Caring for your DVDs
We published an article about a year ago that included some “Tips for Cleaning Dirty or Damaged CDs or DVDs.” Due to some questions, we thought we would expand on these tips with some suggestions for how to care for your dvds, and hopefully prevent damage in the first place.
- Store your DVDs in the case – One of the most common ways that a DVD becomes damaged is by leaving it lying around (on top of the DVD player, gaming console, TV, entertainment center, etc.) Put it away when you’re done with it!
- Only touch the outer / inner edges of the disk – Any contact with the reflective side of the disk can cause smudging, scratching, or other damage. The reflective side of the disk is where all of the information is stored and any damage here can lead to skipping during playback or even unplayable sections of the disk!
- Avoid “hot” rooms – A DVD can melt or warp, just like plastic and other materials. Make sure you don’t leave it in direct sunlight or an otherwise warmer than average room.
- Avoid liquids – Just like many other materials, a DVD is not water resistant. Make sure to keep all liquids away from the disk. Prolonged exposure to liquid can destroy a DVD.
DID YOU KNOW: A smudged disk is more likely to not play than a scratched one?
There are countless other tips and tricks out there on the web if you go looking for them. Good luck and happy viewing.
‘Build Design & Color Using a Mouth Atomizer’
Learn how to darken an area without muddying or lifting pre-existing color with Mark Mehaffey’s ‘Build Design and Color Using a Mouth Atomizer.’ First you learn what the mouth atomizer is and how to you use it to create vivid work. Next, Mehaffey shows how to adhere your drawing to frisket and explains how to sequence your spray passages by approaching your work backwards. Mehaffey discusses a few simple rules that will help you strengthen your design, including color balance and bounce. His final painting is crisp and radiant, and he never uses a brush. The mouth atomizer has become one of my favorite tools. From its simplest application (to smooth out a large area without disturbing the underlying paint) to creating a subtle yet complex design, it is a fun and opens up new opportunities. Mehaffey isn’t the only one who uses the atomizer. John Salminen also takes advantage of this tiny tool’s big effects.
”Art Stamping Innovations”
Bring pattern into your work with Gloria Page’s DVD, ‘Art Stamping Innovations’ and book, ‘Art Stamping Workshop.’ Even if you’ve never carved a stamp in your life, Gloria makes it easy. She introduces a variety of carving surfaces, from the familiar soft blocks and wood to packing foam, erasers, and polymer clay. You learn the benefits of working with each surface.
Gloria demonstrates the best techniques for safe, accurate carving, and she makes sense of all the inks and embossing products at your disposal. She explains how different products and surfaces produce varied looks. She expands your options with bleaching techniques and several transfer methods.
DESIGN WITH THE FIGURE
No matter your medium or subject, Polly Hammett offers ways to think about design that will expand your horizons. She uses the figure to explain her multifaceted and open ended approach that assures strong cohesive paintings.
Polly begins by describing what she looks for with her model and how placement and proximity impact the direction of the painting’s content. You see how she assesses value patterns, designs backgrounds, manipulate texture and include mixed media. You also learn how to find direction and strength in your own work when evaluating your paintings. No matter your media, you will gain confidence and learn ways to strengthen your paintings with Polly Hammett’s Design with the Figure.
Valid on Online or Mail-In orders only … Retail price is $39.95 – Sale Price is $34.95 + S/H – Sale ends Tuesday, 11/09/08.
LAST CHANCE TO SAVE ON SALMINEN
Learn the process John Salminen uses to shape his complex imagery into a world class painting. He hits the streets of New York to gather candid reference shots for his urban scene. He shoots with a designer’s eye. When he returns to the studio, he modifies the color and composition of his reference materials. John teaches a simple system for accurately transferring his complex image to watercolor paper.
John lays a foundation with careful masking and vivid washes of hard-to-define colors. He concentrates on value relationships as he fills his landscape with shimmering streets and glowing neon. He uses mesmerizing reflective effects as an entry point to the composition and directs attention with white paper. John tones down conflicting passages with a mouth atomizer. He continually solves design problems, modifying colors in his foreground figure and lifting to enhance lines. The workshop includes exercises in perspective drawing and extensive discussions of design and reference photography.
This is the final week to receive the pre-order discount … the DVD arrives in our warehouse this week!
