"Textured Grunge Guitar Player" Paint.NET - Picasa

Textured Grunge Guitar Player

I have done another "Textured Grunge Guitar Player," for today's post. Last post of 2015, is Music Themed. It was simply done.

I opened the screen capture in Paint.NET. Here I applied the Effects, Artistic, Pen and Ink as a black and white image. I saved this iteration.

Since Picasa was open, I cropped and added a black border to the piece. I saved again with a different name. I switched back to Paint.NET and opened that file.

Next I located a Grunge Texture and opened it in Paint.NET. I selected all and copied to the clipboard the Texture. I closed the texture file. I then Pasted as a New Layer onto the Ink Guitar Player image layer. I moved around the Texture until I found the most color in it. Using the property Multiply I added the now transparent texture to the Guitar Player merging the layers down.

I upped the Saturation by 115 in Paint.NET's Adjustments. I opened and selected, copied to the clipboard my signature file. I closed that file. I Pasted the signature as a new layer, resizing and placing it onto the image, deselected it and merged down all layers. I saved that iteration as the final image.

I don't have a Retrospective look at some of your favorite images of mine for 2015, but you are always invited to come here and look through the Label Cloud, or search for images to view again. Or to Listen to my Music Previews and buy what you would like to own.

Thank you for your Patronage of gatzkART! during the year! I look forward to additional Music and Digital Visual Artwork to share in 2016!

"Bonamassa - Just Got Paid" HDR - Painter Essentials 5 Plus

Bonamassa - Just Got Paid

"Bonamassa - Just Got Paid," a screen capture from his performance was used for this piece. I am currently listening to quite a bit of Joe's Music and really like it. Bonamassa Website

I was in Picasa 3+ and I used the HDR tool on the capture. The Radius was medium and the strength was medium high. I also applied the Border tool for a Black and White Border. I saved this image with a new name.

I opened in Painter Essentials 5 and Digitally Painted it with the Oil Painting set, Digital Watercolor Dry Brushes. I then switched to the Illustration set and used the Chalk, Pastels, Crayons Soft Charcoal Brushes. I saved this under a new name.

I then used Paint.NET to add my Signature layer and resized , placed it with the property Additive. I merged the layers. Saving again as a JPG. I used the original bordered size of the piece for display.

All song names and the artist name are owned by Joe Bonamassa and his company. See the link above for more information about this Great Blues/Rock Singer/Songwriter/Performer. Thanks!

"Bonamassa and Friends - Slow Train Acoustic" Painter Essentials 5 Plus

Bonamassa and Friends - Slow Train Acoustic

"Bonamassa and Friends - Slow Train Acoustic," is from a screen capture I took watching a video of the performance. I opened in Picasa 3+ and used the Pencil Sketch tool on the image. Saving that I opened the black and white piece in Painter Essentials 5.

I Hand Painted on the Canvas Layer using the color palette in Essentials. Brushes used were the Chalk and the Diffuse Water Brushes set at varying small sizes and Opacity. I painted each Individual with my choice of colors and the same for the Lighting.

I saved that and then created a second layer, filling it with a Light Gray color. I used the property Multiply on that layer for transparency. Then I dropped all layers and saved the Large file again.

Next I opened the file in PhotoPaint and Hand Painted more of the background, using the eyedropper to select colors. I used the Light Turin Cover Brush to hand paint. All color choices were mine, not from the original screen capture. I used the Tone Curve for depth to the colors and increased the Saturation by 15 for a punchy view. I saved this iteration.

As Picasa was still open, I used the Museum Matte for the matte and framing, saved again. In PhotoPaint I added my signature layer, sized and placed it using the property Add for transparency. and I saved the Large piece again.

I resampled the file in PhotoPaint for display at 96dpi, 75 compression, 25 smoothing, saved as a JPG. Be certain to click on the image for the Larger view of all the details and textures! Thanks!

