"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!

Purple Floral - Still Waiting for Spring - Paint.NET - PhotoPaint - Painter 11

Purple Floral - Waiting for Spring in Michigan

It is a partially sunny day with some blue sky and clouds here in Michigan. I was out and about yesterday and saw some green and a few, very few flowers coming up. It was raining and gloomy.

So I browsed my folders in Picasa 3 and selected a purple floral theme for today's image. I opened with Paint.NET and used the Kuwahara Modified filter on the image for simplified brushstrokes. I saved the large file and opened in PhotoPaint there using Filter Forge's watercolor frame and also added a black border and my signature. Saving that I opened in Painter 11.

I like the textured look you can get with the Apply Surface Texture Image Luminance. It gives the illusion of many brushstrokes. So I applied that to the image. I saved again and resampled in PhotoPaint for display here.

Listening --- Travis --- Flowers In The Window

Damsel and Knight - Painter 11 - PhotoPaint

"Damsel and Knight," is based on a Dover Publications ink print from the sampler collection that I have. I opened the image in PhotoPaint and increased it by resampling at 96dpi. I saved that as a work file.

Opening in Painter 11 I used Karen's Watercolors brush to paint the majority of the details. I did use the tinting brushes for the background and a cloud brush for the sky. I did append more colors to the base color palette for a wider selection of them.

Again I did not draw this scene - it comes from Dover Publications email samplers. Go to their site and sign up for them.

I took the image into PhotoPaint again to use the wand tool on the white frame and filed it with a sky picture. I had the rest of the image masked off, so I applied Effects> Texture> Plaster> to the sky I had added as a frame. Then I made a black 40 pixel border for the entire image.

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Now playing: Beatles - And I Love Her
via FoxyTunes

More Guitar Dreams - PhotoPaint

Additional dreaming about guitars is today's subject for an image. I took this photograph at Motor City Guitar of a rack filled with electric and hollow body guitars. I opened it in PhotoPaint and applied the Effects> Art Strokes> Charcoal> to it. This gave me a grayscale image that appeared to have been drawn.

I browsed in Picasa 3 for my Mayang's Textures and found this one for the texture. I copied to the clipboard and used File> New from Clipboard> to bring it into PhotoPaint. Next I copied the charcoal guitar image to the clipboard and pasted it into the texture.

I applied the object property Texturize to it, which gave it the transparency I wanted. I merged the two images. I used Filter Forge's Photo Effects on the image which gave it some Vibrancy. With Filter Forge's frames I picked a variant of a halftone frame. Then I added a 10 pixel black border still in PhotoPaint.

Classic Acoustic Guitars - Paint.NET - PhotoPaint

A short post today. Here is an image from a photograph of some classic acoustic guitars.

In Paint.NET I used the Kuwahara Modified filter for a painterly look. Then used the Ink sketch filter for line art. I adjusted the Curves> Luminosity> for depth of color.

I took the file into Painter and applied the Lighting filter which gave it a bit of vignetting.

In PhotoPaint I added the frame with Filter Forge's Freepack Frames.

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Now playing: Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps
via FoxyTunes

Beach Scene - Holland, Michigan - Painter 11 - Paint.NET

This project started as a photograph of the beach at Holland State Park in Holland, Michigan. I found it browsing in Picasa 3. I did some prep work on it using Paint.NET applying a filter that simplified the photograph into a painterly appearance.

I then took that saved file and opened with Painter 11, did a quick clone and selected the Oil brush. I was hoping for an impasto look and feel and this is what I got. I also used the Soft cloner and the straight clone to bring back some of the altered detail.

I grabbed the Distortion brush Confusion and diffused the sky. I left the rest of the image alone. Back in PhotoPaint I added a Painting frame in Filter Forge.

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Now playing: Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris - Beachcombing
via FoxyTunes

Maxfield Parrish - Digital Collage - PhotoPaint

Again browsing in Picasa 3 I went to my Mayang's Textures folder and selected a flaking blue paint texture for my background. Using two images from Dover Publications, done by Maxfield Parrish I created a simple digital collage in PhotoPaint.

