Grayson Perry Makes Me Happy!

there are some pictures that just beg for a little digital magic.

this one of Grayson Perry was one of them! i did a little

manipulating with iColorama to get this image. he is such

a fun and interesting person…also a wonderful ceramic
 artist. want to take a peek into his world…
check out this interview.

Red On My Mind a Digital Collage Tutorial

Geri Centonze over at Art of Mob issued a challenge

on instagram to create a face collage using parts from

different photos. this is one of my favorite things to do

so i created Red On My Mind. i thought i'd walk you 

through my creative process to show how i made this piece.

i began with a picture taken with my iPhone at a ceramics

exhibit.

i opened this in iColorama app and changed it

to a painterly look.

opened this in Procreate app and then opened

my color outside the lines collage as another

layer and erased everything except the eyes.

below is what i ended up with. i also brought in a layer

with a letter written in a childs handwriting and erased

it all except what you see on the cheek.

then i opened the above image in ImageBlender as

the background and opened the picture i did below

as the foreground.

i played around with the opacity modes and

slider and then masked out all but the hair and glasses.

i took this photo back to iColorama and again

applied a painterly look. next i wanted a better

background so i opened my Tintype collage

in ImageBlender as the background and then 

brought in the above image that i had painted.

i moved the woman off center and then masked

out all but her figure. next i took the combined

photo back to iColorama and used brush/paint

to do a wash of color over the numbers to

make them fit my colors. i wasn't too happy

with top of her nose so i took the picture back

to ImageBlender and brought in the original

painted ceramic picture on top and masked

all but the nose to cover that light patch under

her glasses. i like how it turned out. i'd also

like to say that i'm sure all these steps could

have been done in iColorama…i'm just not

that good with the app…it's a powerful app and

one that i would suggest you add to your

collection.

Hello September….

for those of us of "a certain age" september always

heralded the return to school..our year was september

until june. i could have cared less about new clothes and

 shoes but the school supplies…oh how i loved them!

the new book satchel (we didn't have book bags)

smelling of vinyl…

pencils..paper and the box of fat…flat backed crayons…

all added to a sacred brew of smells that

morphed into a great love of art supplies.

it doesn't feel very septembery today…the thermometer

on the screened porch reads 93 degrees.. but just knowing

that it's september and autumn is around the corner causes a 

little quickening in my soul.