Retail Price will be $52.95, Pre-Order Price is $47.95 until the DVD arrives in our warehouse.
John Salminen Urban Landscape
Overwhelmed by complex subject matter? Learn how one of the nation’s most award-winning artists unifies design in his intricate scenes.
Join John Salminen AWS DF, NWS as he hits the streets of New York City to gather candid reference shots for his urban scene. He shoots with a designer’s eye.
When he returns to the studio, he modifies the color and composition of his reference materials. John teaches a simple system for accurately transferring his complex image to watercolor paper. He lays a foundation with careful masking and vivid washes of hard-to-define colors. He concentrates on value relationships as he fills his landscape with shimmering streets and glowing neon. He uses mesmerizing reflective effects as an entry point to the composition and directs attention with white paper. John tones down conflicting passages with a mouth atomizer. He continually solves design problems, modifying colors in his foreground figure and lifting to enhance lines.
This workshop includes exercises in perspective drawing and extensive discussions of design and reference photography.
Get the Pre-Order special price until the DVD arrives in our warehouse.
George James Workshops
If creativity is a fire, then George James may well be the blow torch of ignition!
As a pioneer of YUPO (synthetic paper) James generously reveals his techniques to achieve dependable results in his first workshop, Mastering Yupo. It is a library of information.
In workshop two, The Artistic Process on Yupo, James shares his design considerations, use of symbolism and patterning to create a cohesive composition.
In his third workshop, Designing for Content (part of the CCP Masters’ Series) James focuses on how to develop a personal memory into a meaningful visual statement. He introduces a few new techniques, but the main thrust of the workshop is about one artist’s inner dialog with shape, color, rhythm, form and imagery. It’s a powerful collection from a wonderful teacher.
Sale ends Tuesday, November 4, 08.
Mark Mehaffey
COLOR AND DESIGN USING A MOUTH ATOMIZER with Mark Mehaffey WATERCOLOR – Mehaffey proves there’s more than one way to get paint on paper in “Color and Design Using a Mouth Atomizer.” First you learn what the mouth atomizer is and how to use it to create vivid work. Next, Mehaffey shows how to adhere your drawing to frisket and explains how to sequence your spray passages by approaching your work backwards. Mehaffey discusses a few simple rules that will help you strengthen your design including color balance and bounce. His final painting is crisp and radiant, and he didn’t use a brush. (From Lynn, “The mouth atomizer has become one of my favorite tools.”) From its simplest application (to smooth out a large area without disturbing the underlying paint) to creating a subtle, yet complex design, it is fun and opens up new opportunities. Mehaffey isn’t the only one who uses the atomizer, John Salminen also takes advantage of this tiny tool’s big effects in his upcoming workshop, “Urban Landscape in Watercolor.”
Tips for Cleaning Dirty or Damaged CDs or DVDs
We have “defective” discs returned more often than you would believe that are scratched and dirty due to mishandling. Here are some suggestions we found for care of your DVDs.
1. Handle discs carefully by the edges only.
2. Inspect the surface of the disc for damage or contamination, to see if it needs to be cleaned. Canned compressed air is excellent for removing dust.
3. If needed, rinse carefully in clean, warm water to remove any grit that could cause scratches when the disc is wiped.
4. If any debris or film remains that needs to be removed, clean gently with warm water and a mild detergent (e.g., dish-washing detergent), eyeglass cleaning solution, isopropyl alcohol or a commercially available CD/DVD cleaning solution.
5. Gently wipe dry with a lint-free, soft cotton cloth. Use a wiping motion moving from the center of the disc to the outside edge instead of wiping around the disc. If wiping does cause any scratch, an “inside to outside” scratch will cut across the data tracks around the disc instead of running along them and damaging additional data.
6. If any residue or film remains, wipe with alcohol and a soft cleaning wipe.
7. Remember to clean the case, too.
8. If a disc is still damp, store upright (on edge) to allow to air dry.
9. Insert thoroughly dry disc in appropriate disc drive to attempt to read data. If the disc isn’t readable, try a different disc drive. Different drives have different optical qualities with varying thresholds of error correction ability.
10. Data on the majority of discs is likely to be readable after following these steps. For those discs that still cannot be read, contact Susan at susan@ccpvideos.com.
