Dale Lynch
Member
Looking for honest critique of my work. Two yrs in a row my submissions have circled the drain during the bash.Is it my pictures or my workmanship?Thank you for your feedback and thanks for looking.
School of fish
- Thread starter Dale Lynch
- Start date
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RKB
Member
Dale your work is awesome. I'm thinking many voted for your entries, I certainly did. Your metallic thread entry was amazing. It may be that there is a lack of understanding about how your blanks are made, who knows, please keep up the good work and thanks for sharing.
Rod
Rod
jttheclockman
Member
Have to say this one is on the membership. Nothing wrong with your workmanship for there are a handful here that can even play in the arena you are playing in. Your presentation was excellent and lighting was spot on. What I believe is as the one I think you entered the segmenting contest did not belong there. Now ask me what catagory I do not know but probably Advanced kit or something like that. You acceptance into that catagory falls on moderator of the contest so Maybe ask as a general question after the Bash is over the mass members here where they think something like this belongs so you know next time. There usually is a review of the Bash my Mike or if one of the other leaders wants to take on.
But you entry in the IAP category was spot on and as I said I believe the membership dropped the ball on this one hands down. I say that because that group of pens is a show of what is being done here at the IAP. To my knowledge there is not one thread tying pen in that collection and that is a ashame. There should be a representation to this artfield in pen making. My opinion and will stand behind it. Thanks for showing and maybe you can just donate it it if you prefer so that it can be seen by many over the years. I too believe not enough people know of this art. There are far more new members here that do not even know what the IAP pen collection is let alone what it takes to do what you do.
But you entry in the IAP category was spot on and as I said I believe the membership dropped the ball on this one hands down. I say that because that group of pens is a show of what is being done here at the IAP. To my knowledge there is not one thread tying pen in that collection and that is a ashame. There should be a representation to this artfield in pen making. My opinion and will stand behind it. Thanks for showing and maybe you can just donate it it if you prefer so that it can be seen by many over the years. I too believe not enough people know of this art. There are far more new members here that do not even know what the IAP pen collection is let alone what it takes to do what you do.
Dale, your pen is truly outstanding !! . . Awesome, as Rod said above !! . . I voted for your contest entry.
But our community is very small, and proper recognition for every aspect of pen-making cannot be made within the BASH contest structure, which has to "appeal to the masses" in a manner of speaking.
If there were a contest specifically for pens made with thread art, how many entries would there be ? . Even if the contest scope were broadened ?
I think people vote for design styles that they quickly relate to and with which they are fairly conversant in their daily activities and observations.
And, I think that people like you ... and me ... have to be content with a few words of recognition from "the few who understand" what we do.
So, keep up the good work, and keep entering the contests. . There are rewards other than getting First, Second, or Third prize !!
But our community is very small, and proper recognition for every aspect of pen-making cannot be made within the BASH contest structure, which has to "appeal to the masses" in a manner of speaking.
If there were a contest specifically for pens made with thread art, how many entries would there be ? . Even if the contest scope were broadened ?
I think people vote for design styles that they quickly relate to and with which they are fairly conversant in their daily activities and observations.
And, I think that people like you ... and me ... have to be content with a few words of recognition from "the few who understand" what we do.
So, keep up the good work, and keep entering the contests. . There are rewards other than getting First, Second, or Third prize !!
PatrickR
Member
Your blank making is something I cant even wrap
My head around, pun intended. The lighting in your photos could be better. There is a strong shadow that is distracting. Maybe a non descriptive holder also.
The fish motif I like but it is too monochromatic. It took me a minute to really see what was going on. Try making one that is more graphic, maybe look at color theory info. You could end up with a more dramatic and easily recognizable design.
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My head around, pun intended. The lighting in your photos could be better. There is a strong shadow that is distracting. Maybe a non descriptive holder also.
The fish motif I like but it is too monochromatic. It took me a minute to really see what was going on. Try making one that is more graphic, maybe look at color theory info. You could end up with a more dramatic and easily recognizable design.
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1080Wayne
Member
Seeing that photo now for the first time , I very much regret not getting around to voting in that contest . An absolutely outstanding pen ! . The mass membership sometimes seems to be a herd following the leadership of a few who make very nice pens out of exotic woods , but tend to ignore different but equally nice material growing outside their back doors .
Agree that the shadow is too strong . The bright spot on the clip in the second photo is also distracting . To my eye , the colours work the way you have them .
