The Nose Garlic

Do you see a nose too? Don't know whether to try and change that! The nose knows!

Watercolor with Pastel

Sometimes we discover things in acts of desperation! Well, not to be overly dramatic, but I didn't want to loose this painting. I had scraped into the surface of this board and it looked awful. I took some white pastel stick and smudged it and wet it and moved it around to hide the gauges that I had created. All this in an effort to lighten up the area under the onion. Anyone else use pastel on their watercolors?

Here is a comment which i wanted to respond to as a post so that everyone can read it:

I have just purchased your 2006 book “Big Art small canvas” on Amazon and love it! I can tell that it is going to get me back into art again.
I particularly like your training in complimentary pallets, which explains things so clearly.
I already feel the book is a great reference on its own, but I will purchase your iPad version to watch the DVDs.
I am writing to you to make contact; to thank you for the inspiration, and start a conversation as I work through the book...I hope you don't mind?

My first question is: on page 14 you have a picture of some gessoed gauze or canvas with the caption referring to the frame guidelines. I understand the need for frame guidelines, but what was the real caption for this image?

Thank you again for the shot in the arm. I enthusiastically look forward to working my way through your book and appreciate your hard work and efforts.

Yours in art,
Martyn Fox
PS I live near ByronBay in Australia, so inspiration for landscape painting shouldn't be too hard to find, but I really appreciate and am inspired by your still life work as well. 

MY ANSWER:

Have you ever composed a painting and then later framed it just to have the frame cover a brushstroke that you really liked and would not have wanted covered by the frame? I was trying to show that you need to take this into consideration when doing very small paintings. The frame is going to cover a significant part of the painting and it's a good idea to allow for this at the beginning of the process. So I drew a rectangle to indicate how far into the canvas a frame would eventually go and then composed from that point. By the way, sight size is a term framers use to indicate which portion of the painting will actually be seen after framing. Hope that answers your question Martyn!

Learn How to Publish an iBook

This is an article I wrote for a colleague's blog and thought I'd share it here as well! 

Learn How to Publish an iBook

Written by Joyce Washor Saltzman

I am author of Watercolor Harmony: The Tao of the Complementary Palette and Oil Painting Harmony: The Tao of the Complementary Palette which are both IBooks, published on iTunes. I also published a book called, Big Art, Small Canvas, by North Light, in 2006. I was pleased when I held the soft cover book, Big Art, Small Canvas in my hand, but it pales in comparison to the way videos and slides can illustrate art lessons on the iPad.

Technology provides an amazing tool for the author. It makes books dynamic and interactive. If you have an iPad and a Mac computer running OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard  you can write, edit, preview and publish your own book to people everywhere. Books have always had the ability to include pictures with text, but iBooks allow for the incorporation of videos. This is a dream to an artist writing about painting techniques because live videos show the painting process right in front of you.

To begin, you need to do two things. You need to download Apple's free iBooks Author software on your Mac and you need to download the iBooks app on your iPad. If you're familiar with Apple's application, Pages on the iPad, it will be an easy segue into using iBooks Author. Although similar, there is a learning curve. It took me a month to learn the program because I had not been familiar with Pages.

This is the link to download iBooks Author: http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/

This is the link to download the iBooks app https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibooks/id364709193?mt=8

IBooks Author has many pre-set templates to choose from. You can add  images, slides, video, audio,  3D images and more. OReilly.com has a free eBook you can download called, Publishing with iBooks Author, by Nellie McKesson and Adam Witter. It explains the process behind compiling your book's content. There are also tutorials online and in Apple's software

Importing text and photos in iBooks Author are as easy as dropping the images in the page or copying and pasting. Videos need to be exported through Quick Time Player and then imported into iBooks Author. Videos need to have an .m4v extension to the file. I used my iPhone to make my instructional videos.

Authors can contact Apple by phone and email for support of the publication process. In addition to calling Apple, I used Google to answer many of the questions I had about the technology. I am not a geek. I'm just a "learn as you need to know girl".

You might have read online that some people don't like the fact that Apple limits the publication of iBooks Author to only iTunes, but I think that they have provided authors with great tools that make the finished product well worth the trade off.  Since the iBook will only be compatible with iTunes, you will have to reformat it if you want to publish it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. You can make PDF files and upload your videos to YouTube, since videos are not compatible with PDFs. My PDF was so large (the book is about 70 pages) that I needed to use SendThisFile to email it to people. SendThisFile will send a few large files too big for email for free. If you need to send multiple files there’s a nominal charge.

 Click here to watch video

There are some countries that sell iPads, but citizens in them can't access the iTunes bookstore. I had a blog follower in one of these countries, so I sent her the PDF and emailed her my YouTube channel. Success! She was able to read my book and watch my videos on YouTube. If you want to market your iBook worldwide, you need to find out how to make it compatible to buyers in that country.

Once you are finished with your book and are ready to publish it, you need to go to Apple (online) and apply for an iTunes Connect account. ITunes Connect allows you to offer your books to customers with an iPad, iPhone and iPod in 50 countries.

You will also need to get an ISBN number for your book. I purchased mine from Bowker (the official ISBN Agency for the United States). I think Apple now offers ISBN numbers for books. You will need to get your book approved by Apple, sign their extensive contract and provide them with your tax ID, before they will put the book live on their store. When the book is "live," Apple will send you an email informing you of this. You can then use iTunes Connect to monitor your sales and see which countries the books were sold.

