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Saturday, November 28, 2009

Guitar Series X - Concrete Grunge


Number ten in my Guitar Series uses a concrete grunge background from TextureLovers, and another of my own photographs. I took the photograph using my lightbox that is also used for Seasonal Affective Disorder in the winter. It projects bright outdoor light, thus the heavy shadows.

I used the chords and lyrics from a song, "Can You Please Love Me?" ©2009 Kirk Mathew Gatzka. It is the chorus of the song. I kept this image simpler than some of mine. The grunge background adds texture to it. I used Paint.Net for the ink sketch look, and PhotoPaint for all the other elements, using similar techniques I have described in other posts.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Can You Please Love Me?
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Guitar Series X - Concrete Grunge


Number ten in my Guitar Series uses a concrete grunge backgorund

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Continuing the Guitar Series - Rust Grunge


A very short post today to share another in the Guitar Series I have been doing. Here is an angled shot of the duo 6 and 12-string guitars. I used similar techniques shown below on creating this image.

The song listed in the text portion is titled "Acceptance," ©2009 Kirk Mathew Gatzka. It is about well-being and acceptance of limitations when one is experiencing them. Time and again one must evaluate a trying circumstance or condition and endeavor to be as modest as necessary to deal with them with a form of gratitude for what one is able to accomplish.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Acceptance
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Guitar Series VIII - Music Stand Grunge


Yesterday I took the lyrics for "The Solitary Man" and added chords and a melody. I renamed it "The Solitary Walker" to better fit the words. I found some new chords in the "A chord" group. An A9 in the first two frets then I move it up to the next two frets and lift up one finger for the three chord basis of the verse. Variations of the "D chords" is used for the Chorus. With a simple bridge of G Em Am D.

The lryics were posted earlier and I did not change them at all, I was satisfied with them as they are.

The image today is another in my Guitar series. I used a floral grunge texture from Autumnights as the background. I took the photograph of the two guitars plus a music stand with lyrics and chords for "Cat's in the Cradle," and "Polly Come Home," on it. I play mostly by ear so I use these formats extensively.

I resized the two images to fit each other to overlay them. I used Paint.NET to apply the Ink Sketch filter with the color boosted high. I opened both the images in PhotoPaint and copied the guitars to the clipboard and overlaid it onto the floral grunge background. I used the Object Property Multiply for transparency and merged them together.

I used the font called Yukon Gold for the dripping chords, and WC Rhesus B Bta font for the paint splatters adding the dripping effect filter to them.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Polly Come Home Cover
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Guitar Series VII - Quad Grunge


Listening to some world music today, strange drum beats and stringed instruments and vocals. All inspiring to listen to. Violin's, too. Great music. I like some of this genre but some of it I don't understand from a musical point of view. Cultures differ so much and so does the music.

Today's image gave birth as a photograph where I had laid the guitars across each other. A simple posing for another still life.

I opened a rusty grunge background in PhotoPaint that I believe came from TextureLovers. I took the photograph and resized it to fit 1024 x 684 72dpi for the web. I then copied it to the clipboard and pasted it in as an object in PhotoPaint. I used the Object properties Multiply to make it transparent. I copied that to the clipboard and set the first merging it with the background.

I took the clipboard copy and pasted it as an object (much like using layers) and flipped it horizontally. This gave me the Quad look and feel for the piece. I merged it with the background. I added the text about Folk Rock and some chords from a chart listing. I adjusted them by using the spin tool to slant them along the necks of the 12-string. Applying the Effects> Distort> Wet Paint for dripping of the text after the slanting.

I added some paint splatters again making sure they were somewhat transparent using the Object Properties set to Normal and changing the Opacity to 62%. This allows the texture to show through a bit. I also upped the saturation of the color. This has become a process that I use often to create these grunge genre images.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Baka Beyond - Spirit Of The Forest (African)
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