Agree that the shadow is too strong . The bright spot on the clip in the second photo is also distracting . To my eye , the colours work the way you have them .
jttheclockman
Member
Having a second look at your entry here is the description you gave:
Title of Your Entry: School of fish
Description: Large fish crosswrap on Ti gold long clicker.The fish were wrapped using rainbow varigated size A metallic thread from Fishhawk. The backround was wrapped with royal blue size A nocp thread from Rodcraft. This is a single elongated crosswrap 40mm eye to eye to create a big fish little pond effect. The clear cote is loctite professional super glue approx .5mm thick.
After thinking about this maybe the catagory for you is casting. Yes you applied a clear coat of basically CA glue but it still a casting in a way. I do not believe a shadow is what kept you from placing, I believe it is people do not understand this artform. To me keep trying and take a victory lap because you deserve one even though you did not place. Very nice pen. You were up against some stiff competition and there are just so many places to win.
Title of Your Entry: School of fish
Description: Large fish crosswrap on Ti gold long clicker.The fish were wrapped using rainbow varigated size A metallic thread from Fishhawk. The backround was wrapped with royal blue size A nocp thread from Rodcraft. This is a single elongated crosswrap 40mm eye to eye to create a big fish little pond effect. The clear cote is loctite professional super glue approx .5mm thick.
After thinking about this maybe the catagory for you is casting. Yes you applied a clear coat of basically CA glue but it still a casting in a way. I do not believe a shadow is what kept you from placing, I believe it is people do not understand this artform. To me keep trying and take a victory lap because you deserve one even though you did not place. Very nice pen. You were up against some stiff competition and there are just so many places to win.
Cwalker935
Member
I think your design and execution are superb. For me, it's simply a matter of taste. My taste seems to run differently from the majority here. More times than not I vote for pens that do not place. Complexity and execution often takes a back seat to mass appeal. You should not be discouraged by that.
RichAldrich
Member
Awesome entry. Needs to be in a separate category of some kind.
leehljp
Member Liaison
Amazing! You have Patience beyond belief - to plan and wrap a pen like that.
John, I was thinking of a separate category for threaded pens called "Free Style", OR if enough people did this, "Threads."
John, I was thinking of a separate category for threaded pens called "Free Style", OR if enough people did this, "Threads."
jttheclockman
Member
This is a tough one because of the scarcity of members doing them so his competition level is not there and would not be fair to him or others that enter. Just like I do not think it is fair to him entering a segmenting competition because in everyone's minds wood and acrylics and metals are the medium used to do segmenting. I do not want to pick apart contests because I am done with them here but to stick with the category thing. What is going to happen when all these 3D printers start showing up and you have all these so called segmented Gisi designed pens entered the segmenting contest. To me in my mind they fall in the same category as laser cut pens and should not be allowed. I believe these are questions that will need to be answered as we move forward and try to keep the Bash contests alive. Or just have one big contest and include all kinds of medium and methods and let the chips fall where they may. Something like we did when there was the contest for "The Pen World" magazine. Not my call but some fodder to think about in the future.
Dale Lynch
Member
Thank you for your feedback gentlemen,I appreciate and understand it.
Mal,Probably not many in a out of the ordinary material usage contest.You're right, there"s more to penturning than 1st,2nd,3rd.I was just salty about being so far down the ladder ,got into the liquid courage and opened my mouth
Patrick, I see what you mean about the shadow,I am going to try getting better at taking pictures with the info Sylvanite has in the library.I chose to use the varigated thread over solid colors to give each fish slightly different coloring instead of them all being identical.I don't know much about art so choosing color combinations is difficult for me, but I will continue to work on it.
John,You're probably right about the segmenting contest,its qualifies based on the more than one piece rule but its not what everyone thinks of when it comes to segmenting.
Hank, Freestyle contests in the past were always for the unique stuff that don't look like pens.I don't have the needed creativity for that kind of work.My pens look like pens.
Thanks Rod,Wayne, Cody, Richard,
Mal,Probably not many in a out of the ordinary material usage contest.You're right, there"s more to penturning than 1st,2nd,3rd.I was just salty about being so far down the ladder ,got into the liquid courage and opened my mouth
Patrick, I see what you mean about the shadow,I am going to try getting better at taking pictures with the info Sylvanite has in the library.I chose to use the varigated thread over solid colors to give each fish slightly different coloring instead of them all being identical.I don't know much about art so choosing color combinations is difficult for me, but I will continue to work on it.
John,You're probably right about the segmenting contest,its qualifies based on the more than one piece rule but its not what everyone thinks of when it comes to segmenting.
Hank, Freestyle contests in the past were always for the unique stuff that don't look like pens.I don't have the needed creativity for that kind of work.My pens look like pens.
