July 2012 was an adventurous time for my family, in that my father-in-law took 

us on a bit of a Wild West Tour through Utah and Wyoming.  

We saw some wonderful sites and a great time was had by all.

After unpacking, laundry and getting back into the swing of things; I've been in the process 

of sorting and scrapbooking our adventure.  It's taken a bit of work but I finally have 

enough pages put together that I'm ready to start posting the adventure.  

I'll be adding more to this page as I get them done.

Here are some notable sites from Salt Lake City 2012

Temple Square

 It matters not what religion you are; if in Salt Lake City a trip through Temple Square is a must.

The gardens there are really beautiful and it's so clean and pristine 

in appearance you'd think you were in Disney.

(The background pages are photos I took at the garden area around the Assembly Hall)

"Temple Square" is a 10 acre complex located in the center of Salt Lake City, UT and it is
owned and the center of the LDS church. The square houses several buildings
including the assembly hall and most notably the Tabernacle itself.

The Salt Lake Temple was a 40 year building project and had its dedication in 1893.
The temple of Solomon in Jerusalem is believed by some to have been an influence in it's construction. The Temple stands 210 feet at it's highest center pinnacle.

Vintage images from Temple Square can be seen at 

The Utah State digital collection - HERE

*****

Utah State Capital

It was workout to walk up to the Capitol from Temple Square.  My hubby (seen pictured above in the red shirt) and I took a side street that had to be at a 45 degree angle uphill for several blocks.  Once we got to the Capital we still had a ton of stairs to climb to get tot he building proper - but it was worth it.  The architecture and then the view from the terraces were worth the workout and a bruised toe I acquired along the way.

The Capitol was designed by local architect Richard K. A. Kletting, who's
 architectural plans included reinforced concrete, elevators and the use of natural light.
It has been home to Utah's state government since its opening in 1916.
(Previously the "City-County" building played that role among others).

*****

The McCune Mansion

On our "trek" up the hill to find the Capitol, we stumbled upon this amazing house on a hill.  

I just had to stop and take some photos because it looked so much like a Haunted House you would see in an old movie.  To my surprise I later discovered it was really haunted; which might explain the "odd" sensation I felt while standing outside it.  We would have loved to see the interior; however you have to book tours well in advance. Now I know if I'm ever in the area again to book a tour!

Railroad tycoon Alfred W. McCune built the 21,000 square foot, three story, twenty-five room Mansion as his family home. Construction began in 1898 and was completed in 1901 at a cost of 1,000,000 million dollars. The exterior was built of native Utah sandstone and the roof, covered with tiles made in the Netherlands. The interior was lavish even for the time period; with details shipped in from all over the world such as: Nubian and Irish marble, bird's-eye maple, South American mahogany, 400-year-old English oak, French tapestries, Russian leather and German mirrors. Carved wood, gold leaf hand gilding, the exquisite murals as well as painted ceilings only added to it's splendor.


Vintage photos can be seen HERE

You can read more about the history of the house HERE and HERE

Tours are available through the Utah Heritage Foundation

*****

Orpheum Theater - Promised Valley Playhouse

My husband and I were walking several blocks down from the Capital on State Street, when I looked up to see the side of a huge carved face jutting out from the side of the building.  I stopped and stared for a second that started taking photos.  We made our way across the street so I could continue admiring and capturing all the lovely elements on this c1900 building for the next 20 minutes or so.

Luckily my hubby was being entertained by what armed guards performing their duties a few doors down at the Federal Reserve building. - grins

The exterior of this building is grand in every way; but sadly the theater itself was not salvaged.  

It suffered the fate of so may old theaters in that it was not deemed feasible to invest funds into restoring the old gem. The stage and auditorium are just a memory for those who remember her and what can be seen in old black and white photos from her glory days.  

The Theater had many name changes through it's history: The Orpheum 

(since it was part of the Orpheum theater chain when it was first built) 

then -  The Casino Theater, The Wilkes Theater, The Roxey Theater, 

The Salt Lake Theater, and The Lyric Theater.  

It closed as a movie theater in 1971. 

The "Church" bought the theater in 1972, renaming it the Promised Valley Playhouse.

It was closed in 1996 due to structural problems and the theater's interior was demolished in 2003.

Luckily the facade and lobby were preserved and converted for office and retail space;

 rather than it becoming a 400 car parking tower as was originally intended. 

Old photos are under a variety of it's previously known names  

The Orpheum aka Wilkes Theater - HERE

The Orpheum aka Casino Theater - HERE

The Orpheum aka Lyric Theater - HERE

*****

Salt Lake "City-County" Building

Digital Scrapbook page using photos taken at the old Courthouse aka City-County Building in SLC by EKDuncan

 This c1890 building is HUGE but then again it was built to replace the older 1860's buildings
that housed the Salt Lake City Council and the Salt Lake County Courthouse.