"Lead Guitar Player III" Picasa - Painter Essentials 5 Plus

Lead Guitar Player III

Continuing with a music theme I chose another "Lead Guitar Player III" photograph to Digitally Paint. I opened first in Picasa 3+ and applied the HDR effect with the Radius Medium and the Value, or Strength to Higher. This gave the image great tonal contrasts. I saved that change.

In Painter Essentials 5 I selected  the Oil Painting set with a Digital Watercolor Diffuse Water Brush, thus set I Digitally Painted the HDR image. I used Apply Surface Texture Effect with Image Luminance Texture. I then did a light Detailed Watercolor, still using the Diffuse Water Brush, stopping the set before it completed.

In Picasa again I applied and added a Black Border to the piece and saved that iteration.

Using Paint.NET I added my signature layer with the property Additive for transparency. I saved that iteration at 100%, 120dpi. I next resized the image to display size 95 compression and 120dpi JPG.

As always I encourage my readers to click on the image to view the large piece for all details and the best of views. Open from your browser, use F11 (in most browsers) for the full screen view and go back to the regular setting by using F11 again.

I am hoping to add some newer Digital Download CDBaby Singles in the coming months. I invite you to listen the the Full Previews as you visit gatzkART!. Just use the CDBaby Kiosks lower down on the page of images and explanations. I have ten songs for your enjoyment.

You may also notice a Featured Post added to the page on the right hand side. I will be featuring different older posts here for you to review. I will be using Music Posts here and other multi-viewed posts that seem to have been favorites through the time frame of this blog. Click and enjoy the Featured Post as you are attracted to them. 

If you enjoy my Artwork and Music you can Subscribe to my Feedburner Email list for updates to your own email address when I post new works! Add your email address and click Subscribe. Your privacy is very important to me and I will not resell or give out your addresses! Thanks!

"Grunge Textured Acoustic Guitar Player" PhotoPaint

Grunge Textured Acoustic Guitar Player

I received a suggestion that I try to reinstall my Corel Graphics Suite 12 with "Troubleshoot Compatibility" The Install worked with a WinXP Service Pack 3 compatibility. So I now have the Suite running under this setting complete with CorelDRAW and PhotoPaint, and the other Suite programs.

I tested the program PhotoPaint only to have it crash as I had too many Large files open. I learned from that to keep my files down to a minimum while working in PhotoPaint. And to save frequently!

I opened an "Acoustic Guitar Player," free to edit photograph, in PhotoPaint. I applied the Threshold tool for white space and minimized colors. I saved this file. Then I opened a Grunge Texture file from the Freebie Fridays Textures I receive from Stockvault. I copied the image to the clipboard and then deleted it from my workspace. I pasted it over the Acoustic Guitar Player image. Here I used the property Multiply and I merged the layers.

I increased the Saturation of the colors a bit and then save this iteration. I now only had a single file open in PhotoPaint. I added my signature layer with open, copy, paste as layer, then deleted the signature image. I resized to fit and used the property Add for transparency. I merged the file and saved again.

Going to Image, Resample I decreased the piece for display, 96dpi, 75 compression, and 25 smoothing, Optimized JPG.

I was happy that I had no further problems with too many large files open in PhotoPaint. That seemed to allow me to be creative yet frugal in my image creation, frequent saving of files as one goes along is very wise.

"Violin Close Up" Painter Essentials 5 Plus

Violin Close Up

Continuing in a Musical frame of mind, a free to edit photograph of a "Violin Close Up," was used. As you can tell from my last couple of posts I like Musical themed images, and I like Digital Watercolor with variations of Brushes used.

I opened the photograph in Painter Essentials 5, selecting the Watercolor Sketch set. I picked from the Acrylic and Oils Brushes the Wet Oily Brush and Digitally Painted the piece. I added back in details of the strings, bridge, and sound hole using the Photo Painting Brush Soft Cloner, painting by hand.