Thanks Rod,Wayne, Cody, Richard,
Fred Bruche
Member
Adding my 2 cents to the comments above. Please don't take them harshly, I know that my tone for commenting is perceived as"too direct" sometimes but they are in a friendly tone.
The artistry is certainly there, but pens are meant to be touched and handled. I've had plenty of pens in my hands made with wood and various other material, so I understand how they feel. It is harder for me to connect to your pen, never held one, never looked closely or examined one. So yes, lack of familiarity with the technique and the end product makes it harder to appreciate your pens.
I believe some of these issues could be fixed by seriously improving the pictures. From the ones you submitted I see no details in the threading, I don't see the intricacy of the work. Close-up details would be a good start. Lighting is pretty bad, generating highlights and shadows that are very distracting. The background is not helping either, can't decide if it's a dirty rag or some kind of fleece material. And the severed hand that holds the pen is distracting as well. See here, my comments go not to your entry itself, yet your pen should be the center of attention. I'm not sure what would be the way to a fix, maybe find a photographer friend that has a good macro lens. This would be especially useful if at some point you wanted to sell your awesome creations.
The artistry is certainly there, but pens are meant to be touched and handled. I've had plenty of pens in my hands made with wood and various other material, so I understand how they feel. It is harder for me to connect to your pen, never held one, never looked closely or examined one. So yes, lack of familiarity with the technique and the end product makes it harder to appreciate your pens.
I believe some of these issues could be fixed by seriously improving the pictures. From the ones you submitted I see no details in the threading, I don't see the intricacy of the work. Close-up details would be a good start. Lighting is pretty bad, generating highlights and shadows that are very distracting. The background is not helping either, can't decide if it's a dirty rag or some kind of fleece material. And the severed hand that holds the pen is distracting as well. See here, my comments go not to your entry itself, yet your pen should be the center of attention. I'm not sure what would be the way to a fix, maybe find a photographer friend that has a good macro lens. This would be especially useful if at some point you wanted to sell your awesome creations.
Dale Lynch
Member
Thank you for the feedback Fred, Yes the backround is a fleece throw.Gonna start putting more effort into picture taking,I don't understand any of the terminology so it'll be tough but I will work on it.I'll will include a closeup pic in the future so the individual threads can be seen.Using size A thread wrapped tight looks like it was painted on with no magnification, maybe thats why it hard to distingwish,I have used larger diameter thread when I first started doing this but it looks like rope in comparison.Gonna work on the photography for the future
mark james
IAP Collection, Curator
Dale Lynch
Member
I took what you guys siad about pictures and tried again.I had a cardboard box,lined the back bottom and sides with computer paper.Laid the pen by itself against the back and took a pic with auto settings.Camera is a fujifilm J38.I also was able to zoom in on a small area of each pen.I hope this makes the details easier to see.Couldn't take a new pic of the other one, recipient already has it.
Attachments
The thing about pictures .......
Is it not true that, in producing our contest entry presentation material, we're encouraged to make pics about 800 x 600 pixels ??
I think, by doing that, we are possibly shooting ourselves in the foot (actually both feet .... or more !!).
As the discussion goes, you can't win a contest without having GOOD (or better) pics.
But you just DON'T GET QUALITY pics when you SEVERELY LIMIT THEIR POTENTIAL QUALITY by reducing their pixel count !!
I try to follow the contest entry rules and suggestions very closely.
I am no photographer, but I do have good equipment, I think. ..... (even tho' my use of said equipment may not be optimal)
So I get decent pics to start with, which have a pixel count up in the multi-millions.
But then I go through a resizing step to cut that down to under a million ...... to comply with the suggestions given for the contest entries.
The result is that my pictures appear a little bit fuzzy.
And then .... the BIG RESULT is that I DON'T WIN !! ...... granted, possibly for reasons other than pic quality.
But I find myself between a rock and a hard place !
In other words ..... keep your pics to minimal quality to save space ...... BUT ...... if you want to win, show the best quality pics you possibly can !!!!
WHAT TO DO ? ...... LOL !
Is it not true that, in producing our contest entry presentation material, we're encouraged to make pics about 800 x 600 pixels ??
I think, by doing that, we are possibly shooting ourselves in the foot (actually both feet .... or more !!).
As the discussion goes, you can't win a contest without having GOOD (or better) pics.
But you just DON'T GET QUALITY pics when you SEVERELY LIMIT THEIR POTENTIAL QUALITY by reducing their pixel count !!
I try to follow the contest entry rules and suggestions very closely.
