Melissa VonHolle Wuenschel

Copyright 2013 Melissa VonHolle Wuenschel, all rights reserved. You can find my other online profiles at a few of these links below.

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YUIConf Day One by Yahoo! Developer Network on Flickr.

My photos were featured today at the 2013 YUI Conference as part of Lauren Tsung's "Building Blocks" of Prototyping presentation. This was a fun project to work on, and Lauren was a great client.

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Creating Order out of Chaos

The following images were commissioned for a presentation on prototyping that utilized legos as an example and metaphor.

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That one piece on Flickr.

That one piece. Commissioned as part of a series on prototyping and Legos.

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Pumpkin Candleholder/Garlic Keeper

Soda fired with red iron oxide and rutile stains

Stoneware

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Raku votive candleholder

Stoneware

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Carved porcelain votive

Residual soda fire

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Hikidashi cups

Soda fired stoneware

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Soda fired cup

Stoneware

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The Ultimate Sports Fan Cap, an arduino wearable hack

This weekend I participated in my first ever hacking competition, Yahoo Hack USA 2013. I am a maker at heart, but I am definitely not a software hacker. I wanted to come up with something I could make that used computing but still had some hands on work. And thus the Ultimate Sports Fan Cap was born.

What is it? It's a hat that pulls the sports scores from your favorite team and displays them in the form of a health bar on your cap. It will live update, and it will display the final scores. Here's a quick demo:

I didn't win any awards, and my most of my demo wasn't shown to the judges thanks to some technical problems. But that's okay. I'm really proud of what I have created in a 24 hour window, especially since I'm not a programmer by trade. I hope to take this on to the next level and continue with future prototypes. In fact, my father-in-law, a die-hard Texans fan, has already requested one once I've got a final product.

This is an open source project, and all the code can be found on GitHub. It was created using a ProtoSnap LilyPad Development board. All items that you need are included in the kit, with the exception of the hat and additional fabric.  Please feel free to take this idea, modify it, and make it your own. The possibilities are only limited to your imagination.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo Developer Network on Flickr

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Old made new made to look old

For the last two or three years I have been working on two separate projects that have been slowly overlapping: digitally archiving old family photos and inkaid printing for digital images. 

My grandfather shot, developed, and printed all of his own film. The original of this image is about 2"x3". I wanted to keep the feel of the age of the original while still making it new and fresh.  How could I take something old, make it new, and yet still make it look old?  After a few experiments, I finally settled with printing it on brown packing paper that was coated with InkAid. I love the crinkles, the curls and the texture this paper provides to the images. It speaks to me.

If you have never used it before, InkAid is a solution created to allow you to turn fine art papers into photo paper. If you have seen a photo printed on plain copy paper compared to a photo printed on inkjet photo paper, you know what a difference there is.  InkAid gives the depth and vibrance.  It also gives you freedom of expression to print on art papers. I have seen it successfully used on watercolor paper, rice paper, handmade papers, bamboo, and wood venire. 

Here are a few others from this series that I have been working on. It is still a work in progress. I'm not sure what the final presentation will be for this images, but I hope to find a way to combine my family history in photography with my owner personal work and images into a project that looks back at where I have come from while looking forward to where I am going. 

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Platinum Palladium Printing

Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to experiment with platinum palladium printing.  While it was revolutionary in it's time, it is now considered an alternative (read: non-traditional) process that produces a warm monochrome image on watercolor paper.

If you are unfamiliar with the type of printing, here is a wonderful video that gives a short history and explanation of the process (skip to 1:55 if you want to go straight to the how-to):

In the video he uses UV lights to expose the image. Being the starving artists we are, we use the sun. What I love about this process is that each image is unique. You may use the same negative, but the chemistry might be slightly different when you mix it up, or the sun will change the exposure, or any number of other small differences that will change your final product.

It's an experiment, a learning process, and an adventure.  Your first two or three prints may not even turn out.  You never really know what you will get until it 's all finished. But when all the stars align, you get something amazing. So if you are looking for exact, perfect, reliable replicas of images, this is not the process for you. Personally, I love it.

If you are a digital photographer, like most of us are, you will want to create a digital negative in photoshop and then print it onto overhead projector transparency paper. Pictorico makes a wonderful OHP paper, but I have used other, cheaper, alternatives with success as well. 

Here is what it looks like when you have the negatives and coated paper loaded into the contact print frame. Then place it in the sun and wait.  You can see on the edges where the platinum palladium coating has started to change color from exposure to the sunlight. 

And here are the resulting images once they were developed, fixed and dried.

Here is another run of the same negatives. The chemistry of the mix was slightly different, and you can see how it affected the tone and quality of the images.

Platinum palladium is truly a fun way to make unique images that you can treasure. If you are interested in trying it for yourself, you will need a kit (we used Bostick and Sullivan).  There were six or seven of us working together, which was a great way to share tips, share the cost, and help each other get to "the fun zone" (as one of my teachers likes to call that place where you are making what you envisioned). I love seeing what others create, so please feel free share your images if you're inspired to try this process.  

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Versailles Library, April 2013

digital print

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Hall Lake, April 2012

digital print

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Angel Island, October 2012

digital

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Sam, May 2013

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Sam, May 2013

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Sacred Objects, May 2011

Part of the Patterns in Math and Nature series.

Recipient of the De Anza Art on Campus Purchase Award, 2011.

Featured in the Euphrat Museum, Cupertino, CA as part of the De Anza Student Art Show, 2011.