Saturday, September 6, 2014

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.



Tuesday, September 2, 2014

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.

Monday, September 1, 2014

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.