workshop is specifically designed to show you how to make pinhole images the old fashioned way and without needing access to a darkroom. You’ll leave the workshop with a pinhole camera and a roll of film so you are ready to go shoot your heart out on Pinhole Photography Day, April 27, 2014.

But that's not all....

On Saturday, May 12 (Second Saturday) everyone in the class is invited to bring prints of their pinhole photographs and put them up for an informal art show at Delta Workshop. Check out your classmates' photos, share tips and tricks, and celebrate your artwork!

All supplies will be provided. The workshop is limited to 10 participants, so sign up now. The last alternative photo workshop filled up quickly. ----Update: Only a few spots left!

About the instructor: Kate Farrall is an artist who loves all things alternative photography. Her work includes printing Van Dyke Brown prints on fake fur, exposing photos through the mail system and growing bioluminescent fungus to make uncanny photograms. She has exhibited her work with the likes of Marco Breuer, Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey, Binh Danh and Ann Hamilton and she holds a MFA in Photography from the California College of the Arts, a BA in Art History, and BA in Photography from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

See Kate's Art - Capital Artists' Studio Tour

Come out and see my work on the Capital Artists' Studio Tour. Yep, the same one you read about in September’s Sunset Magazine.

Sat. 9/21 and Sun. 9/22
10am – 5pm
Studio #212

Free – the Tour is open to the public

Map and Guide: www.CASTsacramento.org

I’ll have my recent bioluminescent-based photogram work, from my Hacking Photographic Memory series, on view along with artwork from my photogram mail-art series, Letters to Myself.
 
Curator of Contemporary Art at the Crocker, Diana Daniels’ selected me for inclusion in her Dare Tour of the Expanding Local Arts Scene – an honor to be picked!

I’ll demonstrate my process and answer questions both days of the tour.

There will be over 40 other studios open so you can make a day of it.

Cheers,

Kate

P.S. Watch me get ready for the Tour on Facebook or Instagram!

sometimes a pasty face looks good

greeted by this fun sign yesterday! it made me hungry for this savory baked pasty dish. i think its great that they are a holdover from pioneer times here, originally brought by the Cornish immigrants. 

gun shot in pink

a bioluminescent photogram of a stranger's memory, transferred to me. faces obscured by the gun smoke are interesting. perhaps it's practice for a hunt. without a choice in the matter, I've already started to change that memory so it's become my own.

doh!

so I've gone and done it. that's right, i signed up for the Capital Artists' Studio Tour! 

Mark Sept. 21 & 22 on your calendar to come by to say hello. I'll have new work out along with a few fun surprises. 

Details can be found on the CAST website: www.CASTsacramento.org

10-5pm. 

smokey joe

i love looking at old negatives on the light box which I've been doing a lot if lately through the many beautiful images gifted to me. i liked this guy, emerging from the smoke of a fledgling campfire. 

graffiti fox

found this little fox worked around a door's missing hook -where the eyes are. something endearing about it. 

culture notes

getting up at 1am to go make photograms after not being able to sleep, i was crushed to find that my foxfire had dried up from the extreme, dry summer heat. i was planning on a full three more weeks of glow. grrrrr. so, quick, quick, quick, i cultured a new batch of foxfire for making bioluminescent photograms! now I just need to be patient while it grows. 

retro duds

a family childhood cowboy shirt that still gets some use. love the embroidery line down the front. 

fallen fruit

a baby pomegranate knocked to the ground by our yard creatures.

Bioluminescent Photograms

heredity of miscommunication, foxfire
Bioluminescent Organism Photogram / Unique Chromogenic Print, ©Kate Farrall 2012

Photograms of Bioluminescent Organisms.

Creatures from the deep and things in the dark, they’re speaking. I’m listening, to the code, to decipher the chatter. When my mappings don’t work, I realize it’s a heredity of mis-communication and chance. I need to listen more.

Made in an analog fashion by photographically recording the emitted bioluminescent light from living organisms including fish from the deep, sea algae, fire flies and foxfire fungi onto color photo paper, I record to decode the exchange through the resulting photogram.

These works are about communication, mis-communication and heredity; revealing another way of looking at the organisms and myself through photograms, a vintage photographic method for capturing marks of light on photographic paper or film without the use of an enlarger or negatives.

More of my bioluminescent photograms may be found here. :)

glitter fish eggs

the wait

Snails by the sea waiting for the tide to return. 

Follow Kate on Instagram & Facebook...

 having fun on instagram. follow me there under katefarrall. the little button below will take you there too.  

oh, and i've got a facebook artist page so you can follow me there if that's where you like to hangout for a good visual surfing break. www.facebook.com/KateFarrallArt

I share lots of fun things over there that I don't share here.

her modifications

the doctors say she'll still be able to swim with her new legs although recovery will take its toll. send flowers. send cards. no alms or candles though. 

runny rogue

a special treat to see this little snail crossing the path. usually it's too hot by now to see one in action during the day. but it was a warm, overcast day with a little rain that turned into a down pour. love the translucency of its body.