"A Little Romance Never Hurt!" Digital Collage - Picasa - Corel

"A Little Romance Never Hurt!"

 gatzkART! has reached over 97,000 Pageviews and 1,070 posts today! I was using The Old Reader RSS reader to import my Google Reader content. I was reviewing the posts and found two old-fashioned love photographs from ART FREEBIES, a blog of Public Domain images and photographs.

I saved them to my folders in Picasa and created a collage with Picasa 3.9. I added the page of images of Old-Fashioned Love and Marriage from Dover Clip Art sampler folder.

Using Picasa I tinted the entire collage with blue and saved that. I used the setting for the size of my current desktop size, It saved a large iteration.

I opened it with Corel PhotoPaint and worked on adding the Nebula background to it. I saved that and added the title caption, in PhotoPaint adding my signature.

I also resampled it in Corel PSP Pro X3 to display size. I then saved that. Times have changed as you can see from these examples of Love in the old days.

"A Little Romance Never Hurt!"

Some things haven't changed a bit!

"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!

"Art Nouveau Digital Collage" Corel - Plus

Art Nouveau Digital Collage

Yesterday I enjoyed using my Dover Publications Sampler images for an Art Deco image. I decided as I browsed the folder in Picasa 3.9 to create an Art Nouveau Digital Collage.

I opened in Corel PhotoPaint. I selected a Floral background and a border piece and cut and pasted the border onto the Floral. I duplicated it four times after applying the Multiply property, for the left hand side. Continuing my browsing and came upon two woman's faces in circular form, still Art Nouveau style.

I cut and pasted these onto the Floral background. I used the masking tool to cut them out and using the Multiply property again on them for transparency. I resized them to balance the composition. I merged these to the background.

I opened in Corel PSP Pro X3 to resize, add a matte and a Golden Picture Frame. This image was saved and reopened in PhotoPaint. I added my signature and resampled it to display size.

I really am a fan of Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles and enjoy creating Digital Collages using Picasa and my Corel programs. I have books of plates of both that I can scan in and use as well. I keep my playful attitude toward creating Digital Artworks.

"The Celebratory Dance" Art Deco Digital Collage - Corel Plus

The Celebratory Dance

Browsing my Dover Publications Sampler folder in Picasa 3.9 I found a decorative floral with line. I also searched for a background for this and came up with an Art Deco Floral background.

In Picasa I lightened the Color Art Deco Floral a bit and brought them all into Corel PhotoPaint. I used the Wand tool to select the white and filled it with a sky image. I applied the decorative floral with lines, deepening the line coloration with the Tone Curve and using the Color Burn for transparency.

I searched a bit further and found an image of women in various stances. I selected the Dancer with Flowing Hair to add. I cut, erased and placed the Dancer onto the two backgrounds.

I added another image from the Dover Clip Art of a Couple Celebrating with Champagne, as if they were drinking to the Dancer. I increased their depth with the Tone Curve as well. This made for a Celebratory feel to the image.

I added my signature inverted to white and merged all together to one layer. I saved this iteration. I opened with Corel PSP Pro X3 and used the High-pass Sharpen tool on the image. And softened the background using the Digital Camera Noise Removal tool.

I liked the Ornate Frame so I applied that from Image, Picture Frame. It gives it a Museum quality I really like.

So goes the making of the "The Celebratory Dance."

"SXSW Wheeler Brothers and In The Spotlight with Frank Palangi" Picasa 3.9

SXSW Wheeler Brothers

Singer Songwriter Frank Palangi

These images are both from Google+ Hangouts On Air. I was able to watch the YouTube streamed videos and screen capture them.

I used Picasa 3.9 to capture them and convert from BMP format to JPG. I also used Picasa's: Cropping tool; the Warmify tool and the HDR tool on each image. I then added the frames with the Museum Matte feature again in Picasa. So I kept my workflow easy and right in Picasa 3.9.

Here is the link to the Wheeler Brothers:

http://wheelerbrothersmusic.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwyranENx9k

Here is the YouTube selection of Frank Palangi "In the Spotlight" with +Artists In the Plus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bFZbmbClbXo

You can find Frank on Google+ and Facebook.