Without a pattern

Landscapes, flowers, nature seem to be my natural digital subjects. But there is always the internal exhortation to try something different, especially when admiring what other digital artists are doing with the human face and figure. For more inspiration, I also collected a Pinterest board of women's images in various artistic styles. Yes, I could do this!

I began by extracting the woman from the background in a Pixabay image by Pat La Paz and giving her a painterly look with Impression in Topaz Studio 2. On my photo of the flowers taken at the Dallas Arboretum, I used copies with Akvis Sketch and Topaz Impression, as best I can remember, since those initial steps were many days and layers and blends modes back at the beginning of the month. Then more blend modes and layer masks to incorporate the woman with the flowers. Plus some background textures from Kirsten Frank.

And then? Frustration! I thought I knew the sort of elements I wanted to add to complete the composition, but nothing worked, nothing looked right. I returned again and again to study other images, to try to plumb their secrets and apply similar effects to mine. And here is where I began to think of the analogy of making a dress without a pattern.

It seemed to me that this was akin to seeing several beautiful dresses and deciding that I wanted to make a similar one. Not an exact copy of any one of them, but something with the same sort of skirt as this one and bodice like that one and sleeves from another. Only there was no such thing as a pattern to show me how to cut it out and construct it. Even as a very experienced sewer, I still need a go-by, especially when trying to make a complex garment. Alas, there was no pattern for what I wanted to do digitally.

Of course, Sebastian Michael's excellent PhotoshopArtistry and Awake: Photoshop Mastery Edition courses contain a wealth of how-to information as well as inspiration. And if specific help is needed, a quick search will turn up a variety of YouTube videos (thanks to which I finally succeeded in painting a new hairdo on the model). But all this instruction then has to be applied to something unique: one's very own creation, like that hypothetical hybrid dress.

Eventually, with the addition of a butterfly from Pixabay, a French letter from the Graphics Fairy and a château from one of my own photos, I declared La Belle aux Fleurs finished. And I'm ready to try another. And another. Just as, over the years, I sewed and sewed until I had an easy confidence in my garment-making skills. I may still need that pattern when making a dress, but I no longer have to rely on it completely or follow it exactly. In fact, the more I have learned to go beyond the pattern, the more my satisfaction in sewing has increased. I only hope it won't take me that long to reach the same point in digital art.

 

Watercolor camellias

 

 

If you take brush in hand to sweep a luscious wash of color onto a sheet of fine, textured paper, you may be shaking your head at my efforts to duplicate your results digitally. So, are my watercolor camellias ersatz? Obviously I am working with pixels rather than pigment, applied using Photoshop brushes created by KyleT. Webster, with a GrutBrushes Art Surface paper texture as my base. And, I admit that underneath all is a photo from which my composition emerged.

Emerged, yes, ever so slowly. To me, one of the advantages of making art digitally is the ability to try and retry, to discover new techniques, to toss away what doesn't work and keep refining until what you see begins to accord with what you imagined. Quite a few hours sped blissfully by before I put my signature on this deceptively simple image. And the fact that, unless I print it out, I have a virtual rather than an actual artwork is perhaps an advantage, as I can enjoy seeing it anytime on my computer screen, rather than having it tucked away and forgotten somewhere in a drawer.

Ultimately, I think what a “real” watercolor and this digital watercolor have in common is that they both spring from a desire to create and the delight that comes from being able to do so in whatever medium you choose.

A jewel of a tool

 For creative photo editing Topaz Studio 2 is a jewel indeed. It can be used as a standalone application or as a plugin for Photoshop or Lightroom. With its panoply of filters you can do everything from subtly enhancing an image to rendering it as differently and dramatically as you desire. But all those filters with all their adjustments can be intimidating. Where to start? Which ones to use? How do they all work?

After bumbling around, I started watching Dave Kelly's extensive series of YouTube videos on Topaz Studio 2 which cover everything from showing you exactly what each filter does to how to use them in combinations for artistic results. It was thanks to those sessions that I was able to transform the photo of Cedar Creek Falls snapped at Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas into a scene that I might actually frame. 