Construction took three years and $900,000 to complete.
Their were multiple delays in building that eventually caused the project $620,000
over the original bid price of.  The originally planed for stained glass windows were
discarded to keep the project from incurring any more additional costs.

The style is considered "Richardsonian Romanesque" and was constructed by Free Masons of
gray Utah Kyune sandstone.  It has five floors, over one hundred rooms and onyx lines the hall of each lavishly decorated floor. The building served as Utah's Capitol from 1896 until 1915. It also housed Salt Lake's first public library and contained courtrooms for decades.

Although now used exclusively by Salt Lake City government.
The third floor houses the mayor's office in the south wing
and the city council chambers in the north.


I love how different a building can look just based on the time period in which a photo was taken.
When I tried to take my pictures from across the street there were too many tall trees blocking my shots as well as traffic, lights and electrical wires.
Additional photos of this building can be seen - HERE
 
*****


Cathedral of the Madeleine

Digital scrapbook page of The Cathedral of the Madeleine using photos taken in Salt Lake City by EKDuncan

This Catholic cathedral in Salt Lake City, combines a predominately Romanesque exterior with a Gothic interior and is interesting mix of styles and design elements. 
It was eye catching even from a distance and to honor my Catholic roots,
I did not resist the long walk to this cathedral on the hill.

I spent a lot of time taking photos of all the great exterior elements and was expecting to see
 an interior similar to one I attended as a child or other cathedrals I visited in Spain;
however I was not expecting what I found upon entering these hallowed doors.
It's as if Gothic-Revival collided with a version of Byzantine-Fiestaware.

At first I was overwhelmed with all the patterns and colors and carvings and ...
Luckily it was the middle of the week and we had the interior to ourselves for a while. I even laid down on the floor so I could get a photo of the painted ceiling; which I used to create the background paper you see behind the photos on my scrapbook page.

The Cathedral of the Madeleine, who's patron saint is Mary Magdalene, was a nine year building project from 1900-1909.  The interior was later "beautified" in 1917 to include murals and a colorful paint scheme. According to the history listed on the church's website the inspiration for the interior was to reflect Spanish Gothic of the Late Middle Ages.  The interior paint style is referenced as "polychrome", which is "The practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors."  This was commonly done on buildings in the ancient world as well as more recently with Victorian and Art Deco Architecture, such as with the "Painted Lady" houses seen throughout California.  It truly makes this Cathedral unique from others I have been in.

Vintage photos of the Cathedral can be seen - HERE

*****


B'nai Israel Temple

Digital Scrapbook Page of the B'nail Israel Temple built in the 1890's and now home to a Design Group

 As American settlers continued to move west they brought their customs and beliefs with them. This building from the early 1890's is one of the few remaining Jewish buildings created by early Utah settlers.  Originally - B'nai Israel Temple, it's now the offices of the Henriksen/Butler Design Group.

I'm always intrigued when religious buildings are converted into alternate environments and was thrilled at the opportunity to see the peaceful and innovative workspace this design group created.

 The Temple itself was designed by the German nephew of the then affluent merchant and businessman Frederick Auerbach.  Philip Meyer came to Salt Lake City at his uncles expense and designed this structure as a scaled down version of Berlin’s Great Synagogue. After completion in 1891 Meyer returned to Germany but sadly both Meyer and the Berlin Synagogue did not survive the ravages of WWII.

The building was sold in 1970 when a larger place of worship was constructed to serve the Jewish community and in 1978 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since then it has housed a variety of businesses including restaurants and offices.


Vintage photos of the Temple can be found - HERE
at the Utah State History Digital Collection

 *****


Immanuel Baptist Church

Scrapbook page of a vacated church with a new purpose

Another case of an old church that has a new lease in life.  Originally this classical revival church served as the Immanuel Baptist Church throughout most of the 1900's and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. When it was placed on the National Register it was listed as being a sports facility at that time so my guess is the building has been a variety of venues since the 1970's. 

I'm a big fan of "re-purposing" old items and giving them a new life, so I especially like to see how churches and places of worship are given a new lease on life.  In this case this grand old lady is now  Art and Antique Gallery at 401 E.  200 South Salt Lake City.  Sadly my hubby and I did not have time to go inside and wander through all the treasures; however I was captivated by the antique statues and the Victorian hearse that were on display outside - Very eye catching!

More photos of the building can be found in their archives HERE
Utah State History Digital Collection

Vintage Postcard of the church

I even found this vintage postcard of the church online.


*****


First Methodist Episcopal Church

Scrapbook page of the great architecture found on the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City

This is the oldest (still operational) Methodist church in the state of Utah and stands as an  

excellent example of Protestant church activity and architecture in the area.

