"A Little Romance Never Hurt!" Digital Collage - Picasa - Corel

"A Little Romance Never Hurt!"

 gatzkART! has reached over 97,000 Pageviews and 1,070 posts today! I was using The Old Reader RSS reader to import my Google Reader content. I was reviewing the posts and found two old-fashioned love photographs from ART FREEBIES, a blog of Public Domain images and photographs.

I saved them to my folders in Picasa and created a collage with Picasa 3.9. I added the page of images of Old-Fashioned Love and Marriage from Dover Clip Art sampler folder.

Using Picasa I tinted the entire collage with blue and saved that. I used the setting for the size of my current desktop size, It saved a large iteration.

I opened it with Corel PhotoPaint and worked on adding the Nebula background to it. I saved that and added the title caption, in PhotoPaint adding my signature.

I also resampled it in Corel PSP Pro X3 to display size. I then saved that. Times have changed as you can see from these examples of Love in the old days.

"A Little Romance Never Hurt!"

Some things haven't changed a bit!

"Does Anybody Know?" ©2013 by Kirk Mathew Gatzka

My new song, I've been practicing it for a long time now. I wanted to present it to you today! Comments are welcome! I have a different version on SoundCloud with additional vocals and reverb. But this is a Bright and Clean recording. Hope you enjoy it!

"Art Nouveau Digital Collage" Corel - Plus

Art Nouveau Digital Collage

Yesterday I enjoyed using my Dover Publications Sampler images for an Art Deco image. I decided as I browsed the folder in Picasa 3.9 to create an Art Nouveau Digital Collage.

I opened in Corel PhotoPaint. I selected a Floral background and a border piece and cut and pasted the border onto the Floral. I duplicated it four times after applying the Multiply property, for the left hand side. Continuing my browsing and came upon two woman's faces in circular form, still Art Nouveau style.

I cut and pasted these onto the Floral background. I used the masking tool to cut them out and using the Multiply property again on them for transparency. I resized them to balance the composition. I merged these to the background.

I opened in Corel PSP Pro X3 to resize, add a matte and a Golden Picture Frame. This image was saved and reopened in PhotoPaint. I added my signature and resampled it to display size.

I really am a fan of Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles and enjoy creating Digital Collages using Picasa and my Corel programs. I have books of plates of both that I can scan in and use as well. I keep my playful attitude toward creating Digital Artworks.

"The Celebratory Dance" Art Deco Digital Collage - Corel Plus

The Celebratory Dance

Browsing my Dover Publications Sampler folder in Picasa 3.9 I found a decorative floral with line. I also searched for a background for this and came up with an Art Deco Floral background.

In Picasa I lightened the Color Art Deco Floral a bit and brought them all into Corel PhotoPaint. I used the Wand tool to select the white and filled it with a sky image. I applied the decorative floral with lines, deepening the line coloration with the Tone Curve and using the Color Burn for transparency.

I searched a bit further and found an image of women in various stances. I selected the Dancer with Flowing Hair to add. I cut, erased and placed the Dancer onto the two backgrounds.

I added another image from the Dover Clip Art of a Couple Celebrating with Champagne, as if they were drinking to the Dancer. I increased their depth with the Tone Curve as well. This made for a Celebratory feel to the image.

I added my signature inverted to white and merged all together to one layer. I saved this iteration. I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and used the High-pass Sharpen tool on the image. And softened the background using the Digital Camera Noise Removal tool.

I liked the Ornate Frame so I applied that from Image, Picture Frame. It gives it a Museum quality I really like.

So goes the making of the "The Celebratory Dance."

"SXSW Wheeler Brothers and In The Spotlight with Frank Palangi" Picasa 3.9

SXSW Wheeler Brothers

Singer Songwriter Frank Palangi

These images are both from Google+ Hangouts On Air. I was able to watch the YouTube streamed videos and screen capture them.

I used Picasa 3.9 to capture them and convert from BMP format to JPG. I also used Picasa's: Cropping tool; the Warmify tool and the HDR tool on each image. I then added the frames with the Museum Matte feature again in Picasa. So I kept my workflow easy and right in Picasa 3.9.

Here is the link to the Wheeler Brothers:

http://wheelerbrothersmusic.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwyranENx9k

Here is the YouTube selection of Frank Palangi "In the Spotlight" with +Artists In the Plus:

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

You can find Frank on Google+ and Facebook.

"Winning Logo for KMG Therapeutic Massage" CorelDRAW - Plus

Here is the winning Logo for my Son's Massage Therapy business. KMG Therapeutic can be found online at the following link:

http://www.kmg-therapeutic.massagetherapy.com/

You can request an Appointment Online if you are in the Counties listed below. He will come to your business location and give Chair Massages. (see below)

He is also building a Facebook page for the business and is listed in the YP.com (Yellow Pages) directory in the Ortonville, Michigan area as a Massage Therapist.

http://www.yellowpages.com/48462/massage-therapists?q=Massage+Therapists

Right now he is listed around the number four slot, but we will be improving his visibility on the YP.com listings. He will be accepting Cash and Major Credit Cards for payment.