I am no photographer, but I do have good equipment, I think. ..... (even tho' my use of said equipment may not be optimal)
So I get decent pics to start with, which have a pixel count up in the multi-millions.
But then I go through a resizing step to cut that down to under a million ...... to comply with the suggestions given for the contest entries.
The result is that my pictures appear a little bit fuzzy.
And then .... the BIG RESULT is that I DON'T WIN !! ...... granted, possibly for reasons other than pic quality.
But I find myself between a rock and a hard place !
In other words ..... keep your pics to minimal quality to save space ...... BUT ...... if you want to win, show the best quality pics you possibly can !!!!
WHAT TO DO ? ...... LOL !
Fred Bruche
Member
Very informative to see details, including one of these in future posts really helps to bring out the complexity of your work. The camera seems to be was is commonly referred to as a "point and shoot" camera, which often is designed for general photo taking and harder to control for situations like the pictures you are trying to take. Where is the light coming from? Can you move it? I think next you should try to take pictures that avoid direct light reflection (those bright light streaks in the middle of the pen), either by moving the light or by moving the camera slightly (up or down or sideways), or adding a light diffuser to your light source (like a translucent piece of cloth or plastic).
leehljp
Member Liaison
Fred,
It can get complicated and light diffusers are both a need - and - a pet peeve of mine. Good light diffusers for pen photo taking - diffuse lighting evenly over a pen, but the light diffusers with the diamond shaped pixels which better scatters light over a room, create pixelated light reflections on pens. Many of today's 4ft LED lights that replace the 4 ft florescent bulb lights - many of the led lights have a length of a few dozen CREE type LED points which also cause a pixelated reflection, making it difficult to see the smoothness of the finish.
jttheclockman
Member
This is good. I have not been following rules or anything like that. Just was thinking out loud.
jttheclockman
Member
I have a suggestion for you if you want to give it a try. When you do your next thread tying blank, take photos of the operation and the set up and give us a description of what it takes. How many rolls of thread do you have to spin at one time and how you have to cross and lap over and the number sequences it takes to make these. Show us a cut sheet of thread counts and things like that. Not sure if you are working off your own designs or someone elses because I know there are books on this. I think people would be stunned at what it takes to spin one of these. Give us a sample of different threads used. In other words educate us. I know there are a couple more people here who do this and hopefully they will chime in and we can have that thread as a search point for the future. Just make it a whole separate thread and do not put in the middle of this one or any other. One thing I will disagree with is the seeing of the threads. The mark of a well tied blank is if the threads are tight and no gaps. They blend together as one. The different color transitions will give it away.
As far as photography goes there are a ton of people here that need to take a class including myself when it comes to photography things can make or break the look of your pen. This is why I am so ADAMIT about people holding their pens in their grubby awful hands. If I want to see your hands we would have a section for that. I pass right by those photos and will not comment unless that pen is so outstanding it needs to be recognized. If you took the time to make the pen why can you not lay it down on anything to shoot the photo. A huge Petpeeve of mine. As far as yours goes a little tweaking here and there and clean up somethings and you will be fine. As far as the prop, many people use those along with Atlas holding pens and things like that. That is a preference thing. I try not to use something to distract from the pen unless going for an artsy photo shot.
Again the placement is something you may not have any control over and I know because I have been there too. Take the experience and learn from it and keep trying. You can not win it if you are not in it as they say in the lottery business.
jttheclockman
Member
Huge difference. Stay with that. See you already improved and your so called question or rant turned into a positive.
PatrickR
Member
Dale -
Those pics look better already.
As far as colors, you don't have to get into it too deep. Look into color wheels and their use. Basically you want contrasting, complimentary colors. What I think this one lacks. Think of your image as a decal or sign. It needs to be quickly understood.
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Those pics look better already.
As far as colors, you don't have to get into it too deep. Look into color wheels and their use. Basically you want contrasting, complimentary colors. What I think this one lacks. Think of your image as a decal or sign. It needs to be quickly understood.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Dale Lynch
Member
The light is coming from the camera flash.I'll do some practicing with holding the camera at different angles as well as moving the pens around and see if I can get a better angle to avoid reflecting the flash.
Many of the patterns I've done are modified versions of patterns created on computer by Adamir Romano. Regularly have to adjust thread count and spacing to get it to fit the tube dimentions. It will be quite the undertaking and possibly boring to read because the elaborate patterns don't look like anything until they're 95% done.I will try though to make it understandable as I can with my 6th grade education.
Thanks, the feedback I recieved in this thread is very helpfull. I regret being a whiney poopy pants about it instead of asking like an adult.