Built in 1905 at 203 S. 200 East in Salt Lake City, stands this grand lady of whimsy. Designed by Frederick Albert Hale, a well known UT architect of his day.  He designed a variety of churches that were built in Denver; however this was his only church commission in the state of Utah. 

I liked this vintage photo from the Utah State Historical Digital Collection so much 

that I worked it into my digital scrapbook layout.  

This and other images of the church can be found HERE

*****

I'm still working on more scrapbook pages and will update this post 

with the new ones as  I complete them.

Till then...

 Many of the elements used to create my digital scrapbook pages 

came from Scrapgirls.com just in case you were wondering ;)

I was playing around with more images from Ackermann's Repository and fell in love with a series of hand-colored plates of landscape scenes from the 1820's.  I thought these images would make great background papers for digital scrapbooking so I played around with a few settings in Photoshop and then added in a funky texture I created, to give them a whole new look.

Ackermann's Repository always included a variety of Landscape, Architecture, or scenic image in every issue.  They usually were part of a themed series like The Churches of London or Country Seats.
The images I used were from the 1820's and were part of the garden and country seat series.

I chose to create a series of 8 backgrounds that would worked together well. These garden and pastoral landscapes had similar colors and tones so I made a few lighting adjustments, added an EKDuncan texture from my batch of favorites and came up with this set of pages.

I liked them so much that I even loaded them over on me EveyD account over at deviantart.com

1820 Garden Fountain from Ackermann's Repository

1820 Garden Seat scene from Ackermann's Repository

1820 Rustic Garden Bridge over water from Ackermann's Repository

1821 Formal Garden Bridge over water from Ackermann's Repository

1821 Picturesque Dairy scene from Ackermann's Repository

1822 Castle on the River scene from Ackermann's Repository

1823 Ditton - Country seat of Lord Montague from Ackermann's Repository

1823 The Hermitage on the Frogmore Estate from Ackermann's Repository

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Here is what the original image for the above Hermitage looked like

This is the original image from Ackermann's Repository

I started with the original image above; cropped it and altered it to give it a softer watercolor effect. This made a nice background but not quite what I was looking for...

This is what the background looked like before the crackle effect was added

so I then added a crackle texture for some added interest.

The final EKDuncan altered background page of the Ackermann's 1823 Hermitage scene

I followed the same basic steps for all the images so they would work together as a series
of antique looking background papers and am quite pleased with the final effect.

I enjoy using these nearly 200 year old images in my modern digital art.
There is just so much fun that can be had with them and I don't think I'll ever tire of using them.

 I hope this has inspired you to play and give new life to old images too.

***************

 I'll be posting a large selection of scenic elements like those used to create these
backgrounds so keep checking back to see what all the goodies I have to share.

till next time...

Recently I've been playing around with some of the interesting decorative and needlework patterns I found in Ackermann's Repository ( a 200 year old Regency England era magazine that was published from 1809 - 1828).  Naturally I wanted to find a fun way to use these great patterns in with my digital art projects and I've been thrilled with the results so far.

I'm not much of a needle worker myself; however I found these antique patterns intriguing and wanted to see what creative purpose I could put them too... so I decided to turn them into digital patterns that I can turn into lovely background for use as digital scrapbook pages, textures or embellishments in my digital art creations.   I enjoy creating fun backgrounds and textures in Photoshop and now have

a lot of great new patterns to play with thanks to Ackermann's Repository.

Here is how I created the above finished background

I started with the original pattern from Ackermann's and cropped out 

the swirled section on the bottom using Photoshop.

Next I erased of all the background areas so I was left with a transparent png image.

This transparency is what allows the pattern appear as real embroidery would  

with just the "stitches" visible above the fabric.

I cleaned up the right side of the pattern so I would have a good "repeat" when I started 

plotting my pattern out and used a gold "style" in Photoshop to act as my "thread" color.

This is my completed transparent png pattern.  

I can now easily change the "stitching" color for the whole piece at will and can add 

any number of background choices to create a new look whenever I choose.

For my first example I used a fun multi-colored background I created, set with a blending mode of "Multiply" so the base under layer would be seen through it. The base layer is not actually a solid color, it has a "style" applied to it and it is a combination of this style and the middle layer with the multi-colored background set to blending mode "multiply" that is creating this great fabric effect.

I think the finished piece has the look of a baroque or damask gold embroidered material.

Here are two more examples of backgrounds using this same swirl pattern.

 Here the background pattern has a bit of a wrinkled fabric look to it.

****************

Another example using a wood craft pattern.

I used the upper portion of the this decorative pattern that was intended for 

wood-working projects such as carving or inlay work. 

The pattern was incomplete on the right side so I had to make some alterations in

Photoshop to create the full image.

I cropped the pattern in half in Photoshop so I could then create a mirror image 

of this half and then have a full pattern once the process was complete.

In Photoshop I created a duplicate of the above "half-pattern", flipped it to get a 

mirror image and lined it up so I had a perfectly symmetrical full-pattern.

