"2016 Time to Re-String Your Guitar" Hand Painted Painter Essentials 5 Plus

2016 Time to Re-String Your Guitar

“2016 Time to Re-String Your Guitar,” began as a free to edit photograph I selected from my Guitar and Music Folder this morning. I began by using Paint.NET's Effects, Artistic, Ink tool and created a digital Pen and Ink image to work with. I saved the large file.

Next I opened the file in Painter Essentials 5 and using varying Digital Watercolor Brushes, I hand painted this piece. I varied from brush to brush changing sizes and strokes. I did not take notes today I just wanted to paint by hand without interruptions. I have an older Wacom Tablet that I use to paint digitally. Hand eye coordination is very important, plus a bit of artistic abandon is freeing.

I selected the colors from the basic palette from Essentials 5, and tried to make the image colorful but consistent. I did later pick a Dry Ink Brush for some details I wanted to add, with a distinctive color of my choice. I saved the large file again.

Then I opened the file in PhotoPaint and adjusted the Tone Curve and Saturation for punch and depth. I brought up my Signature file for 2015 and cloned out the copyright symbol and the date. I used an Arial font for the new copyright symbol and new 2016 date. I did this on my Black and White signature file, I still need to alter the inverted signature file.

I added the signature layer to the piece and sized and placed it, using the Property Add for transparency I merged the layers. I saved once again.

Picasa 3+ was opened so I used the Warmify tool for additional depth to the colors. I added a Black and Brown Border here as well. I uploaded the image from Picasa to my online Picasa Albums.

Back in PhotoPaint I Resampled the file at 120dpi with 75 compression and 25 smoothing, I saved that file for display with a new name.

I have a Seagull S12 Cedar 12-String Guitar, so it takes much time to re-string it when I do that. I love the full-bodied sound of the 12-String and really enjoy playing it. It was built in 1990 and is still going strong. It needs a bit of fret work to freshen the sound. We will see what the budget allows soon for that.

We also have a used Violin for my wife that needs work to bring it up to playing worthiness. That is in the new budget for this year as well.