Technique Tuesday!

Start with a beautiful picture taken on a clear sunny day.

Add a touch of menace.

Why would you want to do this?  I don’t really know, but it’s fun to know how!  With Photoshop, there are always multiple ways to accomplish tasks, but here’s how I did it:

Step by step instructions

Make Art Monday!

You all know that I love Photoshop and am totally devoted to it.  You also know that there are times when you may need to do photo editing away from home.  Then it’s great to know about online editors.

At  Art + Creativity, there are links to ten more online toys tools that you can use to jazz up your pictures.  The list includes Animoto, which I told you about before…a very fun way to turn some shots into a short music video

So, wasn’t it fun playing with Big Huge Labs (de)motivational toy?   Want another?  Despair, Inc, the folks who have brought you some of the most recognizable demotivational posters for years now, also have a lab where you can create your own.

Warning: Looking through the Despair gallery is one of the biggest time sucks out there!  But it’s worth the trip 

Image: Despair, Inc

Make Art Monday!

First, I thought that Photojojo’s Photo-opoly game would make a great Christmas gift, using photos and landmarks from around your own home town.  But then I started to think about it: wouldn’t you rather have a game that reminds you of a great vacation that you took?

I think the hardest time you’ll have is culling through the photos and picking only the best of the best…what a hardship that will be 

Tell me how much you HATE those motivational posters that are always so prominently featured in the Sky Mall catalog?  (Can you tell we’ve been traveling a bit lately?)

Well, Big Huge Labs to the rescue!!  Thank heavens, a service that will let you make your own.  You can even buy copies if you want!  Here’s what I did with a recent picture from my daughter’s college graduation.

Thomas Allen combines book arts with photography to produce some stunning results.  He slices the figures from the covers to create a 3D effect, then alters and stages them for their photo shoot.   I love the gritty, often tongue in cheek results.  Many times his tableaux make visual reference to the title.  It helps a lot that he uses pulp fiction!

There is a large “gallery” of many of Thomas Allen’s pieces here.  I’m not sure that this is a sanctioned site since the post doesn’t even attribute them or link to him.

I love using photo transfers as part of my fiber art repertoire.

You can use photos in a very direct way - with the photo being the focal point.  There are also so many options for using photos in a more abstract way.  You can alter a photo digitally or manually cut it apart a reassemble it.

Fiber ArtSpace wants to encourage fiber artists to use photographs in their artwork, and are holding a exhibition this fall to do so.

The call for exhibition for Foto-Fiber-Fabulous takes place until June 30th, so get your entries in right away if you want to participate!

image: Stock.xchg

In yesterday’s post I discussed designing greeting cards, notepaper and postcards…art forms I enjoy exploring, sometimes purely for my own enjoyment and use while on other occasions I’ve made them for sale.

Image: sxc.hu

“Where do you get your design ideas?” I’ve been asked 

My designs include:

•  Reproductions of my paintings  (Artists often reproduce their paintings as posters and postcards nowadays to get further mileage and income from their art work.  They may keep or eventually sell the original.)
•  Reproductions of photos (My family members are avid photographers, so I often use my husband’s and mine for cards.)
•  Sketches I make for particular cards, then scan them (This is so easy to do nowadays, when before scanners and computers, I had to draw each individually or take them to a commercial printer.)
•  Fabric postcards that I scan (With all the work that goes into them, it’s a shame to use these pieces of art only once.)

What has been your experience in creating notepaper and postcards?  Where do you get your ideas?

A Million Little Pictures: Documentary

Deadline to sign up: July 1, 2009

During the summer of 2009, one thousand artists from around the world will document their lives in 24 frames using a simple disposable camera with a flash.

On September 25th, 2009, an exhibition housing over 24,000 photographs will be constructed to take you on an adventure through the lives of these thousand artists.

This is a fun way to finish off some of your experimental pieces that you create in Photoshop.  I love this particular border for expressionistic, impressionistic, or surreal pieces, or for anything that doesn’t use a lot of hard edges.  This method allows the border to blur and glow, while keeping the central image as sharp as you want it.

Step by step instructions