"Vintage Abandoned House" PicsArt Photo Studio Plus

Vintage Abandoned House

I opened this photograph of a "Vintage Abandoned House," in PicsArt Photo Studio on my computer. I applied a tool to make it a Sketch-like image. After that, I used the Draw tools to select a couple of different Brushes to hand paint the sketch in color. (I have a Wacom USB Tablet with stylus connected to my computer for painting.)

I used the Mask tools to add a Border to the piece. Not quite what I wanted I added a Photo of a Rusty Texture using the Screen property. Using the Text tool I added my name and the year. I saved that image to my computer.

I went to Paint.NET and adjusted the Saturation for additional color. The blue painted sky lost some of it's blue to an overcast look. I saved the large image again.

The steps were simple, except for the painting by hand which took some time. I used Paint.NET to resize to display size. 95dpi, 1220 X 813 pixels, with 85 Compression for a smaller image. I save it with a new name.

I have three differing views of this Abandoned House in photographs. I did one other prior to this one. I may do the other photograph in a similar way. I think that the decay displayed is of interest to many readers.

With this post, I reached the Milestone of over 175,000 Plus Pageviews! Thank you for your patronage!

"The Lone Street Musician" PE5 Plus

The Lone Street Musician

Another photograph of "The Lone Street Musician." I liked the image from the beginning. A Street Guitarist, possibly a singer as well, presenting himself in a corner of a plaza.

I opened the file in Corel Painter Essentials 5 (PE5.) I began by applying the Pen and Ink Drawing settings. I tried one brush but it was not very clear, and I wanted a clean, bright Pen and Ink look. So I set the Brush to the Dry Ink and painted again. This gave me a better drawing.

To add to the Ink Drawing, I selected the Detailed Watercolor setting. A soft light brush was chosen the New Simple Water Brush. I digitally painted again. This gave me a Pen and Ink Watercolor image.

The next step was to increase color depth of the piece. I selected Equalize from the Effects. There I set the Black Point to 21.2% and left the White Point at 100%. I altered the Gamma to 60%, and this punched up the color. I saved this large file with a new name.

Next, I opened the file in Paint.NET. I selected the Line Brush at 3 points, with a Backwards slash setting. I hand painted a light border with the brush. I opened my signature file, copied it, and added it as a new layer. Using the property Multiply, I then merged the layers. I saved this file at 100% compression.

I now only needed to Resize the piece for display. I adjusted it to 72dpi, 1220 X 1049, with 75 as the compression. I saved this file with a new name.

"How to: Red Espresso" PE5 Plus

Red Espresso

I have recently found a few new free to edit photographs from Pixabay, Picjumbo, and a few others. I had an email to myself of the sites which I promptly deleted today upon doing some email clean up. It is a listing from Kim Garst's Blog online. So I hope I can find it again.

I did not keep track of the source of this photograph I chose to digitally paint, but it was a large file size with great dpi and depth of colors.

I first opened it in Paint.NET on my laptop. I did some Adjustments using Curves for depth and increasing the Saturation to 110. I saved this file.

Next, I used Picasa's HDR tool with light settings for that sharp look and feel. I saved again.

I reopened the image in Corel's Painter Essentials 5 (PE5.) Here I selected to do an Oil Painting with Acrylic and Oils Brush: Opaque Detail Brush. It was a small brush which gave the oil painting much detail. I saved the file with a new name.

I added my signature layer in Corel's PhotoPaint, and saved this iteration. Then I resampled the file for display here. I used the settings 240dpi 1220 X 813 and saved with a new name. An optimzed JPG with compression at 75 and smoothing at 25.

With the Oil Painting having a white surrounding area I decided to add a Frame. I used Picasa's Museum Matte tool, giving it a red matte. I saved this iteration, slightly larger with the Frame and matte added.

Thus, you have the image for today, "Red Espresso."

"Cup and Teapot" PaintDotNET

Cup and Teapot

A new photograph from Unsplash, free to edit. This one caught my eye. I like the full reddish color of the Cup and Teapot sitting on the checkered towel.

I brought the file into Paint.NET and applied the Ink Sketch Artistic tool. I upped the color and lowered the pen size. I then went to Adjustments, Curves RGB, increasing the depth a bit. I also increased the Saturation to boost the colors to 110.

