"1,060th Post! Electricity Does The Work" Corel - Plus

Electricity Does The Work

Here is a Free Vintage Image that I found today in the Blogs I read. It's a free image to use. I did little work on it in Corel PhotoPaint. I adjusted the Tone Curve for color depth, added an image of a tablet on the right. I changed "touch the key," to "touch the Icon," Did a little cloning. and resized for display.

So this is a short post that I hope you get some amusement from. I just want to know how much this Electric Blickensderfer costs! I want one. 10.1" 64gig 1gighz All the specials!

This is my 1,060th Post to gatzkART! I am still trying to create worthwhile Digital Visual Artwork and explain my workflow to my readers.

I hope you enjoy this humble blog.

"Guess the Artists In The Plus" Corel - Picasa 3.9 - Plus

Five Artists in the Plus Performers

Today is a guessing game image. I have five +Artists In The Plus  performers in my Digital Collage. You can guess who is whom and make comments below if you recognize any of them. The face recognition tool could not pick them out at all!

Take your best guesses by looking at the larger image on the blog gatzkART! To make this Digital Collage I followed the workflow described below.

I grabbed one of my Mayang's Textures this afternoon and opened it. Using Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 I auto painted the background texture. I saved that large file and opened in Corel PSP Pro X3 and used the Smart Photo Fix on it and rotated it to Portrait. I saved that iteration.

From Picasa 3.9 I opened the file in Corel PhotoPaint. Then while in Picasa I went to my folder of screen captures of Artists In The Plus performers. In Picasa I cropped, used the Warmify and HDR tools. I then applied the Pencil drawing tool to each of the performers images.

I did each one individually, and copied and pasted onto the background in PhotoPaint. Then I sized them to fit, placed them in no order of importance. Using the property Multiply I made them transparent, except the pencil sketches. I merged them after I was happy with the composition and placements. I saved that iteration.

I used the plugins from Filter Forge Photo Effects for Vibrancy and using Frames I added a Grunge frame to the image. I inverted my signature to white from black and added it to the large file.

I saved that, then I opened in PSP Pro X3 and resized to display size for the blog.

Take your best guesses and comment on Google+ or my blog page. Pluses and Shares are welcome.

"Let's Talk About Music with James Olmos " Picasa 3.9 - Corel - Plus

Singer Songwriter James Olmos

"Let's Talk About Music with +James Olmos " is the theme of today's image. I missed the live show but watched it on YouTube.  As you can see it is a Hangout On the Air on Google+ streamed and recorded  for us who miss the live show. James sang and played many of his own songs with great emotion and skill. He has an EP available on his website and is coming out with a new album this Summer.

I used Picasa 3.9 to crop the image from a screen capture. I then warmed it up with the Color Temperature and Warmify.

I took that and used the HDR tool applying that. I saved the iteration after I added the Museum Matte and altered the color of the mat, adjusting it's width.

Saving that I opened with Corel PhotoPaint and added my inverted signature with the property Add for transparency.

Watch the show and visit James site!

The YouTube show is at this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=I6kwc5oGlWo#!

James site is at this link:

http://jamesolmos.com/fr_home.cfm

Many thanks to our hosts  +George Miller and +Diane Cobb for the great show! 

"KMG Therapeutic Massage LOGOS" CorelDRAW - Plus

KMG Therapeutic Massage Logos

Between Hardware problems relating to my Video cards and working on these Logos for my Son's Massage Therapy business, I have been neglect full of posting here. We also have been joyfully watching our Grandson who is about to turn three years old, playing with him. So I have been busy.

I created the logos in CorelDRAW and these are the best ones as of today. I like the bottom left one, it is my favorite. You can leave messages as to your favorite if you would like. My Son is an excellent, Certified Massage Therapist and would appreciate any input. These logos are ©2013 by Kirk Mathew Gatzka and are not for unauthorized use or copying.

We are working on our own trifold brochure for him to use for In Office Chair Massage. Then we will create another one for his In Home Massage Therapy. All by appointment only. We are using an Avery 8324 brochure template, downloaded from Avery for MS Word. I have created other brochures in CorelDRAW so if we decide that the template is not to our liking we will make them in CorelDRAW. Now if I can remember how to make a text box, hmmm.

My travails with the video card has sent me backwards to my original OEM motherboards VGA connection which is much slower than the cards I tried to install. Both are Nvidia Geforce cards. I had one that I bought a DVI cable for and it never worked as VGA or DVI. I contacted Nvidia and they suggested it was a defective card.

