MontanaRon

An English teacher's blog about his travels and his digital art.

Category: Dominican Republic (Page 1 of 15)

Digital Art–Dominican Republic Cathedral

September 9, 2022 /

Here’s a piece that I’ve worked on that reflects some ideas I learned in one of my Photoshop Artistry courses. The key takeaway on this one is that the artist, Doris Seybold of Austria, goes through her enhancement of a piece by not adding any additional elements and having to go back to keep adjusting them, and adding more and readjusting, etc. It is a straightforward approach, going from one step to the next, not worrying about going back to adjust all the different elements. This is supposed to help foster a speedier workflow. You can read an interview with Doris by Sebastian of Photoshop Artistry, and you can check out her work on Behance. She’s really a wonderful artist, so give her a look.

I tried it with this piece, which probably could have used a bit more work, and mostly embraced the concept, but I “cheated” a little by going back to make some adjustments. So, below is the original photo, unenhanced, that I took of the Cathedral of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, finished around 1540 and the first cathedral in the Americas. The second image is my final version of the cathedral.

P.S. I did add an additional element, sort of, by replacing the sky of the original with something a bit more dramatic.

cathedral

cathedral

Lockdown Continued

July 25, 2021 /

Yes, we’re still in lockdown here in Vientiane, though the government has eased some of the restrictions. Important for us is that some schools can begin to reopen, though most won’t be able to start up again until September; that includes Vientiane College. It’s frustrating, but, overall, the Lao government has been doing fairly well at keeping the virus out of the country. Lately, the only cases have been from Lao workers in Thailand who have been coming back to Laos. The government checks everyone at the border crossings and hospitalizes all who have the virus. I think there are a bit more than 2,000 people who are hospitalized at the moment, but there have been five deaths, which is five too many. Compared to our neighboring countries, though, we’re doing pretty good. Thailand and Vietnam have been getting hammered by the Delta variant, and Cambodia and Myanmar have also been having problems. Hopefully, vaccinations will keep increasing here in Laos (and elsewhere) so that this crap will end.

As far as Vientiane College is concerned, it will open again in September if all goes well. Thankfully, the administration has continued to pay us throughout the lockdown and most of the teachers are now doing some extracurricular work to prepare for September. I’ve been making some short (2-3 minutes) videos for posting on the VC Facebook page. I’m making some vids about idiomatic expressions (“piece of cake”) and a “Did you know . . .” series that other teachers are also doing. (Did you know that the 10 most common words in English are . . .?) I’ve also been doing some other odds and ends to try to earn my keep. LOL

I haven’t been doing much digital art lately, but I’m going to get back in the groove very soon. I’ve been playing around with Photoshop actions a bit, and here’s a comp that I want to work on some more. It’s an original photo of paintings being sold by a vendor in Boca Chica in the Dominican Republic. I hope to add some more extras to it soon. More later.

Digital Art–High Heat

October 15, 2020 /

High Heat is a baseball term that describes a pitcher’s fastball. Here I extracted a couple of photos of players at the New York Yankees baseball academy near Boca Chica in the Dominican Republic. The player photos are mine, but everything else came from Pixabay. I tried to add a dispersion effect to the back of the baseball, without a lot of success. So, I ran it through a couple of PhotographyBB actions to get the final creation. I’m not entirely satisfied with this result, so I may do some work on the composition somewhere down the line.

High heat digital art

Digital Art–Dominican Hopefuls

September 30, 2020 /

Here’s a fairly simple new creation. The baseball players were at a short instructional camp in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic put on by the New York Yankees baseball academy, which is in Boca Chica. All photos are mine, the players at the camp and the Yankees academy in Boca Chica. I did a little processing of the photos and then extracted the players and added them to a photo of the academy. I merged the layers and ran them through a Photoshop action, PhotographyBB Powder Paint action.

Nothing too complicated here, just a few layers in Photoshop, but I like the effect of the action. More like a quickie finger exercise than anything, I suppose. Enjoy.

