Off the Beaten Path - Abandoned Vacuum

Ever felt abandoned? Well here is an image for you. Off the beaten path my son Keir M Gatzka found this and took a photograph. An abandoned vacuum cleaner.

It is funny how the tree appears to have grown around the handle, like it is going to try and use it. I did little to the original, upped the saturation quite a bit in PhotoPaint, I left the funny angle of the photo alone. I like it's off kilter feel. Kind of like one might feel if abandoned like this.

I'm still reading about "The Five-Chord Turnaround" in Rikky's book. It lists quite a few progressions. I am examining them and will soon test them out on the guitar. I did notice one I believe I have used before: C Em Am F G, I'm almost certain I've used this turnaround for a song but I can't pinpoint it at this moment.

Before I get to that I need to write some letters. Yes, that is correct, write letters. It's an old way of emailing but with paper and ink and a postage stamp. Remember?

Talking Records - Dover Clip Art - Vectored

Talking Records is a piece using CorelDRAW and CorelTRACE to vectorize some Dover Clip Art from Dover Public-
ations. I have samples of this clipart and one page includes a number of music related pieces. Here I found what appears to be two banjos and either a guitar or a ukulele.

I traced both the banjos and the Talking Records old time logo in CorelTRACE. Adding some color in CorelDRAW and copy and pasting into PhotoPaint. I ended up with a mosaic-like image.

I have the desire to do some more guitar work but the day has yet to lend itself to such. I am in search of a new chord progression. I have found that if I start with a good progression songwriting is much easier. But good ones are difficult to come by. I have a really good book entitled "How To Write Songs on Guitar" by Rikky Rooksby. This is a great resource for chord progressions used by many writers. Making them your own is a key to a successful song.

I'm examining the subtopic "The Five Chord Turnaround" for some ideas. He has plenty of examples of song progressions of five chords structures. One sited is "Hey Joe" and "A Day In the Life" (the middle eight.) Using such chords as C G D A E. It is up to the songwriter to use the progressions in a fresh way adding their melody and lyrics.

That is only one example, Rikky has many in this fine publication. I use it for inspiration and for encouragment. One doesn't write songs in a vacuum. Ideas come from many sources.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - I Want To Be With You
via FoxyTunes

Milestone - 100th post - Guitar and Leopard

My 100th posting! More than I had anticipated in such a short time. I have been pretty busy and I am pleased to have done so many posts since I began this blog. I have tried to balance the posts between my Digital Visual Art and Music. At times it was hard to do so, but I have a creative streak that needs a place to express it. So when I lost my website because of the economy I found blogger.com and another outlet for myself.

I am currently looking for photographs that are related to guitars or music performance to use here on my blog. If you have any that you would like to see digitally interpreted I would be happy to give you a credit and a possible link to your own blog or website in the post. I only have a few rules, photographs must be music related, preferably guitars or a performance of you playing your guitar. I reserve the right to select the link, it must be to a clean blog or website, no profanity or pornography allowed!

Blues, Rock, Country, Jazz are all acceptable subjects. And if you are a songwriter you will get a plug here online.

Today's image was done in PhotoPaint and I used KPT's Collection Pyramid Paint filter and overlaid a line art image using the object properties Multiply for transparency.

I was working on three new songs yesterday. "Everyday"; "Warm and Green"; and "I Want To Be With You." Sometimes a dry spell will last quite sometime and then suddenly I am engaged in a creative fever. "Everyday" is a Country Rock song about the days of the week. "Warm and Green" is a Folk Rock song about Springtime.

"I Want To Be With You" is a Jazz-like tune with simple lyrics and some singing without lyrics, I used a chord progression of Csus2 - Am7, Dm7 - G, F - E7 E, with a jazz tempo to the chords. I am not sure of the first chord designation as it is a modified C that a friend shared with me years ago and I have looked it up but I am not certain it is a Csus2. So much for professionalism. I know how to play it so I used it regardless of it's designation!

Thinking Spring Despite the Weather

Wednesday afternoon was a beautiful time. Went for a long walk to visit neighbors and saw many of springs plants coming up. Just the tiny blossoms of the early flowers, many buds on the trees realy to pop out the leaves. It was sunny and warm, a bit windy but very nice.

Today there are whitecaps on the Lake, the wind is brisk and stern. The sky is overcast and gray. But I'm thinking Spring.

Here is a close up of some lilies that grew in our yard last season. I used Paint.NET and it's Artistic> Ink Sketch filter on the image after I cropped it close in PhotoPaint. We have theses waiting to bloom later in the season and I look forward to many nice days to come.

"Spring has Sprung
the grass has riz
I wonder where
the flowers iz?"

Said an old Archie comic. So we watch the lake curl it's whitecaps and the clouds obscure the sun, knowing that soon we will have beautiful flowers in our garden again this year. All we need is a little patience.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Seal - The Beginning
via FoxyTunes

Portrait - 1976 - Painter 8

Though it's a busy month I had time today to work on a piece of art. This is from a cropped photograph of my wife back in 1976. A friend of ours took our photographs with his 35mm SLR film camera It was a portrait of the both of us but I cropped out myself after I had scanned this in at 300dpi. I have had the photograph for sometime now.

I opened it in PhotoPaint and resampled it to enlarge it to 150% it's original size for a workable image. I used the Blur> Tune Blur Directional blur on it to smooth out the texture of the scan. Saving this file I opened it in Painter 8 and selected the acrylic brushes I painted the bulk of the piece. I used Liquid Ink for the highlights in the eyes and added the blue color as her eyes are blue.

I framed it in black and then did more of the background to finish it. My wife still is quite pretty after many years of married live. And best yet she still puts up with her artistic temperamental husband. That is a boon!

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Rem - Strange Currencies
via FoxyTunes