Make sure you proofread your book before you hit the "Publish" button. Having an iPad makes this easy.Your book will look exactly the same on your previewed version on your iPad as it will to anyone else buying the book.  Once you click "Publish," you are directed to iTunes Producer which uploads the book to the iTunes bookstore.

I provide information below, directly from Apple regarding the sign-up process for an account. You can sign up to distribute your books directly on the iBookstore.

To apply for an iTunes Connect account, click the link http://itunes.com/sellyourbooks

After you've clicked "Get Started", click either the "Create a Free Books Account" button or the "Create a Paid Books Account" button.

Your eBooks should:

- Be in either EPUB or Multi-Touch (iBooks Author) format or both

- Validate EpubCheck, if in EPUB format

- Contain no unmanifested files

- Contain only UTF-8/16 characters

Additional Requirements:

- A US Tax ID (for a Paid Books Account)

- A valid iTunes Store account, with a credit card on file

- An Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.6 or later

If your eBooks aren't yet in EPUB or Multi-Touch format, or if you would like help with selling your eBooks in the iBookstore, Apple recommends that you work with one of their approved aggregators (a broker who distributes and helps sell the iBook).

https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa/wa/displayAggregators?ccTypeId=13

This list is also available to you on the home page of iTunes Connect.

If you're interested in creating and publishing Multi-Touch books for the iPad, iBooks Author is available as a free download from the Mac App Store.

After you've signed Apple's online agreement, you may sell in the iBookstore in 50 countries. However, you are not obligated to sell your books in every country. You'll have the ability to set country availability and price for each of your books.

If you need further assistance with the sign-up process, you can contact Apple through email.  For assistance with any other issues, fill out a the Contact Us form in iTunes Connect.

I opted not to use an aggregator (they take an additional percentage) and am happy with my decision as of now. I wasn't sure what they would be able to offer me that I couldn't do myself, so I thought I'd go at it alone.

Apple’s criteria for book approvals are based on using their technology correctly. They call it their "Quality Assurance" step. With their help and technology friendly program, anyone can be an author!

Now I am in the process of learning how to market my books! I am researching the best way to do this. I have a blog and an email list, but this is only the beginning. I want to connect to thousands of artists online. Advertising with art societies and letting my alma maters know about the iBooks are on my "to-do" list. The iBook is a major breakthrough in teaching art through dynamic interactivity using text, photos and video. It's exciting! It's in the moment! It's LIVE!!

If you have any questions about the process or want to suggest any marketing ideas, please contact me:

email: JoyceWashor@JoyceWashor.com

Website:

joycewashor.com

Blog:

joycewashorsdailypaintings.blogspot.com

You can purchase my ibooks in iTunes at the links below:

Oil Painting Harmony:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/oil-painting-harmony/id591120796?mt=11

Watercolor Harmony:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/watercolor-harmony/id556969201?mt=11

Edited by Gloria Rabinowitz   http://www.newyorkartists.net

Adjustments

The past couple of days have been spent happily "seeing" some paintings in a fresh way. Since I have been working on my iBook, Oil Painting Harmony for the past six months, I now get the chance to examine past paintings in a way I wouldn't normally wouldn't be able to. I was worried that I would have to spend lots of time getting back, but that didn't happen! These are subtle changes which you might not be able to see in a jpeg. The newer ones are the ones on top.

Back to Painting

After working on two books this past year, it's great to get back to painting just for myself! (Not that iI didn't have fun putting the books together, but you know, painting is what it's all about). This is the same set-up as the cover as my oil iBook but I did it with a primary palette. In the back of my mind I'm toying with the idea of painting with a very limited palette to see if it works as well as the complementary palettes have been working for me. I've only done a few paintings and I can say I have mixed feelings. I think it's harder than I thought it would be (even though that's what I've been saying in  my books, duh!). Maybe I needed to test it again? I don't even want to post a couple of the ones I did, can barely stand to look at them myself! Maybe I shouldn't say that!

Review of OIl Painting Harmony

Here is a review that I just received from a fellow artist and teacher which I wanted to share with you! And these are images from two pages in the book.  Here is the link to download the iBooks app that you need on your computer before you can search for my books. I also have PDFs of the books which can be read on any computer.

"Joyce Washor's IBook, "Oil Painting Harmony: The Tao of theComplementary Palette" is one of the most beautiful books I've seen. Ihave never experienced what technology can do for the arts in the wayI did in Ms. Washor's IBook. Her paintings are stunning and the videos
compliment perfectly what she teaches in her book. I teach elective painting to high school students and my theories about color are exactly the same as what Ms. Washor shows in her book. I am so excited that I will be able to show her IBook and videos to my students when I
bring my IPad to school. I highly recommend that everyone purchase it to be inspired and to be revitalized in the love and joy of painting.
BRAVO!! Congratulations and thank you, Joyce, for publishing this
iBook, which is good for my heart and soul in more ways than one."

Gloria Rabinowitz
Owner, New York Artists Online (NewYorkArtists.net)
Director of the Art Institute, Yeshiva University High School for
Girls, Holliswood, NY

New eBook; Oil Painting Harmony

I'm happy to announce that my new eBook is live on iTunes bookstore! You can see it on your iPad by clicking here.If you don't have an iPad, you can read it on your computer by downloading a file that I can send to you. The twelve movies can be watched on YouTube with a gmail account (free and easy to get by going to google and signing up). I will gladly send you a preview version if you notify me at joycewashor@yahoo.com.  You can order the PDF by clicking here.