Art Everyday Month Project 4: Learning Something Creative and New

Hello Tuesday!  

I was a little worried yesterday about creating something to share on the blog with you today because once again, I barely stepped into my studio for the 3rd or 4th day in a row.  

No worries though, I have art goodies all over the house at this point in time. 

Poor Josh, he lives in a living breathing gallery/studio/home!

As it turns out, like most working artists, there are days or weeks that sometimes go by when you have to focus on other things then just your normal repertoire, and for me painting is what I normally do.

Over the weekend and into this week I've been working on some special projects including a book contribution (yay),  a special BIG online webinar for a large publishing company (more about that later), and some art supply/tools I'm designing which will hopefully hit the shelves in the Spring. (fingers crossed).

With that product design, I bought an new Bamboo pen tablet and upgraded several illustration programs. Mind you...I have no idea what I'm doing, never have really used any of these programs or did this sort of designing...EVER.

So I played.

and played.

For hours.

Like 12 hours.

And the end of my playing, I did this little illustration above. Just a square doodle which I changed into a stamp via Photoshop.

I then added some gray tones. and played some more.

Tried something else and loved the chalk board sorta look.

Time to add some color and see what I could come up with.

Did I tell you one of my fantasies is to design fabric down the road?

That wasn't what I was working on yesterday, but with some 

more practice, I think I can do it.

Here's the part that I figured out that I have to pat myself on the back for.

I taught myself to  create my own custom patterns and brushes yesterday.

So I took the above illustration and made it into a pattern.

Which made it easy peezy to repeat and create a larger design. Not perfect though...I can see where I meshed together a bit wrong but hey, it was my first time doing this. Ever.

Once I figured that part out, I went on to change colors and play some more.

It gets addictive. You start to see so many possibilities.

Then I just played.

But the part that I really like in this piece is that I figured out how to use the custom pattern and fill in my outlines of my name, which I see possibilities for creating photo collages and other fun illustrations.

Way too much fun when I should have been doing other things.

The moral of the story is, when you do something totally outside your comfort zone, you sometimes make a breakthrough that can lead to a whole new path  you never considered before.

So no, not creating in my studio yesterday but I did create some magic by simply learning how to do something that can help me achieve one of my goals (if I keep working at it and trying to dig deeper, learn more, and experiment.).

Never be afraid of experiementing.

I made a lot of crap yesterday.

I erased a ton of crazy outrageous junk.

But I also had some revelations and some cool things happen, just because I sat down and tried.

Go out and try something new today. Let me know how it goes:))

xoxo

Artfully yours,

Jodi

Come get "Funky" with me!

Funky Little Cityscapes, an online class that   you don't want to miss!!

Fun with Photo Shop

Having fun with photoshop :)

Sometimes I have more words in my head then time to get them all out. Same with ideas! Hopefully, when the planets align, my ability to put everything all together will, too.

Hope your words flow smoothly and your ideas manifest easily this week. :)

Jodi

Searching, Always Searching.....

They can take this trendy house and put it where the sun don't shine..lol. I just can't give up
on my little series, not yet. I am expanding on my Carolina Blue series which all sold out except for my large, 24 x 48 piece (which is available to see at Swank Hand Made Market in Southern Pines, NC) I don't think they have a website but if you are ever in the area, be sure to stop by the Belvedere Plaza and have a look around at this shop as well as the handful of other super cool locally owned shops there!


Anyway, here are two more 4 x 6 pieces now available in my Etsy shop.
"Serenity" and "Peace"
I think that those are two things I constantly am seeking. On the outside, I'm a very calm, cool, and collected person. But, on the inside...my mind is constantly racing, worrying, jumping from one thing to the next, thinking ahead, thinking 'behind', good things, bad things, anyway....I constantly need to find that place that gives me a sense of peace and a place of calmness.

