Category Archives: Art

These are blogs that relate to art, art photography, artwork reproduction, and fine art in general.

Alois was here

Posted on May 23, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Several of my students joined me and my colleague Prof. Martin Delp today for a tour of the Landsampt für Digitalisierung, Breitband und Vermessung, the Bavarian office for digitization and surveying. Here, the government creates maps, collects and distributes digital geographical … Continue reading →

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The Bishop Peak Portrait Project – complete!

Posted on May 15, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Thank you all for your patience while I built the Bishop Peak Portrait Project, a series of thousands of photos of San Luis Obispo’s most prominent mountain. I started the project in November, 2015 with the construction of a weatherproof … Continue reading →

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Street Art provides an opportunity
for repositioned panoramas

Posted on May 9, 2017 by Brian Lawler

My wife and I traveled today to see a neighborhood in Munich that is famous for its street art. It’s called the Tumblingerstraße area, and it features some very sophisticated works of graffiti – much better than graffiti – that … Continue reading →

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Van Gogh’s Père Tanguy in perspective

Posted on May 5, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Museums often have no-photography rules, depending on their policy about allowing visitors to take photos, or the legal arrangements they have with art owners, copyright holders and other things that go beyond my pay grade. In the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, … Continue reading →

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Once a bitmap, always a bitmap

Posted on March 4, 2017 by Brian Lawler

In my recent series of blogs about reproducing line art from 19th century copper engravings (and similar line art) using modern digital technologies I showed how scanning as grayscale and converting to bitmap format (with the 50 percent dither option) … Continue reading →

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Prince Bold made Neue

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Every really cool font eventually comes out in a “neue” version. The most famous is Helvetica Neue, which was the modernized version of Helvetica, with its normalized weights and corrected curves and very subtle curve changes. Prince Bold is based … Continue reading →

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Line Art – colorizing engravings

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Brian Lawler

Each year I create a ticket. It’s a personal project, and in recent years it has become something of a personal challenge. I recently read a book about security printing. It was simply awful. Bad illustrations, meaningless text, too much … Continue reading →

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Reproducing line art with digital technology

Posted on January 29, 2017 by Brian Lawler

In the pre-halftone era (printing before the 20th century), illustrations printed by letterpress (relief printing) were made by engraving into wood or copper to make an image. It was a laborious task, and the quality was determined by the skills … Continue reading →

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Accidental art with my camera

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Brian Lawler

I take a lot of photos. Most of them are carefully exposed, carefully focused, and most of them are acceptable and sharp and useful images. Once in a while I take a photo under extreme circumstances, and it doesn’t come … Continue reading →

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Phinal phase of the Bishop Peak Portrait Project

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Brian Lawler

My summer is coming to an end, and I am engaged in the phinal phase of the Bishop Peak Portrait Project (BPPP), the making of the final display panels. On my previous large-scale photography projects, I have had the luxury … Continue reading →

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