I liked the blues of both Parrish paintings, they went well with the blue texture. I had resized the image to 1200 then added a Navy blue 10 pixel border in PhotoPaint. I added his name to the collage like I did with the Alphonse Mucha collage I had done recently.

Doing a search on the artist I found many reference sites for him [click here] for one about his art and illustrations.

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Now playing: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)
via FoxyTunes

Curly Haired Young Lady Portrait - Painter 11

The image today started with another portrait from the WetCanvas galleries. This young woman has very curly hair and a pleasant demeanor.

I browsed in Picasa 3 and located this image then I opened with Painter 11. I applied the Quick Clone to set up the tracing paper for painting the image. I began with the Pencil cloner for the hair to imitate the curls. I switched to the Oil Bristle cloner for the face and neck and dress. This gave me an impasto quality to those portions.

Using the Soft cloner I added the eyes, eyebrows and mouth for finer detail. I used the Camel cloner to go over the hair and fill it in, adding the background with it and the Soft cloner for the drapery and wall paper details.

I used the Pencil cloner for the eyes to give them a more painterly appearance. And used the Soft Cloner to add back in detail to the curly hair, especially the crown and edges, which shows much more detail.

I am still using the Tracing Paper as I am just now getting used to Painter 11. I will journey further away from this as I develop more courage and confidence in my painting abilities.

This second image is from playing with different Brushes and the Image Hose and Textures for a fun exercise in Painter 11.

As you can see it has a variety of Brushes and the Image Hose can add realism to any painting. I did use many new brushes I downloaded that are not native to Painter 11. I painted the yellow orange flowers and foliage with some and then used other watercolor brushes for the sky.

In any event it was an enjoyable experiment with the new tools of Painter 11.

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Now playing: Acoustic Junction - Strange Days
via FoxyTunes

12-String - 6-String Guitars - Digital Watercolor - Painter

As you are aware one of my favorite motifs is guitar images. This digital watercolor began as a photograph taken by me with my Canon Rebel XTi.

I opened the photograph in Painter 8 and cloned the image. I enlarged the image on screen to work on it and selected all and cleared the canvas. Using CTRL-T I turned on the tracing paper. I like watercolors so I selected Digital watercolor brushes for this image and painted away with the clone button selected.

This gave me a very loose image to work with. I used short to medium brushstrokes for the looseness. I love the way the brushes overlay one another. I painted the two guitars and then turned off the tracing paper. I used a mop brush for the background and added some grayish lines and then used the salt brush.

To add back details of the push pins and strings I selected the soft cloner brush. This was done just enough to bring in touches of detail.

I saved the large file and reopened it in PhotoPaint. I added a 10 pixel walnut brown border and my signature. Here I resampled the image for display on the web.

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Now playing: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - ADEE7 Deep Movers
via FoxyTunes

Dual Guitars - Painter - Liquid Ink - Watercolor

I browsed through my guitar photographs and selected one of my favorites for this piece. I opened the photograph in Painter and used the Liquid Ink and Digital Watercolor brushes to render this painting.

I like the thickness of the Graphic Ink brush and the watercolor brushes. I cloned the original and enlarged it on screen and cleared the workspace then used CTRL-T to use the tracing paper. I kept the process simple as I wanted a likeness that showed enough details, like the strings.

The 12-String is my Seagull and the 6-String is my son's Lyon guitar. I had them both for a while when this photograph was taken. I applied Filter Forge's watercolor frame and saved the large file.

Opening it in PhotoPaint I used the wand tool to select the white space surrounding the image and applied the mask. I used a fill type of wood to finish the frame. I resampled the image for display on the web.

Stay With You by Gatzka Music
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Now playing: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Pages Without Numbers
via FoxyTunes

Old Building - Toledo Ohio - Art Nouveau

I began today's image as a large collage made in Picasa 3. There I used the collage aspect of super-
imposing photo-
graph upon photograph to create a background.

I opened PhotoPaint and using Picasa selected an older building photograph taken by my son Keir M. Gatzka in downtown Toledo, Ohio. I copied it to the clipboard and pasted it into the background.

