"Rusted Gal Digital Collage" Paint.NET - Corel

Rusted Gal

I began today's creative work by searching my external archives once again. I opened a photograph of a Young Lady in Paint.NET. There I applied the Artistic Ink Sketch without color for a black and white image.

I then searched in my Mayang's Textures folder for some colorful Rust and Paint textures. I found the texture and applied it as a new layer in Paint.NET, saving that image.

I opened with Corel PhotoPaint. Then I began a search through my Dover Publication's Sampler folder for some other collaging ideas. I found the clip art image of the cats and cut and pasted into the image, fit to the image size of the portrait and merged all.

I also found an Art Nouveau design which I placed and flipped vertically, used the Tone Curve to darken and the property Multiply adding that. I also found a group of jewelry pieces and selected a Cameo for an earring. I added that with cutting and pasting, and resized it a bit, placed it on the earlobe and merged.

I used Filter Forge's Photo Effects Vibrance and a Film frame.

I added my signature in white by inverting the black and white PNG file. Saving the cropped image at a large size I then resampled to display size.

"Red Chair HDR Lomo" Picasa 3.9 - Corel

Red Chair

Scanning through my external archives I ran across this photograph of a Red Chair taken in a retail store. I opened it in Picasa 3.9 and close cropped it of extraneous information that added little to the composition. I liked the experimental angle the photograph was taken at.

I next applied Picasa's HDR feature, adjusting the strength and radius. I then added the Lomo feature for more depth and shadow play.

I took the image into Corel PSP Pro X3 to add Image Information and my signature. I did that and saved the large file. I then resized for display here.

Off the beaten path for my posts and images. But I am still enamored of the grain of wood, and this image does have that.

"Grunge Women Portraits Three Images" Corel PhotoPaint

Triple Play

Single Gal

Dual Flow

Shares and Comments and Pluses are welcome on all my "gatzkART!" Posts! Thank You! Always visit the blog for the images larger view.

I had a anxious day and could not sleep, so I did some Digital Visual Art. Searching my External HD I found some photographs of Women's Faces - portraits really.

I opened them in Corel PhotoPaint. Here I applied the Threshold tool to create black and white images. I adjusted the Threshold on each accordingly.

I have Guitars on my mind, as I listened to Blues on Pandora. So I took the White Spaces and holding down the Shift Key I selected as much of the white as I could.

I opened my window for selecting fills and chose differing wood fills for each face. I tripled the first, kept the middle one single and doubled the final one.

I used Filter Forge's Photo Effects Grunge on each image for texturing. I then saved each iteration as a large file and resampled for display size, after adding my signature in white.

A break from my Guitar motif, but with wood tones reminiscent of the solid backs of acoustic guitars.

Listening to Another Brick In The Wall, nice for creating different Digital Visual Art.

"12-String 6-String Guitars over Seedum" Corel PSP Pro X3

12 and 6 String Guitars over Seedum

Today I took some photographs of our Seedum an Autumn flower. I also had a couple of shots of the 12-String and the 6-String guitars. I opened Corel PSP Pro X3 and layered the three photographs. With both the Guitars I used the Effect Art media effects, Black Pencil also adjusting each with Albumen type color for a touch of brown.

I took the Seedum photograph and rotated it to portrait. I copied and pasted as new layer as the third layer. Before I merged the layers I applied the Saturation Vibrancy. I also used the Art Brushstrokes, More Speckles, to blend the macro into a painting like background. And Curves to adjust the Luminescence.

The soundholes of the guitars almost match up but the necks are clearly at angles. The bridges are not as noticeable but you can see them at the large size on my screen without much difficulty. The guitar bodies show up as curving lines in the midst of the Rose and Green of the Seedum background.

I used Multiply for the Guitars and added the Seedum with opacity changes. I Merged (flattened) the layers, added my signature with the Visible Watermark, and saved the large iteration.

I then resized the image for display and saved with a differing name.

I have been receiving invitations to enter contests or display on differing websites, but I carefully think about such offers. Some cost money to enter per three images, but I am always in a quandary about which of my images are the best.

During your viewing of my blog, if you have a favorite image comment on it or share it with a Google +1.

You would be helping me pick out my best images and that would be fantastic! Thanks you!

"117,000 Plus Pageviews! - Floral Textured Guitars" Corel

Textured Floral Guitars

After a long hiatus, a trip to Iowa to attend a wedding and many days spent with my Grandson, I am posting. We reached another Milestone of over 117,000 Pageviews! Thank you for viewing!

I began with a photograph of our two Guitars and layered a house and trees and muddied sky over that. I then sought a Mayang's Texture of Rust and layered that into the image. I used Corel PhotoPaint to create this image.

I was not satisfied with the image as it had red-orange flowers in the upper third it. So I used an Art Deco color floral image from Dover Publications to layer and adjust and add more flowers with color punch.

I did a lot of adjusting to each layer with properties and opacity changes. Again I tried to create an unusual topical image of guitars with lots of texture. I think I succeeded.

I worked with some smaller images and after I did my creative work I saved that iteration. The I opened it in Corel PSP Pro X3 and added copyright and title information. I enlarged the image to 196 dpi and saved it with another name for a possible print out image.

Those of you who follow my blog I thank you! I offer my work for sale as Posters through Zazzle or as Prints through Fine Art America. If you see a work you would like a print of not currently listed on either site, Please visit my Art for Sale page and write me to request any special order. Orders done this way may garner a discount in my pricing, depending on quality and sizes available. Thank You for your interest!

"Blue Period Abstract Guitar" Corel Painter 11 - PhotoPaint

Blue Abstract Guitar

I opened Corel Painter 11, my most current version of Painter. Using the Real Filbert Brushes in Digital Watercolor I painted a colored filled background and a Guitar shape.

I used a texture like wood for the painting of the guitar body. I then opened a Liquid Ink layer with a Fine Point ink brush and quickly painted some details, without concern for realism.

I saved the image and opened Corel PhotoPaint. In Picasa I browsed some older folders and found a blue background. I opened both the blue background and the painted guitar image in PhotoPaint. I copied the guitar and overlaid it upon the blue background. I played around with the layers properties and opacity settings. I ended up with the blue image you see.

I inverted my signature to white and placed it in the now blue image.

It reminded me of Picasso's Blue Period of paintings, thus the title. If you don't care for playful abstracts you may not like this image. I did have a blast creating it while listening to music through my headphones, some Rock, Some Jazz, And some old tunes by the Cars.