Welcome to the Magic Show!

I had alot of fun creating this "mad magician" image. Lita and I donned the outfits and did the shoot the same day we did the mermaid "swimming" pics. I didn't have to do much digital work to Lita and I except for replacing my crazy top hat with a more traditional one which I then painted. The red bow tie came from a costume image off of google. I also used a diffused glow filter over Lita's body which gave her the look of enchantment. Both the curtains,background and bunny were stock images. For the background I had to take out things such as a window and some chains before changing the color. I changed color of the floor as well to make it fit in with my overall warm toned scheme. The bunny was originally coming out of my top hat and that was a little too much. I still wanted to use the cute little guy so off to the corner he went. Magic dust and sparkles were added using brushes and the effect of shadows being cast was done using the burn tool. After the image was together I added a CCTV dirty camera texture to a top layer and changed the blending mode to Overlay and the opacity to 50%. This popped the brightness up in the center of the image while leaving the dark edges of the texture. This image definately speaks to what I am learning right now with digital art...I'm discovering a world of magic and becoming a digital magician and oh boy, is it alot of fun!

Inspiration can come from anywhere

I find inspiration everywhere and this Nike commercial is a perfect example of that. It's just another sports commercial to most people but for me I find that the themes of life's passion, determination and hard work motivate me to "Leave Nothing" when following my dreams. I find football extremely passionate...there is always raw emotion, players trying to do and be their best. Doing what they love and doing it for the entertainment of millions of fans. As an artist on a journey of discovery, I have looked at the sport in a completely different light. One that is vibrant, fully energized and full of a cast of colors. Another reason this commercial touched me was the music...I was drawn to it and finally, after a month of watching it over and over figured out why. It's connected to my childhood and pleasant memories of us kids settling in to watch Clint Eastwood in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" with my dad who is a huge Eastwood fan (and quite coincidental, my birth father LOOKS just like Eastwood). The music is from that movie. When I finally figured it out, all those Eastwood movies, including my favorite "Two Mules for Sister Sara" came flooding back to me along with memories of us at the drive in theatre, with the large silver speaker hanging on the drivers side window blaring those familiar western themes. I began thinking about doing a photo series based on those movies and got extremely excited over bringing my childhood back to life. And to do it for my dad, who will probably get a kick out of it while recovering from shoulder surgery. Of course, I will need to find a poncho, cowboy hat, mule and a nun costume first. :)

Creative process of "The 12th Sign"

"The 12th Sign"

To create the digital art piece "Pisces" for my Zodiac Series I had envisioned the two fish swimming in opposite directions as mermaids. I started with several images that Lita and I had taken of ourselves in a "swimming" position, which gave our abs quite the workout! I had to only use one image from Lita's session but with me I used four different photos piecing together my body from one, face from another, and arms each from yet another photograph. When I finally had our bodies in place, I created the tails, fins and hair with brushes. Lita's hair was easy but changing my hair color completely and making it have depth was not an easy task! I imagined us as mermaids in the Mediterranean so an underwater like Atlantis with ruins was the only way to go, however I actually started with a photograph of the reef in Key Largo in the Atlantic. I used these two photos of the reef: From there I resized, scaled and warped to get the image to look like it was taken under the water instead of above the water. I then created a light source from the top using the Lasso tool to mark out where I wanted my light rays to fall. Next came finding "ruins" that I could use to create my Atlantis. I chose the archway from this shot taken at Armadale Castle in Scotland: And also this shot of the Glastonbury Abbey for the larger ruins: For both of these I needed to cut out the pieces that I wanted, change the colors to fit in with my overall ocean color scheme and scale them down to fit into the image. I then used this photograph taken in the Red Sea during a trip to Israel:

By placing this photo in a back layer I could bring it through and give the image a feeling of depth. I also warped it out and used it underneath the stone floor which I lowered the opacity on. Both the stone floor and the throne were stock images.

I added the text and symbols, placed Lita and I in position and added sparkles on and around us. The final step was a gradient layer in two colors chosen from my image, layered on top of the entire image and the opacity lowered just a bit so that Lita and I still came through as the main subject but the colors are slightly more muted to give the feeling of being under the sea.

This image involved numerous hours, lots of learning, a gazillion layers and tons of patience but I must say that I'm really proud of myself for following through with my artistic vision and bringing this piece alive. I'm also very excited to see where Lita takes her vision from this session and when she has it finished I will definately be posting a link to it from here. Next up for me is processing of some nature photos and then working on a few other artistic series including a "Mad Magician" series and a "Faerie" series!

Creative process of "By Moon's Pale Light"

I had the idea for this scene in my head for months and the final result turned out better than what I had imagined. Of course, it took a lot of work to get there...not counting the morning spent with Lita shooting the main image, post processing took about eight hours.

I ended up with about 115 shots from the session. This was the one that I ended up choosing as the main image I wanted to work with.