His business serves the Oakland and Genesee County area. His main clientele are Businesses for In Office Chair Massage and In Home Full Massage at your location. He will also be doing some clients at His residence Massage Room.

If you would like to please visit his website and read some of the testimonials listed and browse the site. You will also notice he is a member of and insured by ABMP a Massage Professional Association. You can click on their logo on his site for more information about ABMP.

The KMG Therapeutic Logo was a combined effort of both myself and my son's ideas and Created in CorelDRAW in it's native CDR format and converted to JPG format for display here.. Unauthorized use is prohibited. The winning Logo was selected by votes from friends and family, and was highly thought of by the YP.com Representative.

"Artists In The Plus - The First Compilation" CorelDRAW - Plus

Entry One

Entry Two

Entry Three

Entry Four

"Artists In The Plus,"  on Google+ is making it's first compilation of Music from Indie Musicians. Singer Songwriters and many of their artists will be sharing their music. Because of this I have joined their CONTEST for Album Art and what I am showing today are images I have shared with them.

I have used my Corel products like CorelDRAW, PSP Pro X3, PhotoPaint to create these differing Album images all with their LOGO.

I have some other ideas to work on, the fans will select from all the entries from myself and other Google+ Artists doing Digital Art.

"Woman Playing Violin" Corel - Plus

Woman Playing Violin

I received some new Dover Publications Clip Art today. This image of a woman violin player struck me with it's flowing lines. I selected a Mayang's Texture in Picasa and I opened it in Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and auto painted it with the Simple Watercolor setting, Rough Paper, and stopped it before it finished. Saving the background I opened Corel PhotoPaint.

I copied and pasted New from Clipboard the simple watercolor. Using the rectangle selection tool I moved the background to a position where I liked the colors and brushstrokes. I cropped that and opened as a new file. I rotated it ninety degrees to a portrait setting.

I when to my Dover Clip Art folder in Picasa and opened the image of the Woman Playing Violin and copied and pasted it onto the painted background. I resized it to fit and used the property Color Burn on it for transparency.

Back to Picasa I selected another piece of Clip Art of music. I cropped to just a portion of the beginning score. Copied it and pasted onto the background, used the Color Burn and resized to fit in PhotoPaint.

I then looked for a Flourish symbol in Dover Clip Art. I copied and pasted that onto the picture. I rotated it to flow horizontally and also placed with Color Burn.

I then merged all and saved the file. I added my signature inverted to white, to the image. Saved that with a new name.

"LIZZY SPIT goes "Into The Plus" East Coast USA" Picasa - Corel

Singer Songwriter Lizzy Spit

I watched " +LIZZY SPIT  goes "Into The Plus" East Coast USA" on the YouTube stream and the show was Pleasant and delightful! Lizzy is a Singer Songwriter and does a marvelous job of performing. Lovely vocals and good accompaniment on guitar. Enjoyed it very much. The show was hosted by +Artists In The Plus .

I took a screen capture from the show with Picasa 3.9 and I used it to crop the image. I applied the Warmify tool and then used the HDR tool as well. I framed and matted it with Museum Matte tool adjusting the color and size.

I saved that file and opened with Corel PhotoPaint. I did a bit of cloning out artifacts and I added my signature, inverted to white.

Here is the link to the show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsNrCw43edo

Here is Lizzy's blog:

http://iamlizzyspit.wordpress.com/

"Digital Abstract in Red and Yellow" Corel Painter - Plus

Digital Abstract in Red and Yellow

I took a photograph of some colored glass objects and played around with them to create this image. I first opened it with Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and auto painted it using a Modern Painting setting. It resulted in a large digital file that I wanted to mush and warp.

After saving it I opened in Corel Painter 11 and applied the Effect, Blobs to it. This gave me the white spaces on the image. I painted upon it with Amazonia brushes I had gotten from PainterTalk's forum a while ago before Painter 12.1 came out. I wanted to do more so I used the Warp tool to smear the paint in multiple ways. And the Quick Warp tool also. I added texture to it by using the Apply Surface Texture, Image Luminance and then using a differing light source I applied the Paper texture to it. The resulting image was very large. I saved the large iteration.

I reopened with Corel PhotoPaint and I moved the painting around till I found the colors and brushstrokes, texture that I liked. I cropped out a piece of the larger image. Not satisfied yet I rotated the image 90 degrees to a portrait position. I did add my signature here.

Saving that I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and added Vibrancy to the colors with the Saturation tools. I finished by adding the golden frame and resizing for display.I don't do abstracts very often but sometimes they just feel right!