Guitars in Low Light - Picasa Collage

It's amazing how multiple photo-
graphs of the same image when placed in a digital collage can take on a more interesting view.

Using Picasa 3 (current version) I took the group of photographs made at my son's place at a small gathering he had, I made this collage. I have used some of the images before, but here they look new and fresh as a collage.

First of all you must like guitars and second you must like low light photography. Add a few people images and you add flavor to the collage.

I again used the Artistic> Ink Sketch> filter in Paint.NET to add lines to the collage. It flattens the piece somewhat but I think that overall it has depth too.

On another front, my Twitter following is slowly growing. And I have received offers of ways to build the following to a large audience, for a small price. But I would just as soon leave it as it is and build a following one person at a time. I do find that some follow requests are just spam, like email spam. So you do have to be careful who you follow. Twitter is like everything else on the internet, something useful that can turn ugly if not used properly with kindness and dignity applied.

Of course I would like more followers on this blog, and more hits a day but my Google Analytics shows I am above the benchmaking it does in many areas for a blog my size. So I am happy to grow slowly and not ready to pay a price of indiscriminately reaching out for followers just to satisfy an urge to Twitter or Blogger fame and fortune. In fact I have nothing for sale. My only wish is to share my Digital Visual Art and my personal views on songwriting and recording.

Follow if you would like! By all means it is appreciated!

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Bad Finger - It Don't Come Easy
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Digital Collage - Garden Floral

The front garden is growing nicely so I am presenting a digital collage of it. If you look closely you can see our steep driveway. The Tiger Lilies are not out yet but the Irises are looking great, and the snowball blossoms do too.

I used Picasa 3 to create this collage, I really like this feature of Picasa. I also opened it in Paint.NET to do a slight Ink Sketch filter on it for the sharpness of the lines.

I have yet to record "When the Stars Go Blue" cover of Tim Mcgraw. I haven't been up to it lately. But I plan to do so soon. I have been practicing and listening to it. In fact the song has been in my head a lot lately.

I have created a Music notebook using plastic sleeves for the sheets of paper, of my songs. I have over 50 songs I have written that are in this notebook. I have others that are on paper in pen or pencil to type up and to add to the notebook. I put them in alphabetical order and will probably put in a table of contents as well.

It is a really good project to put things in order and see how well I have done in my writing. It is nice to have them organized. I may add a group of songs that I have done covers of to flesh out this notebook and to keep them in a single place.

I have the songs presented with lyrics and chord progressions like you would see at a song site. I sometimes have chord charts with them if I have used unusual chords. I try to get a song on a single piece of paper with columns to facilitate reading and singing them, turning a page is difficult when you are playing your instrument.

I just use Notepad on the computer when I begin putting a song in computer writing. Then I use Microsoft's Word to create a header with the Title, Author, Album, Date (and copyright symbol.) I put the song in 2 columns to keep it simple. I don't use Tabs as many do and I don't score on the music scales either, although that would be a good way to be prepared for copyrights of the songs and arrangements.

But like many a song may begin as some notes on a note pad in pen or pencil. I even have begun some on drawing paper, legal pad paper, datebook paper, and of course scraps of paper. Bits of lyrics or poetry can be the beginning of a good song.

Any way you start a song is up to you. You probably have a way of beginning and documenting songs you have written. Lyricist Software is available for the serious writer, here is one example. Virtual Studio Systems has a couple of good software products for songwriters. I have not used the software but it has good reviews as one of the best out there.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Barenaked Ladies - Rebuild
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Portrait of Self with Guitars

No, I am not narcis-
sistic, just looking for photo-
graphs to play with. This is a really bad photograph of me, which is pretty blurry, I attempted to salvage it and make it palatable for the viewer.

As you can see I am not a young man anymore, yes that is gray in the mustache. I wear my hair short now not like the late 60's and early 70's when it was long, like the style of the times.

I added some guitars to the image as this blog does talk about music and I do have them on my mind quite often.

I have been troubled by illness for a couple of days, so I have little to report musically. We did watch the ACM Artist of the Decade the other night - George Strait. Many performed for the tribute and it was enjoyable to watch. George was almost in tears a couple of times during the performances. You could tell he was pleased with all of the interpretations of his hit songs when he stated, "I sure am glad I got a hold of those songs before any of you did."

PBS had a show with Willie Nelson and his cronies on recently. I watched part of that as well. I pays to keep up with all kinds of music and performances.

I had read a Twitter that Eric Clapton and Stevie Winwood were supposed to be on PBS but not our local channels. I would really like to see that one, perhaps it will be on later on our local channels.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Act Naturally Cover
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Loving Couple - Post Wedding Portrait

Thanks to David Benjamin Photo-
graphy I have a few lovely photo-
graphs - post wedding - of my Daughter and Son n law.

I have taken some liberties with one of the photographs and did some of my digital work on it. I have been using Paint.NET quite a bit lately for the filters. I used the Artistic> Oil Painting> filter first on the image, then used the Artistic> Pencil Sketch> filter to create a posterized version of the photograph with lines added.

I opened the resulting image in PhotoPaint and adjusted the Color Hue to a strong sepia like tone. Resizing it I added the Bevel frame to the image.

I have been practicing the song "When The Stars Go Blue" to do a cover of it for the next CD "The Roof". I have to adjust to the tempo, I can do the song but I tend to make it a faster tempo. I have to decide where to put my capo as well, Second or Third Fret. I can't help but add my stylized rhythm playing to it, I just do after years of playing alone. I need to practice more using my digital metronome!

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Tim McGraw - When the Stars Go Blue
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Iris - Van Goghized

Love the instant painting effects of Painter 8. I used the Auto Van Gogh filter a number of times on this photograph. I know it is an easy way to present a digital manipulation, but I have to admit I like the results. Look at the larger view and see the "paint strokes".

Our early flowers are in full bloom in our front and back gardens. We have some snowballs as well that I took some photographs of I may do a collage of the images and share that another time.

I worked on another song yesterday. The Chord progression was adapted from a chart I got online at The Guitar Suite . The chords are: D Em F#m G A repeat and F#m A Em G repeat. It was a free progression chart in PDF format. Very Cool.

I titled the song "Three Day Weekend" but I am not satisfied with the lyrics and my rough recording of it. But I had an enjoyable time working on it thus far. I think it also needs a bridge. I practiced some lead in my ear-based style, so it is pretty nice, but needs work.

I also did a recording of "Our House" by CSNY that I need to redo. I messed up the ending of it with the chords and singing. So it is on my list of things to do soon.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Can You Please Love Me?
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