In Paint.NET I turned the same building into an pen and ink image which I copied and pasted over the existing gray-scaled buildings image, using the object property Multiply to allow the background to show through.

In PhotoPaint I went to my Dover Publications clip art folder and selected an advertisement that I reshaped and resized to place on the side of the building. I used object property Opacity to alter the transparency of the advertisement to allow the brick work and cement work to show through.

I also selected another advertisement for the center block of the front of the building. which I sized and reshaped to fit. Also altering the opacity of it to add slight color to the building's heading. I added a stained glass window to one of the windows of the building.

I took an Art Nouveau frame which was portrait in size and made it a rectangle to fit the image for framing it. I altered the color to match the building's color.

I then added the Art Nouveau woman and cut her out while in PhotoPaint and pasted her into the image. I used the eraser to clean her up and applied object feathering to her, sizing her to the window to give the appearance of her reaching out. Then placed her with the Ctrl-Shift-Down Arrow.

I upped the saturation of the picture a bit for boosting the color and used the Tone Curve to give it some depth.

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Now playing: The Beatles - Hard Days Night
via FoxyTunes

Dancers Surrounded - Digital Collage - Self Portrait

This digital collage began as an Art Nouveau floral back-
ground from Mayang's Textures. As I went I added various pieces to the collage, some Roaring Twenties, Japanese, a couple dancing, a self portrait, a man working an old saw, and a banner.

I used some of Dover Publications clip art along with images I produced, like the dancers and self portrait. I placed each piece and sized them to fit, angling some. The majority of the work was done in PhotoPaint with a bit done in Paint.NET.

I am down to two days of my 30 day Alien Skin Exposure trial so I did pick Color Film> Cinema> Technicolor Vibrant> which boosted all the color of the image.

I added a brown border of 50 pixels width with a double film frame from Filter Forge's Freepack 3.

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Now playing: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Switch Time
via FoxyTunes

Tritone - Stone Village Hovel

I made mention of the Stone Village in my previous post. Here is a house or small hovel, the photograph taken at the Village.

Using Corel's PhotoPaint I altered the image to a Tritone and then converted it back to a 24-bit color image. If you look closely to the left side you can see where I used KPT's Collection Projector filter to straighten the photograph. I also added a slight brown frame to it for better balance.

I love these warm tones as it builds an image that is closer to what the stone colors were like at the time the photograph was taken.

As you can notice I am having an much better day, thank you. And I just got done putting up a bathroom fan with my wife. Something we have needed since the old one broke down. One little project on the house. We have many, it's a list that is intimidating to one who is not a fixer-upper.

Ahh, music, still in a dry spell, but much more positive today. It will break soon I can feel it. So in the meantime I am listening to many new songs that I am unfamiliar with. Helps me want to stretch my talents beyond my usual fare. Those of us who do songwriting need to do that so as not to grow stale and produce the same sound all of the time. I have been playing so long by myself that I tend to do just that, stay safely within my style. I need to grow and listening to others songs can be cathartic.

It is warmer and sunny today and the lake is beautiful, partly cloudy but some blue out there. Lends itself to a more upbeat outlook. Hope your day is a great one.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Go Betweens - Streets Of Your Town
via FoxyTunes

Duck Baker - Bluesman

My continuing series of bluesmen from Blue Front Blues Room.

Using PhotoPaint I adjusted the saturation to boost the colors on this image, colors which were already quite cool. I also use some filters to create a more painterly look to this piece.

All of the photographs are John Anderson's from his site. I have his permission to apply my efforts to them to create some distinctive images. He in turn may use them on his site in the future. So it goes both ways, we both benefit from this arrangement. I get good photos to work from and he gets some unique images for his use as well. Pretty great I think!

I haven't been writing much lately, I really have a bad case of the wintertime blues. So I have been low in activity musically but doing more in the area of the digital visual arts. I realy need some warm weather, like many folks I get cabin fever in the wintertime. I have been walking on the treadmill as I listen to CD's, this keeps me somewhat active but it is not like taking a nice walk outside.

So those reading this I hope you are weathering this winter better than I!

Point is to be creative in some way!