I went to Effects Photo for Sharpening the image as it has such great depth of field, I wanted the subject to stand out a bit more.

I saved the large iteration after adding my name and the year, with the text tool. I then re-sized the image for display at 72dpi, 1220 X 813 pixels and used 75 for compression. I saved that display size.

"Arches and Shadows" PicsArt App

Continuing to work with the PicsArt App on my tablet. I used a Pastel filter first, then I added a Gouache filter, lightening the fade.

Got my Stylus in hand, choosing colors and adjusting the opacity, size, of the Brush. I painted on the image. I applied enhanced color according to my mood.

I tried to make sure that I painted lightly.  I'm sure that as I gain experience with this approach to digital painting I will improve. There are many different types of brushes to choose from but two of them are my favorites right now.

I have found that PicsArt has many #freetoedit, photographs of many different kinds.

I chose the Arches for the shadows and great perspective.

"How this was done: Sister in law and Younger Brother" Corel

Sister in law and Younger Brother

I was visiting my family up north in Farwell, Michigan and received some photographs from them for our albums. I took them and scanned them in using my Canon MP495 All-in-One. I set the scans for 300dpi and saved them to a Family Photo Folder.

I opened this portrait in Corel PSP Pro X3. The first thing I did was to crop the image, ridding it of some of the White Sky on the top of the original photograph. I applied the Smart Photo Fix:

• Brightening
• Increasing shadows
• Upping the color a bit

I then used Adjust Curves for Depth, and  Saturation Vibrancy set at +20 for greater color.

I next opened the altered photograph in Corel Painter Essentials 5. First I tried a Pastel Drawing:

• Chalk, Pastels and Crayons Brushes
• Selecting the Sharp Charcoal Pencil Brush
• size 7.0
• opacity 100%
• grain 25%
• Clone Color from Source Image

I digitally painted the image for the first time, saving the iteration.

I next decided I wanted to experiment with the Modern Painting settings in PE5:

• I painted from the Clone Color Source Image
• After that was done I could see where more detail was needed
• I Selected Photo Painting Brushes
• Soft Cloner
• And I Hand painted the Details back in with the setting for the Cloner Brush:
• Size 15.7
• Opacity 24%

I liked the resulting image, very painterly, and still with more details for the Faces, making a better portrait of my subjects. I saved that iteration with a differing name.

In PSP Pro X3 I added my Signature as a layer and sized and placed it with the property Multiply, merging and saving again.

As you can see I have used a combination of Narrative and Outline description of the process, workflow explanation. I hope you find it easier to follow the steps I took for this photograph to Digital Painting.

Musically I recently found online, three songs to learn to play on my Seagull 12-String Guitar and sing along in accompaniment. They are:

• Good Riddance, Time of Your Life: by Green Day
• I'm Fixing A Hole: by the Beatles
• Big Yellow Taxi: by Joni Mitchell - the Counting Crows version 

I am hoping this warmer weather continues as my Studio/Office gets pretty chilly this time of year. I would be more apt to practice and record Covers for my own enjoyment if it remains warmer in here!

The last poem I wrote, is not good fodder for lyrical or melody development, so I await until a new song strikes me for writing and recording. 

"How This was Done: Digital Watercolor Woman's Portrait"

Digital Watercolor Woman's Portrait

Grabbing a Woman's Portrait from Unsplash Free Photos I began adjusting it in Picasa 3+. I applied the Ortonish tool and was surprised to find a Textured, Vignetted, image. I saved that Large piece and opened it in Corel Painter Essentials 5.

There I selected the Detailed Watercolor setting, Rough Paper, Digital Watercolor Broad Brush, and painted it. I saved that iteration. I loaded it into Corel PSP Pro X3. Here I applied the Curves to add depth to the colors, also ran the Saturation Vibrancy at 33 on the image.

In PSP Pro X3 I loaded a Watercolor Paper from Stockvault's Friday Freebies, which happened to be the same size and portrait shape as the Digitally Painted Woman's Portrait. I copied the Portrait to the clipboard and Pasted as a New Layer to the Watercolor Paper. I had adjusted the Watercolor Paper with Curves as well, more depth to the color. I selected the Portrait and applied the Property Multiply to it. This allowed the Paper to show through with some transparency on the Portrait.