I hand painted the surrounding background using first the Digital Watercolors Brush - Wash Brush. I continued to paint using the following: the Spatter Water Brush, the Pencils, Pens and Markers Brush Dry Ink, for the Ocher-like hatching. I also used the Photo Painting Brush - New Simple Water to tone down the Blue watercolor a tad. As you can see a Paper Texture was used during the entire process.

Saving that large file, I opened in Paint.NET and added my signature layer with the property Multiply for transparency, and merged the layers. I saved that iteration to Post.

My notes here are incomplete, but I am certain I used Irfanview to Resize/Resample the piece for posting size at 72.dpi JPG.

As always I encourage you to click on the Image for the Larger view to see the details and textures clearly.

If you haven't listened to any of my songs listed in the CDBaby Kiosks below they are Full song Previews for you to have a listen. Just scroll to the Kiosks below and select a song you haven't listened to yet and sample my Independent Alternative Folk/Rock Music.

"Street Musicians Two" Painter Essentials 5

Street Musicians Two

"Street Musicians Two," began as another one of the Guitars and Music, free to edit, photographs I found recently. I opened the photograph in Painter Essentials 5 and applied the Effect Sharpen first, this brought out details that were slight.

I next selected the Colored Pencil Drawing set, using Pencils, Pens, and Markers Oily Variable Pencil and Digitally Painted the image. In the enlargement of the image you can see the lines of the Pencil used. Just before it completed I stopped the effect. I then selected the Watercolor Sketch set, with the Oily Variable Pencil as the Brush setting still. This was a good combination of styles and lead to lines as well as watercolors added.

I then selectively hand painted back in some details to the Instruments and the Musicians using the Photo Painting Brush Soft Cloner. I saved that large iteration.

Now in Paint.NET I selected some Adjustments namely the Saturation boosting the colors from 100% to 110% for a punch. I also added my signature layer and merged the layers.

In Irfanview I added a Black Border, and saved that, then Resized/Resampled at 72dpi for display.

"Street Musicians" Picasa - Painter Essentials 5 - PaintDotNET

Street Musicians

I gathered up a few new Guitar and Musician based themed free photographs. "Street Musicians," is the first piece I Digitally worked on. I opened in Picasa 3+ and applied the HDR effect, Radius was Medium, and the Strength or Value was Fair.

Saving that I opened in Painter Essentials 5. Here I used a Modern Painting set with Acrylics and Oils Real Wet Brush. After Digitally Painting that I used the Photo Painting Brush Soft Cloner to add detail to each of the Musicians and a tad to the background trees. Back in Picasa I applied a Black on Black Border and saved again.

Opening it with Paint.NET I applied Adjustments, Curves to add depth, and added my signature layer with the Property Lighten. I then merged the layers. I saved the large iteration at 120dpi.

I Resized /Resampled in Irfanview at 72dpi for display with another name.

"How I Did This: Cabin in the Forest" Painter Essentials 5 - PaintDotNET -Irfranview

Cabin in the Forest

The "Cabin in the Forest," began as a photograph from Unsplash Free Photographs. I opened the file in Painter Essentials 5 and used Effects Tonal Control - Equalize for brightening the colors.

I selected the Watercolor Sketch set, and used an F-X Brush called Glow to Digitally paint the image. I then added back in some details using the Photo Painting Brush Soft Cloner by hand. Using Effects, Apply Surface Texture I chose 3D Luminance to add Texture to the piece. I added back in some details with the Soft Cloner Brush lightly.

I saved the large 3000 X 2000 pixel image at 72dpi, with a new name. Next I opened in Paint.NET.

Here I applied some Adjustments, first in Curves I lightened the image depth of color, then using Saturation I increased colors by 115% from 100%. I added my Signature Layer using the Property Lighten and merged the layer down. I saved that iteration with the same name.

I needed to resize for display here on the blog. I opened the file in Irfranview. Here I resized the piece and resampled the compression for a smaller JPG file. Please click on the file for a larger view and notice the details and texture.