Well, I recieved the card as a gift so I have no recourse to get a refund, how does one refund a gift? The other card was functioning for a time but had low speed just a tad faster than the OEM VGA connection. So I am now having trouble getting into SafeMode on my Windows PC to try and fix the problems.

The current VGA works fine, I was trying to improve the operation of the video. Looks like I have failed and possibly made some sort of other problems on this aging computer. As long as it works and is not failing I will not be forced to get a new PC.

"Concerts In The Plus!" Shani, Brent Michelle, Devyn Rush - Corel and Picasa - Plus

Singer Songwriter Shani

Singer Songwriter Brent Michelle

Singer Songwriter Devyn Rush and Andrew

I watched the "Concerts In The Plus featuring Shani, Brent Michelle, and Devyn Rush" Curated by +Artists In The Plus  on Google+ Hang Outs on Air on YouTube today.
I missed the live show but having it available on YouTube made it accessible later. John Voshell's +John Voshell 's Channel, from Artists in the Plus is making these Concerts available to watch later if you miss them live.

The show was incredible and each performer sang their songs, each one a singer songwriter in their own right. You can click on the link below for the entire concert.

I took screen captures of each performer and between Picasa 3.9's tools and Corel PSP Pro X3 as well as Corel PhotoPaint I adjusted each capture in various ways.

First I would crop in Picasa and then adjust the brightness and contrast also. I might apply the HDR-ish tool (which I did for two of the images.) Then apply the frame and mat tool in Picasa as well.

I used PSP for Saturation Vibrancy and Skin Softening on one image. But did the most work in Picasa. I did some cloning out in Corel PhotoPaint and added my signature in each there as well.

Shani's website:

http://shanirose.com

Brent Michelle's site:

http://www.brentmichelle.com/

Devyn Rush's site:

http://www.devynrush.com/

The Concerts In The Plus is to be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_HyLKsV2vTQ

Tune into the Concert and enjoy!

"Digital Painting - Lighthouse" Corel - Plus

Digital Painting - Lighthouse

I have selected a recent Dover Sampler Stain Glass image of a Lighthouse for the subject for today. I opened Picasa 3.9 browsed to my Dover Clip Art folder and picked this image. I opened with Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and auto painted with the Gouache settings. Saving this I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3.

There I added Saturation Vibrancy and used the Smart Photo Fix on it for some color and sharpness adjustments. I added some sunlight to it with the Sunburst tool. I used the Artistic Brush tool to add brushstrokes to the image. This gave me the Textures I wanted. I resized the image in PSP Pro X3 and added the gold Picture Frame. I saved this iteration.

I reopened with Corel PhotoPaint to add my signature, Inverting it to white and using the Property Add to place it. I resized the signature to a bit smaller and moved it to it's place. I saved my final iteration for display.

"Danni Rosner - In The Spotlight - Artists In The Plus" Corel - Plus

I took some screen captures of Artists In The Plus "In The Spotlight with +Danni Rosner ." I opened them in Picasa 3.9. There I cropped each picture and resaved them. I took them into Corel PSP Pro X3 and applied the Digital Camera Noise Removal and Smart Photo Fix saving them again.

Using Picasa I made a short slideshow in WMV format. I converted that with Freemake Video Converter into an FLV file and imported it into Blogger's player. This is my first attempt at a video other than YouTube's formats.

Danni gave a wonderful performance and interview! She is a talented and effective singer songwriter! Here is the Link to +John Voshell +Artists In The Plus "In The Spotlight":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdUxAvulgII&feature=g-user-u

"Vintage DeSoto" HDR Watercolor - Corel Painter 11 - Plus

Vintage DeSoto HDR Watercolor

I like the older style cars and I got some good photographs at the 2012 Woodward Dream Cruise in Pontiac, Michigan. I opened from Picasa 3.9 this photograph of a Vintage DeSoto with a close up of the Grill. I used Picasa's HDR tool on the photograph, pushing the settings up.

I saved that large file and opened with Corel Painter 11 and painted a clone of the original HDR image. I used various Watercolor Brushes that come standard with Painter. I selected some of the colors with the eyedropper and painted with those. I left the majority of the grill untouched for the focal point. I saved the digital painting with a differing name.

I opened it again with Corel PSP Pro X3 and applied the Saturation Vibrancy tool. Then I used the Smart Photo Fix and Sharpened it and deepened the colors. I added the Rose mat and the Gold Picture Frame. Saving that iteration I then resized for display.