Learn to Draw With Confidence with David Kitler
With this drawing instruction DVD you will learn to draw as David N. Kitler shows you how to use basic shapes, locate important value shifts, understand the role of different pencil grades to create depth, locate and accurately plot objects on a page, and properly position the parts of any object, be it animal or plant, to relate to the whole. David combines these drawing techniques and the fundamentals of how to draw with confidence to help you develop a center of interest and to lead viewers’ eyes around your composition.
David Kitler reviews basic drawing concepts and then demonstrates drawing the entire process by completing a life-like, fully textured drawing of a ground squirrel.
David Kitler is an internationally known wildlife artist known for his accuracy to the subjects he draws and paints.
Sale ends Tuesday, 9/16/08
Cheng-Khee Chee Watercolor Workshop DVDs
Cheng-Khee Chee has developed five watercolor painting techniques, each suited to most effortlessly express a subject. The first half of each workshop begins with free-flowing, intuitive creativity. In the second half, Cheng-Khee Chee analyzes design and makes adjustments. He demonstrates an amazing mastery of watercolor painting. There is not enough room here to describe each workshop, so we recommend checking out the previews at the LINK below.
Sale Ends Tuesday, 9/2/08.
Enjoy a Summer Craft and learn a skill with Lisa Engelbrecht
Learn how to hand letter AND apply it to a wonderfully festive Bali Lantern with Lisa Engelbrecht. It’s like two workshops in one! Lisa begins by teaching a solid foundation to calligraphy and demonstrates the important points to successful decorative hand writing on fabric.
You learn how to use pens, quills and brushes. She shares tips on how to seal and write on several types of cloth, and demonstrates a variety of ‘inks’ for special effect. Lisa then creates a rich background for her hand lettering, using a few simple materials. She applies what you have learned to the construction of a collapsible Bali lantern.
The lantern is a unique creation, perfect for honoring a special occasion or just for the joy of making the lantern. It can be easily adapted to a variety of media and purposes and a great project to do with children. These lanterns are fun and beautiful!
Approx. 2 hrs. 4. min
Carla O’Connor DVD Workshop on Sale
Carla O’Connor’s painting process promotes unique personal expression and rapid artistic growth. She uses the human form as a springboard for powerful, expressive design. Each logical step in her process addresses a specific design issue. Her initial quick drawing, or “set up,” relates the figure to the background and divides space into intriguing shapes. Working on gesso-coated paper, she modifies visual paths in her composition to keep the viewer inside the painting.
The workshop is 2 hrs. 10 min. long. Additionally, there are three bonus clips, gallery and printable handout.
RESIN JEWELRY – Sherri Haab
Sherri Haab has done it again! She has done all the research so you can just enjoy this new exciting product with confidence and safety. Resin opens new vistas of transparency and inclusions into jewelry, ephemera or just to seal a treasured keepsake. You learn about the material while making 15 unique projects. Sherri uses commercial molds, makes her own from a family heirloom, uses game pieces in a mini-tableau dangle, creates a theme bracelet … the list goes on. Check it out!
Sale ends when these DVDs arrive at the CCP warehouse.
Capturing Limited Light Using Expressive Brushwork by Betty Carr
Betty’s energetic approach to watercolor is contagious. Her workshop covers concepts such as: beginning with darks rather than lights, how to direct the visual path using gradations and darks, painting on a vertical surface, carrying the energy off the page and how to use expressive brushwork to add life to a painting. Along the way, Betty shares how she uses her sketch book to design her painting and think through her value pattern, her favorite quotes, warm-up exercises and much more.
View the Preview / Trailer for this DVD
Ever wonder what the big deal is about polymer clay? Here’s your chance to find out why this versatile product is so popular. In Dayle Doroshow’s two workshops she takes inspirations from the motifs of Provence, France (DD1d) and China (DD2d) to develop exciting faux materials out of Polymer clay (Femo).
You learn to make ‘jade’, ‘bone’, ‘mileflorie’ and how to create an antique look and transfer images. Dayle creates jewelry, pendants, boxes, books, beads and charms… all great fun and it makes wonderful gifts or ephemera for collage or quilting projects. Check it out!
View the Previews / Trailers for these DVDs
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