My CDBaby Kiosks are still lower down on the page for you to sample Full Previews of my music. I encourage you to listen to my Independent Music which I call Alternative Folk Rock. All ten songs are for sale at only $0.99 apiece, with the exception of, "Hello, Hello!," which is a shorter song, reminiscent of the Beatles 70's era. Click on the arrow on the second Kiosk to select a new song to hear and the image and titles will change. Remember Full Previews of all songs are available for your listening to all ten songs. Have a click or two!

"Digitally Painted Doors Digital Collage" Painter Essentials 5 - Picasa Plus

Digitally Painted Doors Collage

I created this collage from free photographs that I got from Unsplash. Some of them I had done earlier, and as I wanted to present a Digital Collage of a Series of Doors I did a few more.

The Aqua Door and Windows with the Ocher Wall I opened in Painter Essentials 5. I used the Artist Brushes set, with Impressionistic Blender Jitter brush. I also used the Photo Painting Brush - Soft Cloner for details.

In the upper right hand corner, the Brown Door and Shutters I opened in Painter Essentials 5. Here I applied the Watercolor Sketch set with Photo Painting Brush, Grainy Variable Pencil selected. I used Picasa to up the Shadows and in Paint.NET I added my signature layer with the property Multiply for transparency.

On the Burgundy Door with Foliage I used GIMP's Oil Paint and added Texture to the entire image. Very simple changes in color with Saturation and Curves for depth. (Lower right hand corner.)

The Green Door and Windows with the White Wall, I used Painter Essentials 5, Watercolor Sketch with Photo Painting Brush, Chalk Cloner. Then I added a touch of the Colored Pencil Drawing set using a Grainy Variable Brush. In Paint.NET, I again upped the Saturation and depth with Curves.

I grouped the images all in their own Folder named Doors. Opening Picasa 3+ I selected them all and chose Create Collage, Repositioned a couple of the images and made the large Digital Collage.

I used Irfranview to resize the JPG file for display at 72dpi.

I am now pretty satisfied with my slight penchant with a Doorway Series, as this Digital Collage served to create differing views of Doorways and Windows. I invite you to click on the image for the larger view, and to see more of the details of each Doorway and surrounds.

"Lead Guitar Player" PaintDotNET - Painter Essentials 5

Lead Guitar Player

I have been thinking about Music lately, my own and others. I decided to do a post about Guitar Playing. I found a really nice "Lead Guitar Player," photograph from UNsplash.

It was actually a very dark piece color wise so I opened in Paint.NET and used Adjustments, Curves, lightening the colors. I then went to Effects, Artistic, Ink. I lowered the number of Ink pen and upped the color to allow the modified colors to show through. I saved that large file.

Opening in Corel Painter Essentials 5 I selected the Detailed Watercolor set. Using Digital Watercolor Dry Brushes I Digitally Painted the piece. With the Soft Cloner Brush I added back in some details, as is my custom.

Going to Effects, Tonal Control I Equalized the Colors, as the painting as a watercolor had dimmed them. This brought the colors back to a balance I liked. I saved that iteration with a new name.

I returned to Paint.NET and applied my signature layer with the property Multiply for transparency. I merged all layers and saved again. I resized the image right in Paint.NET for display.

I recently recorded the song "Good Riddance - Time of Your Life," by Green day with my singing and playing my 12-String. For effect I doubled the singing and playing, on a second track. I used Reverb on both. So I have a experimental Echo sound to the song. I enjoyed doing it but it's not for everybody as the Echo effect is quite pronounced.

It won't be for sale as I do not have the resources to pay fees for a Cover of Green Day's song. But I have been actively seeking others songs to play and record for fun and mixing experience.

"The Brown Door and Green Scooter" Painter Essentials 5 Plus

The Brown Door and Green Scooter

Looking for additional "Door," photographs I discovered this one on UNsplash. "The Brown Door and Green Scooter," is good subject matter for a Digitally Painted image.