I opened my Signature file and copied and pasted as a New Layer to the two other layers. I sized and placed the signature, applying the property Multiply for transparency. I merged all Layers to one. Still in PSP Pro X3 I selected Image, Picture Frames, and picked a Rose colored frame with the setting outside the picture. I merged that as well.

I saved the Large iteration, then resized for display a 300dpi RGB 8 bit JPG.

"White Bearded Man Portrait" Corel

White Bearded Man Portrait

Back to Bearded Men Digital Portraits in today's exercise. I saw this portrait online recently and was immediately taken by the man's countenance. I just wanted to digitally paint him. So I downloaded from Morguefile and began to think about the endeavor.

To give greater detail to the image I opened it in Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 first. It began as a grayscale image, I used the Watercolor Sketch tool, Rough Paper, Saturate color (grayscale,) Dry Bristle Brush. I digitally painted it there for the sketchiness. This gave me a great piece to Digitally Paint by hand further in Corel Painter 11.

After I saved the large iteration I opened in Painter 11. I used my color palette with the Flesh tones and Earth tones appended, my current favorite palette. I used the Digital Watercolors Brushes, starting with a Coarse Dry Mop brush. I began to paint the fleshtones selecting ones darker than usual, and laid a background to work with. I added colors as I went selecting almost randomly. I varied the size of the brush as I painted, smaller to larger, back to smaller.

When I came to the Beard I selected the Liquid Ink Brushes for greater detail in his white hair and beard. I chose very small strokes for the beard and varied them only a bit as you can see, some larger some very small. This gave me a great effect for some realism sketchiness in the beard.

I painted the eyeglasses as Tortoise Shell, as the details indicated and the beginning photograph had shown. I selected a Digital Watercolor Green and some Yellow for the sweater, and background, adding in a touch of each to the face and eyes. I had layers of Digital Watercolor and Liquid Ink I selected all layers and Dropped all. This blended much of the colors together, as you will notice the green about the eyes. An unexpected result, perhaps a unhappy accident for the eyes only.

I saved the large iteration and opened in Corel PSP Pro X3, viewing it there I upped the colors by 33 in Saturation Vibrancy. I always use Vibrancy toward the punch that move brings to the pieces I paint digitally. I did not use Curves or the Smart Photo Fix at all on this image. Satisfied with the end result I added a layer with my signature, sizing and placing it, then merging the layers to one. Saved a large iteration then resized for display in this post.

"Bearded Mans Profile" Corel - Paint.NET

Bearded Mans Profile

I began this Bearded Mans Profile last night fairly late, finishing it about 10:30 PM. Rather late for a post so I will schedule it to post today, that is tomorrow, I think. If you see it is it posted!

The base photograph came from Morguefile and I opened it first in Paint.NET. I applied the Artistic, Ink tool to the piece, making sure the silhouette of the Profile showed clearly.

Saving that I opened it in Corel Painter 11 and used Digital Watercolors Brushes, Gouache Brushes and Conte Brushes for the image. I did not use the original color palette at all. I used my combination (appended) Flesh Tone, Plus palette. It gives me the flesh-tones I like and a multiple choice of colors for the Hat and Shirt. After I was finished painting I saved as a TIFF file.

I reopened in Corel PhotoPaint and added my signature layer. And added Saturation Vibrancy to it using Filter Forge's Photo Effects. Saving that as a TIFF file again. I resampled for display at 120dpi, saving as a JPG file with 75 compression and 25 smoothing.

"Woman Laying Down Portrait" Corel Painter

Woman Laying Down

I selected this photograph from Morguefile to Digitally Paint. I did not have to adjust the colors as I opened in Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4. There I auto painted using the Watercolor Sketch settings. I saved that iteration and opened in Corel Painter 11.

There I used a Gouache Bristle Brush with low opacity to begin adding some different color to the image. I added color to the face, the background, and her blouse. I also added white and light brown to the eyes. I appended the Flesh tones palette to the color palette and began using some of the light flesh tones. I added some to the face, and also to tie the composition together I added to the blouse.

I switched to a Blender Brush and did some softening of the bristles. I left the roughness of the eyes outline and eyebrows as I felt they looked painterly.

