Digital Watercolors Visual Art by Kirk Mathew Gatzka

“Gary Clark Jr.” HDR Picasa - Painter Essentials 5

Gary Clark Jr. - Numb

I opened a screen capture of "Gary Clark Jr.," in Picasa 3+. I adjusted the Contrast of the image for the lighter appearance. Next I applied the HDR tool with the Radius set to Medium and the Strength also Medium. This was a PNG file, but I saved it as a JPG to work with.

I now opened with Painter Essentials 5 and used the Watercolor Sketch set. I set the Brush to Simple Water Brush small size and digitally painted the piece. I then selected the Colored Pencil Drawing set and a Calk Charcoal Brush medium sized. I added just a few Pencil Strokes to the image.

Using the Soft Cloner Brush, I hand painted back in some details of his face, and the microphone. This lets the HDR appearance show the changes it made. I saved that iteration.

Completing the piece I opened in Paint.NET and added my signature file as a layer. I sized and placed it and applied the layer property Additive to it for transparency. I merged the layers to finish the piece. Then decided to use Curves set to RGB to lighten the depth of colors a small amount. This image has plenty of saturation of color so I did not alter that at all. I saved again.

Gary's song “Numb!” is a favorite of mine, he is another of my Blues Rock Singer-songwriter Guitarist I turn to for listening and watching Videos of him perform.

Thus, I have one more image to add to my Music Themed Visual Artworks.

All names, copyrights and, videos or trademarks belong to their prospective owners, I only own the right to my Artworks and explanations of my workflow. 

"How To: Workflow - Young Man and Woman Portrait" Corel

Digital Watercolor Young Man and Woman Portrait

I truly appreciate the fine portraiture I find at Unsplash Free Photos. I found this Grayscale Portrait of a Young Man and Woman there and downloaded it. I wanted to ply my Digital Visual Art Skills to this image, so, of course I did.

I opened the large file in Corel Painter Essentials 5 and began:

• I selected the Watercolor Sketch set
• Photo Painting Brushes
  • Bristle Oils Cloner
    • Size 15
    • Opacity 88%
  • I hand cloned the eyes and mouths
  • Photo Painting Brushes
    • Straight Cloner
    • Size 21.7
    • Opacity 100%

Saving that large iteration I opened it in Corel Painter 11 and began to paint by hand:

• Digital Watercolors
  • Dry Brush
    • Size varied starting at 29.7
    • Opacity 20%
    • Grain 100%
    • Diffusion 0
    • Wet Fringe 10%
• Background Sky painting
  • Broad Water Brush
    • Size Varied starting at 13.2
    • Opacity 29%
    • Grain 58%
    • Diffusion 0
    • Wet Fringe 50%
• I also used the Liquid Ink Brushes for lined details
  • Coarse Camel Brush
    • Size Various
    • Opacity 100%

I once again saved that larger image and opened it in Corel PSP Pro X3:

• Smart Photo Fix
  • Brighter +28
  • Shadows 0
  • Highlights +10
  • Saturation +10
  • Focus +57
• Hue and Saturation
  • Vibrancy +20

I added my signature, sized and placing it, before I saved the large Final piece. I then resized for display to 801 X 1200 Pixels, 72dpi, JPG file format.

I used Picasa to create the short Movie of the photo steps as the were taken. I have yet to use Camstudio with Windows 10 (free version) to create a YouTube video of my steps and creation of an artwork. 

I did my editing from my short notes I took as I worked on this image, hoping that others can learn from my efforts. Admitting that some of my Corel Programs are older ones, Digital Artists can get the flavor of the workflow and apply it to their current Programs. Most of my writing took place in Open Office the Open Source product. Some additional writing was done here in Blogger's editor.

"Amiga 80's Self Portrait" Corel

Updated Amiga 80's Selfie

As I stated yesterday I found some film (35mm) photographs of Screen Shots of works done on my Amiga 1000 in the 1980's. I had this Self-Portrait Video scanned into the Amiga and enhanced in Deluxe Paint. I took the older photograph and scanned it into my PC with my Canon MP495.

I opened in Corel PhotoPaint the 300dpi scan. I applied the Tone Curve and Filter Forge's Photo Effects Vibrancy for a boost to color. I also boosted the color Saturation in PhotoPaint. I used Filter Forge's Frames Grunge Frame for the grunge effect. Here I added my signature and resampled for display.

Notice the 80's glasses I am wearing in this image. Very large lenses and style for those days.

"Does Anybody Know?" ©2013 by Kirk Mathew Gatzka

My new song, I've been practicing it for a long time now. I wanted to present it to you today! Comments are welcome! I have a different version on SoundCloud with additional vocals and reverb. But this is a Bright and Clean recording. Hope you enjoy it!

"Danni Rosner - In The Spotlight - Artists In The Plus" Corel - Plus

I took some screen captures of Artists In The Plus "In The Spotlight with +Danni Rosner ." I opened them in Picasa 3.9. There I cropped each picture and resaved them. I took them into Corel PSP Pro X3 and applied the Digital Camera Noise Removal and Smart Photo Fix saving them again.

Using Picasa I made a short slideshow in WMV format. I converted that with Freemake Video Converter into an FLV file and imported it into Blogger's player. This is my first attempt at a video other than YouTube's formats.

Danni gave a wonderful performance and interview! She is a talented and effective singer songwriter! Here is the Link to +John Voshell +Artists In The Plus "In The Spotlight":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdUxAvulgII&feature=g-user-u

"Lil' Miss Lillian Decides" Video - Logitech - Audio - Line 6 Toneport UX1

This song was inspired by a Black and White Photograph of my wife as a child on a Carousel. Probably circa early 1950's, she was riding by herself, but I include in the song that, "I'm alongside, of you." "Lil' Miss Lillian Decides," is ©2010 Kirk Mathew Gatzka, All Rights Reserved.

"Guitar Harp Player"

"Self Portrait Recording" Logitech C260 - Corel PhotoPaint - Corel PSP Pro X3

Recording

I've spent the last couple of days working on recording video and audio. I have a Logitech C260 Webcam that takes fairly good video, though it is not HD (high definition.) I also wanted to record music so I selected for the microphone my Line 6 Toneport UX1 with Gearbox software. I used a "Detroit RnB Vocal," setting for the audio. The microphone is a Shure PG58.

I experimented with a number of programs like Windows Movie Maker, Logitech's own simple interfaced recorder and Pinnacle Studio 12, and got various results.

Both Movie Maker and Pinnacle resulted in syncing problems with the video and audio being out of sync with each other. I have an older PC with Win XP SP3 and the best combination was Logitech's software with the Toneport set as microphone. Probably worked best with my limited 2.5gig RAM.

The "Self-Portrait," you see is a still from my recording sessions. As I was playing back my video I took the still in Logitech's program. I opened with Corel PhotoPaint and used the Local Equalization and a slight bit of Tone Curve for a High Contrast look. Using Filter Forge's Photo Effect Vibrance enhanced the colors, and Frames for a film frame. I saved the 640x480 image and opened with Corel PSP Pro X3.

There I Softened the image, and resized it to 180dpi 1220 wide. Saving that for display here.

For the video I improvised a Blues tune on my 12-String Seagull Guitar and sang some nonsense lyrics that came out: "My Baby Don't Love Me." I placed it on my YouTube Channel also entitled "gatzkART!"

I have a look on my face of concentration, working out the kinks of recording a live video for the first time. So I won't win any contest for most jovial performer with this one!


Listening --- Kirk Mathew Gatzka --- Collision Warning