I opened with Corel PhotoPaint and added my signature and saved the final iteration.

"Digital Painting Watercolors Old Sketch" Corel Painter 11 - Plus

Painted Digital Watercolor of an Old Sketch

I was browsing through my Picasa 3.9 folders and ran across this old scanned in sketch I did a long time ago. Kind of small I decided to give it a makeover. I used Irfanview to resize the TIFF file to a larger more workable size.

I saved that file and opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and used the Smart Photo Fix on it and saving that I used Picasa's Softener on it. I saved again and opened with Corel Painter 11.

In Painter I cloned the image. Then I selected differing Digital Watercolor brushes and painted the image. I used Liquid Ink Fine Point brush to add the white reflections in the pupils. I saved that iteration with a "pntd" name.

I opened with PSP Pro X3 and added the ornate Picture Frame. Saved the large file again. Opening in Corel PhotoPaint I added the inverted Signature file with the property Add for transparency. Saving the large file I resampled to display size and saved the finished piece.

"The Strangeness of Quantum Physics" CorelDRAW

Click on Me! And Read!

Pieces of Dover Clip Art from my folder in Picasa 3.9 put together in CorelDRAW. h = What? A good question, "Like a wave or Like a particle," Its all Physics to me!

I grouped all the pieces including my comments and the large question mark together and copied to the clipboard and pasted into Corel PhotoPaint as New from Clipboard. I resized it there for display. Quantum Sweetness, to read about. "Its all so Strange!" Link to Wikipedia "Physics Strangeness"

A fun post.

"That Show With Billy Wilson Guest Brent Michelle" Corel - Plus

Singer Songwriter Brent Michelle

That Show With +Billy Wilson  and his cat Tibby hosted Photographers and Tech guests along with his musical guest +Brent Michelle .

I was using Picasa 3.9 for capturing screens from the show of Brent performing. I cropped and adjusted the image in Picasa. I brightened it and boosted, warmed, the colors. Then applied a light HDR look and feel.

After I did that I saved the file and opened it with Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and auto painted it as a Modern painting with Rough paper and a Bristle brush settings. Then I used the Soft Cloner brush to add back in some details on her face and her title.

Here is Brent Michelle's link:

http://www.brentmichelle.com/

And the YouTube link to +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=W-q_RF62bp8&newstate=bb6630e1ce7e790e1c6939f6368ea2ec

"Yamaha Portable Grand Piano" Corel - Plus

Yamaha Portable Grand Piano

I've been on a Sepia kick with some of my images lately. I browsed in Picasa 3.9 to photographs of my studio/office. I opened this one with my Son's Yamaha Portable Grand Piano in it. I used Corel PSP Pro X3 and created lineart with it. I played around with the Levels and added a Polaroid frame and a black border to it. I saved this large file.

I opened it with Corel PhotoPaint and used Filter Forge's Photo Effects Sepia with the darker tone. It darkened the framing as well. I like the look and feel of this image now. I added my signature in black before I adjusted the Sepia Tone. I resampled to display size in PhotoPaint.

This Piano is no longer in my studio and I miss having it, though I am not a keyboardist. I did enjoy playing on the Piano with all it's settings and helps with beats and chording. Such Fun!

"Seagulls Guitars and Birds" Sepia Tone Corel - Plus

Seagulls

I began this image with the idea of showing images of real Seagulls along with a Pencil version of my Seagull S12 Cedar 12-String Guitar. I browsed my Dover Clip Art folder in Picasa 3.9 and found my image of seagulls. I opened it in Corel PSP Pro X3 and resized it to a larger display size. I saved it and opened a photograph of my 12-String Guitar. I used the Pencil tool to create a pencil sketch of it. Saving that separately I reopened the seagulls in Corel PhotoPaint.

Once in PhotoPaint I opened the Pencil sketch of the Guitar and erased the surrounding area leaving the background white. I copied it and pasted onto the background. I resized it to fit the seagull background. Then I reproduced it, flipping it vertically, twice for a total of three guitars. I used the property Multiply for transparency so the seagulls would show through.

Using Filter Forge's Photo Effects I selected a Old photograph setting for the texture and framing. I applied a simple brownish Tritone to this for some tinting, using PhotoPaint.