I saved that iteration and opened in Corel PSP Pro X3. There I added my signature and a Platinum Frame as layers. I merged all layers and applied the Saturation Vibrancy and a Paper Texture to the piece.

I also played a bit with Curves for some depth to the colors, Everything was complete and I saved the Large iteration. I Resized at 200dpi to display size and saved with another name. Here you see the result.

Be sure to  click on the image for the larger view! You will see the texture better as well as the image details. This is one more in my current series of Digital Painting with Corel Painter. I am enjoying this series very much, as I hope you are as well.

Note: As for my Music I am still allowing patrons to hear the full songs at CDBaby, before considering a purchase. I feel this gives one a better idea of the songs and is beneficial. 

In March, I will be releasing a series of songs that deal with the trouble one can have with Self-centered people. A song about such a person, A warning song, a reckoning song. Then I will finish with a song about the wonderful world around us, as healing takes place. 

"Bright Eyes Womans Portrait" Corel Painter

Bright Eyes Womans Portrait

Continuing with my series of Digitally Painted Portraits I selected a Woman's Portrait. I first opened in Corel PSP Pro X3 and created an RGB Grayscale image. I saved that large file and opened it in Corel Painter Photo Essentials 4 and auto painted it with the Watercolor Sketch settings.

After saving that I reopened it in Corel Painter 11 to Digitally Paint it using my Wacom tablet attached to my computer. I adjusted the Round Tinting Brush and began with some selected colors. I knew I wanted this to be a bright colorful painting, so I stuck with a palette that had just what I needed.

I spent much time on the face and eyes, keeping it bright. I did some blending with a blending tool. When I was satisfied with the face, eyes, and hair I painted the Background using a Chalk Brush. I used a form of Burnt Sienna for the base color. I also chose a light texture for the Chalk.

I switched to a Gouache Brush and an Indian Yellow, still using the texture, and painted around the Womans head. I narrowed the brush size and added some Indian Yellow to the Hair. Finishing with that I saved the large iteration with another name.

I opened it up in PSP Pro X3 again and layered my signature. Using the Effects Texture tool, I chose a paper texture for the entire image. Every layer was merged.

I had attempted to make the Eyes Hazel with blue, green, light brown, and yellow. I felt they looked just as I had wanted them, thus the "Bright Eyes Womans Portrait," Title.

"Map of NYC - Young Woman Portrait" Corel

Map of NYC - Young Woman Portrait

I was reading the other day that longer written content is getting greater attention on the Internet. This was according to some Marketing statistics. More words more attention.

Personally I have not experienced this phenomenon. I try to be fairly concise with my posts, to be fair to those who have a lot to read online. After all, we have Facebook, Google+, Twitter, News, and other things like videos to keep up with. I include myself in that statement.

I have almost used up my current Public Domain Maps. I will be searching for more if you are aware of any leave me a comment with a link I can follow.

Here, I have taken a Young Woman's Portrait and merged it with a Map of New York City. I used Corel's PSP Pro X3 to create this image. I imported the Young Woman first. Then opened and copied to the clipboard the Map, pasting as a new layer. I played around with the Curves of the Map, using Multiply as the property to add the transparency needed to see the Young Woman.

I wanted a full-color image so I did not use the Threshold tool for this piece. I added my signature as a layer, then I merged them all to one. I saved the large iteration then resized for display saving that with a secondary name.

According to Grammarly, I have slightly more than 237 words in my post. Was it long enough to keep your attention? Or, did I need more written content? What is your opinion? As this is a Digital Visual Art and Music blog, I think that the main focus is the image. 

Remember to click on it for a larger view! Thank you for your time and attention.

"Tired Man Collage" Paint.NET - Corel

Tired Man Collage

This particular image is of a "Tired Man," with Collage items added for interest. The face is from MorgueFile and the paper texture is from StockVault. The others, the woman, ferns, steampunk balloon, are all from Dover Publications Sampler Clipart. 

I did the majority of the layering and placing of the individual pieces of this little Digital Collage in Paint.NET. I started with the man's portrait, I flipped it horizontally first. Then applied the Outline tool for the reverse color. (It was Black and White to begin with.) I added the colored Paper Texture as a second layer. This placed the Portrait in the upper left hand corner, as the texture was a larger file.