I opened the photograph in Corel Painter Essentials 5 and selected the Illustration set. I chose the Artist Brush, Van Gogh Small, then digitally painted the image. It altered some of the colors but left a brilliant palette.

Many details need some restoration so I selected the Soft Cloner Brush and touched up the Steps. Door, Flower boxes, and the Scooter.

I went to Effects and Apply Image Texture to add some texture to the image. I used the Image Illumination setting and applied that. Look at the larger image by clicking on it for a closer look at the texture and details.

I next used Paint.NET to add my signature layer. I used the property Multiply, and deselected all, then Merged the layer down. I saved the large iteration.

Using Irfranview I opened that and resampled to a display size, saved with a secondary name.

"The Blue Door II" Painter Essentials 5 - GIMP - Irfranview

The Blue Door II

I garnered this photograph of another Blue Door. I wanted to do a series of Doors if I could find other good photographs. I selected this one and opened in Painter Essentials 5.

There I selected the Modern Painting set, and chose a Photo Painting Brush Pencil for the Digital painting. I then added back in some details using the Soft Cloner brush, like the door handle and grain of the wood.

I saved that large file and opened it in GIMP, here I added a layer of my signature. I also used Curves to add depth to the image. I Flattened the layers and saved again.

Using Irfranview I kept the image proportions but decreased the compressed size for the display JPG file. I kept the image at 72dpi.

All the time learning and using these programs as they challenged me with differing interfaces and different labels for doing each step. Time consuming but rather intuitive (avoiding manuals) having an enjoyable time while still producing Digital Visual Art.

If you want to have an email feed update sent directly to you, sign up for emails in the Right Hand column. Updates will be sent directly to your email address. Privacy is of utmost importance I will never share, sell, divulge, your email addresses.

My Music CDBaby Kiosks are to be found below with Full Previews of ten of my songs for sale. They are downloads from CDBaby's website. Share the Music or click on the shopping cart to purchase a download of any of these songs.  Thank you for your interest in my Digital Visual Art and Indie Music.

"Foggy Autumn Path" PainDotNET - Picasa - Irfranview

Foggy Autumn Path

I opened this photograph of a Foggy Autumn Path in Paint.NET. Here I played around with the Oil Paint Effects, adjusting the value and coarseness of the brush application. I also used the Curves and Saturation for a boost and depth to the colors, bringing out the Autumn trees in the background through the Fog.

I added my signature as a layer and am still learning how to resize it to a proper size for my images. I flattened the layers together. I opened the piece in Picasa and applied the Museum Matte for the framing.  I selected a light green for the Matte to enhance the greens in the mid-ground.

I experimented with Windows 10 Photo editing program. I enhanced the image. Then I increased the Ocher colors a tad for some interest on the Path and the main Tree on the right.

That program is limited in it's functionality but was worth the experiment with it.

I used Irfranview to resize the image for display, as the other programs saved my large views as large files.  Smaller files load more quickly. Be sure to click on the image for a larger view.

I noticed in my Stats that I am getting interest from both outside the US and other countries. Simpler posts seem appropriate for now. Thanks for your interest!

"The Blue Door" Painter Essentials 5 - New Learning Curve - GIMP - PaintDotNet - Inkscape

The Blue Door

A experimental post to see if anyone is still interested in gatzkART!

This image was Digitally Oil Painted in Corel Painter Essentials 5, with a small setting brush. Details added with a Straight Cloner Brush. House Number changed in Paint.NET.

GIMP layers for the signature.

Trying out new Open Source programs GIMP; Paint.NET; Inkscape. Learning curve with all except Painter Essentials 5 which is similar to Painter, but with more Auto Painting styles and Brushes as compared to Painter Photo Essentials 4.

None of my older legacy Corel programs work with the newest Windows 10 updates. So I am on a new course learning these other programs strengths and weaknesses.

Comment if you would like.