I liked the closeness between Lita and I, as well as the positions of our bodies and the expressions on our faces. However, the Gothic tree is in a tropical setting so my first order of business was to remove all the greenery, leaving just us and the tree.

Transporting us into a haunting graveyard was the next step and I chose this one from my files:

This shot, taken last year in Wales with a point and shoot needed to be rescaled to fit in with the image of Lita and I. I wanted to have the ivy-covered tomb be in the front so that was the driving force as to what was kept. The large tree and most of the background were masked out as were a few of the graves. I kept only the trees in the far distance to achieve depth in the shot.

I went through several versions of a final image before I finally got satisfaction which included one where the entire background was just a dark and cloudy sky. Another in high contrast b&w and yet another where I had the image a chocolate color with texture and grain. One of the images to nearly make it to completion was one where I had used many clouds. In the end though I decided only a few wisps were needed over a large and luminous moon. I used a background of b&w clouds from a Photoshop CD and masked out the ones I didn't need. I chose this shot from my files for the moon:

I needed something to fill in the rest of the image so the tops of these very branchy trees were added to the background:

I now had my composite image created. My next steps were to convert it to black and white, run some filters over it to give it the cool tones and to use the burn and dodge tools to cast my shadows and highlight the areas where the moonlight would fall. The final step was the Render Clouds filter which added the fog. I masked out most of it except around the front and used a slight blur to make it a bit less patchy.

Be sure to visit Lita's Blog to read some behind the scenes and see outtakes from this shoot and to also see how she came to her final masterpiece of "Touched":

http://paintedrenderings.blogspot.com/

Everyone has to fight to be Free

This beautiful morning, while riding my bicycle and listening to Tom Petty's "Refuge", the line "Everyone has to fight to be free" really struck a chord within me. The sky was so blue, with fluffy marshmallow clouds. There was an opening where the warm sun cast her rays directly onto my emotionally drained body. I closed my eyes for a moment and drank it in. My soul was suddenly energized with this burst of freedom that I have longed to feel for a while now. To be free of relationships that are mean-spirited and negative. To be free of the rusty chains of my past. To truly be free in the present...to live a gorgeous, love-filled life of happiness and joy. I had to battle myself and my guilt to be free. Sometimes our head tells us one thing. Our heart another. This can lead to a conflict that drains us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. But if we listen to our gut...,our soul, it always knows the answer. There is no battleground there. The soul knows what is right, what is wrong and what we need to change in order to be free, complete and happy. Change is good and can lead to an unexpected freedom. Having a space left by something old means that now something new can develop in it's place and that is quite an exciting prospect. Later on in the day, I spent time working in my garden. Giving back to the earth that has so graciously blessed me with a wonderful life full of caring, supportive and loving people. Freedom was everywhere around me...a grumpy looking toad who was happy to just watch me watch him. A Giant Swallowtail that floated around me with such grace and beauty. A super fast Skipper that danced long a vine. A tiny little duckling that seemed to smile up at me when I gave him some seed. And there I was, finally feeling truly free along side them. Re-energized and happy to be part of this beautiful world.

The quick little skipper

The watchful toad

Throwback to the Teen Years

So last night I went rollerskating with my friend Lita. It was the first time in nearly 25 years that I was at a rink. I was 19 years old when my skating days ended. I had left my skates and the brown leather case my little brother saved his money to buy me for Christmas in the backseat of my 1969 Ford Mustang. I had left them in there while on a roadtrip with my college cheerleading squad. I had a feeling the whole time I was gone that someone was going to steal them and my intuition was right. After that I had quit skating but up to that point, I had skated for 15 years and my entire teen years were spent every weekend at the roller rink.

I have such fond memories of that place, the people who hung out there and the music that was played. "Blinded by the Light"...the lights would be turned off except the big disco ball that hung from the middle of the roof and which threw tiny little diamonds of light across the floor. I had dance routines to "Let it Whip" by the Dazz Band and "Flamethrower" by J. Geils Band. "867-5309/Jenny" by Tommy Tutone drove me batty and when it would come on I'd leave the floor to get a Mr. Pibb.

It was at the rink that I learned all the lyrics to "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang. And of course who could forget the skating standards like "Double Dutch Bus" and "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" by the Gap Band.

They played "Double Dutch Bus" last night and Lita and I just smiled at each other, picked up speed, moved our hips and enjoyed the wind in our hair.

The photograph was taken in 1982 and the drawing I did in 1980.

Aye Mateys! 'tis been to long since ye wench here has posted words to de blog!

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Errr...me loves this day wit all of me 'eart! There is much fun to be had when ye walk 'round talkin' like ye bloddy pirate all day! And, aye been waitin' to post ye pirate pics on Flickr for a whole year!

Me knows this wench, Francie who says life is more fun in costume! Aye...me thinks I'm agreed!

So next year, me will dress in me pirate garb for a selfie portrait for all me mates to see!

Til then, smooth sailing mateys! Errrr....