My day job does attribute to my highs and lows. I've spent many years as a manager and the stress of that position can be overwhelming at times. Especially this year. Especially working in the financial industry. Being needed by so many people every day can drain one. I'm ready to move on, but at the same time not ready if that makes sense. I'm ready to manage myself, and move in a direction that will give me peace and serenity. I suppose the grass is always greener. If I did move on, my worries and anxieties would be transcended in a new direction. However, life is too short not to chase after your dreams, and so to that, I say if this is my dream, then I need to find a way to make it happen.

On to my photo experiments......now, I've been playing around with photo shop these last two weeks, but don't underestimate the power of the easy to use and FREE program, Picasa (3). I used that to change the look, crop and edit a few self taken portraits. This first one I took yesterday after going out in the snow...yes we had snow yesterday in NC!!!! I just simply cropped it, and tuned it up a bit by softening the color, not quite bw but moving towards a soft contrast with a yellowish hue.

When I first uploaded this pic, I said...'crap' it's all blurry. I won't be able to do anything with this picture. Ha. Well, gotta love black and white with tint.

Looky here, I made this more charcoally looking and warmified it. Cool, huh.

On to just a regular bw, I look younger in BW..lol..going forward I demand all photos of me be in BW. Kinda timeless in a way.

Lastly, I did do this one in photoshop. I took a color picture of some lovely brown eyed susans and turned it black and white, sharpened it. Then added a layer of soft yellow. Next, I added a cool course grain onto it, merged the layers, then finished with another layer of charcoal gray to add a bit of shadow.

So much you can do with one picture. You could literally take a few photos and turn them into a body of work that is in the hundreds, all fascinating in and of themselves.

You can see more of my pics on flickr.
Go ahead and play with your photo program, even if you don't have photoshop--you can download Picasa and do NUMEROUS things...they even added the ability to put text on the picture (that's how I did my blog banner the last couple of months). I double dog dare ya!

**Anyone on face book? Join my art business page HERE and become a fan! I hope to offer specials in the future to my followers, so definitely join in!

Are We Back Home?? (EDIT with instructions))

Yayyyy, we have a snow day in NC today!! Here's a shot at 7:30 this morning out my backdoor. It's a scene I miss from my NY days but on the other hand, don't want to see too many of just the same :)

Out the front door and there's more snowy goodness. I'm going to get my but in gear and get outside for real not just in my jammies snapping pics from my doorway. I was looking through some pictures on flickr and there's one amateur photographer I especially like and she uses a canon eos 50d I believe....so, let's put another thing on my "I want that" list so I can take awesome photos, too!



Speaking of awesome photos...heheeh....look at this ghostly gal. Here's another experiment in my portrait execution and photoshop play.. I'm getting better at this thing. Still a ways to go as I'm stumbling on techniques by accident and not exactly doing what I want to do but all the same I'm learning as I go!

EDIT:
How I achieved this effect on photo shop...
1) Open up the file you want as your main feature.
2) Turn it to black and white, adjust to the contrast you want (add more green, add more blue...in this case I darkened the highlights).
3) Add a layer of color fill. I chose a light pink and adjusted the opacity down quite a bit.


4) Next, open up a background picture. I chose a picture that I took around the same time I took this photo of myself last spring.

5) If it appears on top of your screen, go back to the background layer picture that has your main feature.

6) Now, move the new picture on top of the main picture. It's going to cover your main picture all up so over on the right, move the opacity bar down until you achieve the flow through effect you want.


7). Next, I merged all layers and then cropped the photo to my liking.

8) Last, I just used my pen tablet and added pseudo photo corners with a dry media brush tool. You can do this with your mouse, too, if you don't have a pen tablet. Pick your pencil pixel, then take the drop down box and pick your pencil type and play with borders, etc.

**I'm doing this from memory so hopefully you get the gist enough to be able to try it your self. You can try duplicating a layer or two, add more color fill layers and play with the enhancements.***

So what is it that you want to buy to help launch your creative endeavors??