By removing the beige & black backgrounds I had my "stitch" lines and could treat this like the first needlework pattern.  I have a thing about creating digital backgrounds that can be used as scrapbooking papers so I played with this basic design a bit so I could have a 8x8 version of it too.

These are just three examples of digital scrapbook pages I was able to create using that one pattern.  Each was quickly arrived at by changing backgrounds and playing with blending modes and styles in Photoshop.

***************************

One Last Pattern Example

This pattern was intended to use as a decorative painting pattern and could have been used 

as a whole or as the separate patterns.  I chose to use it as a whole in my example.

In two of my examples I kept the black background and in the other two I removed the black background.  

I think I actually like this pattern better with the black background in place. 

See what you think. 

(The beige background was made transparent for all the backgrounds shown below 

and the black background was made transparent for the very last two examples.)

 Ackermann's Repository Altered 1817 pattern - version 1

This is the first example showing the pattern with the black background still as part of the design.

I used similar styles in Photoshop for the under layer that shows through the transparent portions as what I placed over the whole design area.  This is my favorite of the 4 - I think it has the look of carved stone or embossed antique metal.

Version 2 is very similar to the one above but in a much lighter color

and has more of an embossed leather look to it.

Here in version 3 the original black background was made transparent 

so that only the outline portion of the pattern was used.

This causes the chosen "style" used in Photoshop to be placed only on the outline areas rather than also on the surrounding areas that were originally black.  This creates more of the "stitching" feel or a look that is similar to heat embossing when you rubber stamp and use an embossing powder.

In the final version I've was going for that verdigris look of the greenish copper with antique copper embossing.  Once again in this version the original black background was made transparent so that only the outline portions take on the embossed look.

****************************

There is no doubt that I enjoy working with Photoshop and manipulating patterns to create new from the old.  I'm sure the artists that created the original patterns for Ackermann's never imagined that nearly 200 years later they would still be used by a more modern version of the ladies it was originally created for. Larger Downloadable versions of these and other backgrounds using vintage Ackermann images can be found on my deivantART account at
http://eveyd.deviantart.com/gallery/33488210

 I will be sharing a good portion of original Regency designs and needlework patterns in my next few posts so you can see the vast collection that were produced by Ackermann's Repository and their artists. And I hope you find a use for some of them in your own creations and art projects.

Till next we meet...

 This tribute page celebrates my husband's wonderful grandmother - Mammy.

She was truly an amazing woman who knew how to 

Live - Love and Laugh with the best of them.

These are the other digital scrapbook pages I created using a variety of elements 

from my "Old World Charm" digital collection that I've been posting about all month.

I hope you enjoy the Encore!

 Old World Charm - a celebration of my Mom and her Spanish Family.

from blog post on May 7, 2011

 be Unique  - My niece when she was a baby

from blog post on May 20, 2011

http://ekduncan.blogspot.com/2011/05/dare-to-be-unique-digital-scrapbook.html

 

Exciting Adventures - My Hubby at the waterfalls in Helen Ga

from my blog post On May 21, 2011

http://ekduncan.blogspot.com/2011/05/experience-exciting-adventures-digital.html

 

Magical Places - One of my favorite views in Las Vegas

from my blog post on May 22, 2011

Journey of Discovery - Visiting family in Spain when I was 16

from my blog post on May 23, 2011

 http://ekduncan.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-ekduncan-old-world-charm-digital.html

During the month of May I posted elements and images I created in Photoshop 

and turned into a digital scrapbooking collection I call "Old World Charm".  

These posts consisted of a master sheet and then the individual images 

I created as part of that collection.

EKD - digital scrapbook papers in the "Old World Charm" collection

from my blog post on May 23, 2011

http://ekduncan.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-ekduncan-old-world-charm-digital.html

EKD "Old World Charm" - Embellishments Set 1

from my blog post on May 24, 2011

http://ekduncan.blogspot.com/2011/05/ekd-old-world-charm-embellishment-set-1.html

EKD "Old World Charm" - Embellishment Set 2

from my blog post on May 25, 2011

http://ekduncan.blogspot.com/2011/05/ekd-old-world-charm-embellishment-set-2.html

 EKD "Old World Charm" - Word Art

from my blog post on May 26, 2011

"Old World Charm" - Fancy Border Mosaic digital paper set

from my blog post May 27, 2011

"Old World Charm" - Floral Scroll digital paper set

from my blog post on May 28, 2011
http://ekduncan.blogspot.com/2011/05/ekd-old-world-charm-floral-scroll-paper.html

 "Old World Charm" Extras to add to the collection

from my blog post on May 29, 2011

I hope you have enjoyed my "Old World Charm" digital scrapbooking series.

If you like these images or use any of them, please leave a comment 

or link back to my blog so others can join in the fun.  Many Thanks.