Playing in GIMP

I was playing in GIMP today and came up with these digitally enhanced images, in this case a photo I took of cherry blossoms a few years ago. Same image, different enhancements. GIMP (link) is a free photo editor available online and has far more features than Irfanview (link) which is also free. GIMP is much more complicated so occasionally I open it and just play. There are many tutorials online but my eyes tend to glaze over when I try to read the instructions. I'm a visual learner and wish there were video instructions out there instead. Maybe there is! Come to think of it, I've never checked!

Kitty Kocktail ~ complete

I finished this one up this morning. It sat staring at me with those big soulful eyes so I had to finish it. I didn't do much actually. Just a bit here and there. Some reflections in the granite countertop, adjusted some values, darkened the tile backsplash, etc. A lot of little fiddles.

Kitty Kocktail ~ WIP 2

I had hopes this was complete but I see some things that need a tweak or two. When I first saw the image on my PC screen I thought I had gotten my grout lines in the background crooked. Turned out to be camera distortion thankfully. I think I may have breathed in enough pastel dust for awhile so I'll fiddle with this just a little bit each day until I'm satisfied and post the final end of the week.

Pigments of Your Imagination ~ the book

Back in February of 2013 I was contacted by Cathy Taylor (link)who I met on Facebook via an alcohol artists inking group. She was planning on self publishing a book featuring a variety of techniques employing this medium and wanted to know if I would like to be among the artistic contributors. Sure! How exciting and what a great way to have my work published. I was both flattered and honored.

Cathy stayed in touch with all the ink artists by email and in June announced that Schiffer Publications had picked up the book. Of course we were all over the Moon for Cathy but a lot of work still lay ahead for her. Long story short, after much work, stress and a few delays the book, Pigments of Your Imagination (link)is now available on Amazon. Yesterday I received my complimentary copy and I have to say, all Cathy's work was well worth it. Schiffer did a wonderful job with the book, too. The book is a nice size, roughly 8" x 9", and the pages are heavy weight glossy paper held together with a spiral binder so the book can be opened and lay flat. My waxed paper faux batik technique (link)is featured in one of the chapters and several of my ink paintings are in the gallery section. I believe there are 14 contributors total, each with a unique perspective and some really lovely work. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone considering trying alcohol inks. The instructions are clear with an abundance of photos for guidance.

Pigments of Your Imagination ~ Video review by Jill Berry

Kitty Kocktail ~ WIP 1

I've finally begun work on this little fella. I decided not to try this in watercolor(I didn't believe I could achieve the soft fuzziness of this kitten) and opted instead for dry media. So far I've used various pastels, Caran D'Ache water soluble crayon and water soluble graphite. I also decided to work on artist quality kraft paper. I love the look of a toned paper with pastel.

February

Sorry I've been MIA for so long. Having lung issues again among other things this winter and I haven't felt at all creative. I'm so tired of opening my blog to see the New Years clipart so I'm posting a couple colored pencil portraits I did about 6-7 years ago. I was asked to join a 5 day challenge on Facebook recently so I dug these out of some old files to honor that challenge. The goal was to post 3 pieces of artwork every day for 5 days. Each day another artist had to be named to do same and so on. It caught on and produced a steady stream of fabulous work in the FB newsfeed which is still running! I enjoyed participating and got to discover some talent I may never have otherwise.