 

 

Original photo

 

In Topaz Studio 2 I used a combination of AI Clear, Precision Contrast, HSL Color Tuning plus the Impression filter. It's really in looking at a closeup of the two images that you can appreciate the full impact of the changes. (The sky was replaced in Photoshop itself and the birds were added via a brush from the Birds of a Feather collection by Midnightstouch.) I'm just in awe of all the creative power at my fingertips. And as Dave Kelly is always exhorting his viewers, don't be afraid to experiment! All the choices, all the possibilities can be overwhelming, but the more you use it, the more you'll appreciate this jewel.

Zooming along

 Like so much else in our Covid-inflicted world, our bookgroup has gone online. After ten virtual meetings, we are getting the hang of it. (Like remembering to mute and unmute!) And while we are missing gathering around the long wooden table at La Madeleine, the advantage has been that those of us who have moved to other cities and other states can continue to participate. We can claim to be coast-to-coast now, with members in Maine and Seattle, Washington. In November my sister-in-law from Arizona and a member's daughter in Washington DC were guests as well.

So here is our very varied slate for 2021. January's book, Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon, is a “spy thriller” set after WWII in divided Berlin as the Soviet occupation is tightening its grip. The story keeps you turning pages, but you learn a lot about both the politics and the actual life in the city at that time.

The next book, A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, couldn't be more different. I had listened to it as an audiobook last year, but there is so much in this book that it was definitely worth a re-read. I'm looking forward to our discussion in February. As always, I invite you to join us. 

 

Moonlit Château

 

 Sometimes it's one thing to clearly see in your mind's eye what you want to create and quite another to make that creation a reality. I began on this piece in early December, worked on it on and off throughout the month, and just put the final layer in place this morning. At last!  Perhaps I could call this Slow Photoshop, somewhat like the Slow Sewing movement.

One of my inspirations for this piece was the Day to Night lighting effect demonstrated by Glyn Dewis in the November Photoshop Virtual Summit. Here is my original and not very good photo of the Château de Montreuil-Bellay in the Loire valley in France. After removing most of the background, I was able to greatly improve it using primarily AI Clear in Topaz Studio 2. Then came many, many layers to tone it and work on details for the moonlit effect. 

The sky with the moon is overlaid on another sky with all the stars and both are from Pixabay. The deer and the stag are also from Pixabay while the trees and shrubbery to the left and the grass in the foreground are from my photos. There's even a texture from Kerstin Frank thrown in for good measure.

I could probably have continued piddling around on subtle improvements, but I think I have come close to the vision in my mind's eye. And while it took me a long time to get here, the journey with Photoshop is always amazing.

 

On our walk

 

Monarch butterflies have been plentiful in Dallas this fall on their annual migration south. (One year I even found a tagged one which I still have carefully preserved.) Out on a walk one afternoon this month we came upon this glorious vine that was hosting several. I discovered later that it's a Mexican flame vine, Pseudogynoxys chenopodioides, a plant species related to asters. Now, to be honest, all those Monarchs weren't so artfully arranged when I snapped the photo, but Photoshop lets you compose the picture that should have been. Also used Topaz Impressions for a more painterly look. A delight to do.

Window on Munger Place

 

 

Here's another piece arising from the Awake course mentioned in my last post. It doesn't precisely relate to any of the lessons, but did come about as a result of my desire to participate in all the digital creativity.

I began with the photo of one of the front windows of our house, then added the background photos of the tall pink phlox which have been blooming all summer in a front garden. The swallowtail butterflies came from Pixabay, but there always seems to be one or two of them flitting around the phlox. The text is from the original promotional brochure for Munger Place which was developed in 1905. And the ornament is from Dover's 2,286 Traditional Stencil Designs.

I have to mention (okay, brag) that back when we first bought the house, the sashes of all 27 original windows in the house were removed and stripped, then repaired and refinished by me. And most, including the one above, received a redo a couple of years ago. However, a set of triple windows on the side missed out, until in June their deteriorating condition could no longer be ignored. 

Of course, when we bought the house in the 1970s and set about restoring it with boundless energy and optimism, I had no idea that decades later I would still be turning my hand to many of the same things. Back then it was an adventure, and this big, derelict house was a canvas which we could freely fill with our ever-evolving vision. Now we can enjoy the house we saw in our mind's eye, but it still requires behind-the-scenes work to keep it that way. It is, after all, 110-years old!  

And I am, well, let's just say, quite a bit older than I was in the 1970s. But I credit all that behind-the-scenes work with helping me stay in shape. And now that those windows are checked off my to-do list, I can get back to exercising my mind with more digital exploration.