Rather than adjust this I decided to search for some Clipart pieces, to make a Digital collage, on my External Hard Drive. After some time I picked the pieces here at random, hoping the viewer would make up a storyline for the resulting image.

I used Multiply as the transparency property on the layers, including my signature. I did some Curves adjusting still in Paint.NET then saved the large iteration.

I reopened that in Corel PSP Pro X3. Here I boosted the colors with Saturation Vibrancy set at 33, and I again touched it up with Curves for depth. I saved again and opened in PhotoPaint, after adding some Image Information.

In PhotoPaint I resampled the piece for display. Saving the Medium sized image compressed by 75 and smoothing at 33, for display here.

After viewing the image of today, click HOME and scroll down - Please don't forget to View my new video slideshow, a retrospective of some of my 2014 artwork along with a soundtrack of an Original song I wrote and recorded, "Reality Show." It is only vocals and my Seagull 12-String guitar, I wrote the lyrics and used an upbeat chord progression for the song. Simple is sometimes better, I did not add any lead or piano to it. 

Click on it and go to YouTube and like it for me, and comment on the Artwork and the song there if you wish! Thank you.

"Sunglasses and Stripes Woman's Portrait" Corel

Sunglasses and Stripes Woman's Portrait

This piece was opened in CorelTRACE first and turned into a CMX vector graphic. I saved it an opened in CorelDRAW. There I added some gradient colors and converted the grouped vector pieces to bitmapped. I copied that to the clipboard.

From there I opened in Corel PhotoPaint, New From Clipboard, it was a very large 300 dpi file. I applied the Artistic tool Crayons to it and then I added a Canvas Texture from Effects. I also used the Tone Curve to give the colors more depth.

Saving that iteration I resampled the image to display size. I added my signature to it and saved the medium sized image with compression set at 75 and smoothness at 33. I opened it in Corel PSP Pro X3 and upped the Saturation with Vibrancy. With Image Information I added Title Copyright, Programs used and saved again.

Feel free to browse my Labels Cloud at the bottom of the page for more Digitaal Visual Art of a variety of styles, including Collage.

"Colorful Digital Portrait - Young Lady" - CorelDRAW

Colorful Digital Portrait - Young Lady

I selected another Young Lady photograph from my MorgueFile research for today's post. I opened CorelTRACE and loaded the large file. I Traced using Advanced Outline. This gave me a native CMX file that I opened in CorelDRAW.

I Ungrouped the traced pieces and then I used differing gradients, and textures, to fill each area. This led to a colorful image of the Young Lady. I added a turquoise rectangle to the back of the pieces. I selected all the traced pieces, and the rectangle, and Grouped them as one unit. I then converted it to a bitmapped file. I copied the large bitmap to the Clipboard.

I opened Corel PhotoPaint and pasted New From Clipboard the copy. I added my signature in black. and saved the large file at 300 dpi. I resampled for display size, compressing by 62 and softened by 33, for a smaller file to load faster.

Be sure to click on the file for a larger view of it. F11 in Chrome will give you a full screen view, F11 back to the regular settings.

Comments are always welcome on experiments like this image. Feel free to browse "gatzkART!" for additional Digital Visual Art, as well as Woodward Dream Cruise Custom and Vintage cars, guitars images, along with other works. See the Labels Cloud by scrolling down to the lower parts of the blog page, Browse the topics and view them with the explanations of workflow used to create the images.

"Old Window Grunge Concrete" Corel - StockVault

Old Window Grunge Concrete

I am truly enjoying the Free StockVault Photographs and Textures I am getting from them. I received this Old Window photograph today and immediately set forth in creation. I opened in Corel PhotoPaint and applied the Threshold tool to the Window image. This allowed me to create more white space for my Texture choice to show through.

I selected a Grunge Concrete Portrait sized image from the Free Friday Textures I have been gathering. I also opened it in PhotoPaint. Using it as the background layer I went to the Window image and copied it and subsequently pasted it upon the Grunge Concrete background. I resized it to fit. I used the property Multiply for transparency and merged both layers with my signature in white.

Saving the large iteration, I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and Adjusted the Saturation Vibrancy by 50, to add some punch to the Window colors. I saved with Image Information: Title, Copyright, Programs, and source. I resized for display here and saved that as well.

