Pixels & Posies

It started with a dream—literally. Barbara Guidotti of Veazie, Maine was fast asleep when she dreamed of placing seashells on her computer scanner...and then scanning them.

It seemed like a good idea, so she tried it the next day. She was so thrilled with the results that she's been "scanning nature" ever since, turning her scanned images into everything from refrigerator magnets to gallery-quality art prints.

In 5 years, Barbara has created about 100 scanned images. Although she started with seashells, she quickly realized anything small enough to fit on the scanner would work—flowers, vegetables, leaves, fruits, geode slices, stones, feathers, seeds, bits of driftwood.

"Everything I saw outside made me think, Oh, I wonder how that would look on the scanner?" she laughs.

When Barbara started selling greeting cards and prints, she didn't envision making money at it. She just wanted to cover the cost of ink cartridges for her printer.

Barbara has no art background and says the process is easy to learn.

"Anyone who has a scanner attached to a computer can do what I do," she says. "The secret is learning how to use the light of the scanner and different backgrounds. I use scarves and lots of different kinds of paper, like laminated paper and Mylar. Paper bark makes a wonderful background, too."

These items provide color and texture, and allow Barbara to manipulate the light from the scanner to create rainbows and other effects.

"I don't put the cover down on the scanner," she says. "The paper acts as a cover, and you can arch it a certain way so it catches the light."

It can take several tries to come up with an image that works.

"You just have to hold your breath and hope," Barbara says. "But the beauty of this creative process is that once you get a good scan, you can make it any size you wish—small enough to slip into a magnet, or large enough for a placemat."

Barbara does all the printing herself, selling her work through nature centers and museum stores in Maine, Florida, California and Massachusetts, as well as on her Web site.

Right now, she's focusing primarily on sunflowers. She donates all the profits from sunflower images to cancer research in memory of her husband, Charlie, who passed away in May.

Charlie was a great inspiration for her work, bringing one item after another from his garden for her to scan.

"He was always plopping things from the yard on my computer," she says with a smile. "That's a story in itself!"

Want to try to create your own "scan art"? Barbara has a few tips.

"First, get good printer paper and a decent printer," she says. "I don't have a real expensive color printer, but I have a good one. Then just take off and have fun!"