I added my signature with copy and paste as new object, resized it for the corner and merged it with the image. To complete the image I used Filter Forge's Photo Effects Sepia Tone

"Songwriters Showcase HOA #5 w/ Sara Corbin" Corel - Plus

Songwriters Showcase #5

Today I am sharing a Digital Collage made in Picasa 3.9 from screen captures of the:

"Songwriters Showcase HOA #5 w/ Sara Corbin" On Google+:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ePB2k_8Fsow

Performing were +Jonathan Blackshire , +Cecilee Linke , +Matty James  and the Cutthroat Reef Irish group +Derek Pollak  with +Sara Corbin  finishing out the show. The patter was fun and the music was upbeat and everyone did some really good performances as directed by Jonathan.

This was streamed to YouTube and I did the captures there. I opened them with Corel PhotoPaint New From Clipboard and applied an old-fashioned photo effect with Filter Forge' Photo Effects. I also posted them on Jonathan Blackshire's Event Page one at a time.

I kept the captures relatively small for the Event Page. And decided to create the Collage in Picasa. I used the Mosaic style collage on an 8.5x11 background. Picasa fitted them into the Mosaic automatically. I then added a slight border in brown off setting the old fashioned Sepia Photo look and feel.

I resized the large collage file to a display size and added my signature in white using PhotoPaint's Resample, and Invert on the signature file using the property Add for transparency.

"Sam Batt 'In The Spotlight' Artists in the Plus" Corel Painter 11 - Plus

Singer Songwriter Sam Batt

I attended another Artist in the Plus "In the Spotlight" with Singer Songwriter +Sam Batt recently. I was able to get a fair screen capture of her during the Interview portion. She is a talented and tough performer as she sang and played guitar for us inspite of having a cold. She was Marvelous. Her Interview answers were full of interesting details as well. She Plays a Yamaha High-end Acoustic-Electric Guitar that sounded just great and fit her voice wonderfully. My painting made her look a little like the actor Angie Dickinson!

You can see the "In the Spotlight" Show at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6AjhI85Ius

And here is Sam Batt's website:

http://www.sambatt.com/index.html

I opened the capture in Corel PhotoPaint with New from Clipboard. There I cropped the capture, I saved that iteration. I proceeded to open with Corel PSP Pro X3. There I used the Camera Noise Removal, the Skin Smoothing, Smart Photo Fix, and some other Noise removal settings. I resized that image and saved it as a third iteration.

From Picasa 3.9 I opened that with Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and auto painted it with the Modern setting using Rough Paper and Smooth Brush. I did touch up with the Soft Cloner Brush to add back in some details. I saved again.

I ventured more deeply into painting freehand I opened that file with Corel Painter 11 and using multiple differing Brushes I painted the image using a Clone of it. I added details to the eyes and the background. This gave it even a more painterly look and feel.

I finished the image with Filter Forge's Frames Grunge frame. Added my signature in white and saved the final image.

"Double Drop D Guitar Collage" Corel - Plus

Digital Collage - Double Drop D

For today's image I created a Guitar Digital Collage in Picasa 3.9. Using the recent photographs of my 12-string Seagull Guitar I selected the photographs and chose Create Collage in Picasa. I switched to the 8X10 portrait setting with a central photograph the Picasa made the large collage from my selections.

It auto saved the draft and I opened the finished collage in Corel PSP Pro X3. There I applied the Smart Photo Fix and loaded the image as another layer. To that the Smart Photo Fix was applied and I used the Pencil tool to create an overlay. I altered the colors to a Psychedelic look and feel. I merged the layers with the enhanced colors. I saved that iteration.

I reopened from Picasa with Corel PhotoPaint. there I used the Wand tool to select the white space and filled with a Stucco filling from their Sample palettes. I added the paint splatters to the image and changed their opacity and added drippings. This was for that Grunge effect.

I then scanned in some blank chord charts, four of them in a group, and added some Double Drop D chord markings. The first chord is played like an Am on the first fret then the second is the same form slid up to the third fret. The next chord is the A shape played on the fifth and seventh frets.

I used the property Multiply as I copied and pasted the chord form onto the guitar background, sizing it large enough to read and using black. I added the Double Drop D Tuning phrase and added the dripping using the Distort, Wet Paint, tool. I merged the chords and phrase into the background.

I saved the large iteration, then on the display size added my signature and saved that with a differing file name.

A Double Drop D song I have been working on. This is the first draft:

https://soundcloud.com/gatzka-music/does-anybody-know

I'd like some input on this first draft from +James Olmos +Tim Behrens If they would chime in. Contact by email +John Voshell has it and has my permission to share with you both. +Mark Ferrasci may want to listen as he helped in the creative process of this tune, his opinions are welcome too.

Comments and Pluses welcome!