"Grunge Golden Eyed Woman Portrait" Corel

Grunge Golden Eyed Woman Portrait

I started with a Free Texture background from the web and added two other images. From Stockvault's Free Images I took the Golden Eyes Woman's Portrait. In Corel PhotoPaint I overlay the Portrait as a layer. I adjusted the Local Equalization and the Tone Curve to create contrasting color values and more texture. I adjusted the Opacity of the Portrait to allow the beginning texture to show through.

Searching my Dover Publication' Samplers I found a Score of Music and copied and pasted and fit to size on the merged grayscale Texture and color Portrait. I then used Effects, Distort, Wire Mesh to make the Music Score to flow over the Portrait. I applied the property of Multiply to the Music for transparency. I saved that 300dpi iteration.

I opened in Corel PSP Pro X3 and used the Saturation Vibrancy tool to boost the colors. I added my signature as a black and white layer fit to size, then applied the property Lighten to hide the black, for transparency.

I added Image Information Title, Copyright, etc to the image, saved it again, then I resized for display with a black border.

I want to thank StockVault and the Free Texture blog, as well as Dover Publications, for the images used to create today's piece.

"Freehand Woman Portrait with Jewelry" Corel

Freehand Woman Portrait with Jewelry

I scanned a Traditionally done Freehand Fictional Woman's Portrait with my Canon MP495. This was a Colored Pencil and Pastel piece I did a while ago. I had also done some Jewelry Drawings in Pen and Ink. I scanned in these as well. I was open in Corel PhotoPaint.

Here was where I added the digitally cut out Jewelry pieces, Earrings, Necklace, and Decorative Hair Bauble to the Portrait. I had used the Tone Curve on the Portrait to add color depth. I also used the Tune Blur Soften a couple of times to smooth out the blending of colored pencils and pastels.

I added my signature to the large iteration and merged the image layers together, saved it. I then resampled the image for display saving that iteration..

I purposely used contrasting colors, as it was not my intent to match all the Jewelry with the Portrait. I wanted the Jewelry to stand out with the bright colors I had used when designing them on paper. This made for a very colorful image to share with you.

"Art Deco Arched Panel with Woman and Man" - Corel

Art Deco Arched Panel with Woman and Man

I selected another Art Deco Panel this one with Arches and added a few pieces to create this Digital Collage. I scanned in the panel from Art Deco Interior and Panel Designs by Stephen Calloway.

I then researched my Dover Publications Samplers images for a Woman and Man, to which I added Florals. I did all this in Corel PhotoPaint, dropping in the images and erasing the surrounding backgrounds. I applied to the scan and the images the Tone Curve for depth to the colors. I placed a black design in the upper center of the piece for additional interest.

With the Florals I used the Tone Curve and then the property Multiply for transparency. For each piece used I had to resize to fit the large 7" x 11" scan appropriately. I saved the large iteration and resampled it to display size. I then used Filter Forge's Photo Effects for Vibrancy Saturation, to add punch to the colors. Then I added a thin Film Frame using Filter Forge's Frames. I added my signature and saved the display size image.

I really like the images in the Arches of the Woman being served wine, and the Woman dancing to the Guitar Player. This is what attracted me to this Panel for the Digital Collage, along with the coloring.

"Vector Women, Digital Collage - Dual Faces" Corel - Canon

Brown Hair Green Eyes Vector

Multi-Colored Hair Vector

Dual Faces Collage

Digging further into the detritus of my Art Garden of Journals I discovered some images I wanted to share. Both of the first two images are scans of printouts. They originally started out as Vector Images done in CorelDRAW, saved onto Iomega Zip100 disks I no longer have access to.

I used my Canon MP495 Printer All in One to scan them in and crop. I used Corel PhotoPaint to touch them up slightly with a touch of Tone Curve. I added my signature and saved large iterations and then resampled for display.

The Third Image is a Digital Collage of three scans. One is a Pen and Ink sketch of a German Immigrant Woman. Another is a Pencil sketch of a Sad Man. The last one is the base of color, which if I remember correctly, was a Painter 8 playful painting using varied brushes like Liquid Ink. I cropped and layered all three images, some Tone Curve adjustments and Saturation Vibrancy, as well. Again I added my signature and saved the large files and resampled for display.