Santo Domingo Digital Art

May 23, 2020 /

My latest piece of digital art is a street scene in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic. But, the scene is not one you’ll actually be able to see if you go there. It’s a composite of three photos I took some years ago and put them together to create the scene. This is from a method by Cindy Charles, one of the artists in Kaizen, a digital art group I belong to. Here’s the final result (you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them a few times, but you’ll have to use your browsers back button to return to the post):

Here are the three original photos that make up the composite:

The first two originals are actually extractions from larger scenes and the obelisk is the original photo, from which I later extracted the monument.

The process I used, more or less, was to move the three extractions to a new canvas and move them around to my liking. Then I converted everything to black and white, and began painting in the colors of the buildings by hand. I put each color on its own separate layer so that I could control the opacity and other properties of each individual color. I put the layers and the relevant extraction in a group so I could move them around easily. I didn’t paint the obelisk in the far background and I didn’t paint the clothing for the people walking in the street.

I used a tropical color palette that I played around with in Adobe and used it to color in the buildings. After I finished, I discovered that I had painted in some colors that were very close to the original colors. But, that was OK. The painting took quite a while, but I enjoyed doing it, since it was the first time I had done this much hand painting. I used a soft round brush and the soft light blend mode for each color, and I painted with my Wacom tablet, which I hadn’t been using that much. Fun, really.

I added a few textures, a color lookup, a vignette and a few other things to complete the project. I discovered, though, that there are a seemingly infinite number of variations that can be made, so I may add a few of them to this page, soon, hopefully.

I had fun doing this piece, and thanks to Cindy Charles for the method. I know this one could probably be better, but I’m going to keep trying on other cityscapes and I’ll keep trying to improve this one, too. Enjoy.

Baseball Thoughts

February 27, 2011 /

After posting yesterday about the great weather we’ve been having lately, of course it’s been raining all day. According to the KMA (see South Korea links on the sidebar to the right), we’ve been blessed (!?) with almost 3 inches of rain, so far, with a bit more predicted to fall from now through tomorrow. I gave a tour of parts of Yeosu today to one of the new teachers, who has a car, but, tonight, with the rain still coming down, my thoughts have turned to the upcoming baseball season.

Yesterday, spring training games bloomed in Florida and Arizona, harbingers of the baseball season to come. The Yanks seem to have been shut out in the free agent market this past winter, but they picked up a few bargains. The starting rotation appears fragile, but youngsters, such as Ivan Nova (one of my former students at the Yankee baseball academy in the Dominican Republic), and aged veterans, like former Cy Young Award winner Bartolo Colon, may yet salvage the starting five. The bullpen, however, is deep, and Mo (Mariano Rivera), the best closer in history, is back to nail down the late inning wins.

The offense is still one of the best in baseball, led by Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Mark Teixeira, Jorge Posada and, hopefully, a resurgent Derek Jeter returning to form. Many baseball pundits predict that the Yanks won’t make it to the World Series, but I have high hopes.

Here’s a shot of young Mr. Super Nova that I took when some of the players gave a workshop on a visit to a Santo Domingo, D.R., orphanage. You can read my comments about that visit in November of 2007 in this post that I wrote at the time.

I usually subscribe to MLB TV to watch the Yanks play either live or at my leisure. It’s a pretty good deal if you live outside the country and can’t watch the games on local TV.

Another big baseball event, for me and other fans of computer text simulation baseball games, is the impending release, sometime in April, of version 12 of Out of the Park Baseball (OOTPB), an incredible simulation that lets you become the manager or general manager of a fictional or real baseball team. It’s very engrossing and realistic, and, if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool baseball fan, you’ll find yourself playing (wasting?) hours on the game. Until its release date, you can get it for $29.99 ($39.99 after it’s released). I already reserved my copy. You can download a free version, OOTPB8, to try it out. Click on the link in the side bar for more information about this great game.

See ya at the (virtual) ballpark.

Super Nova. Si. Super Teacher? Nah.

August 23, 2010 /

Wow, I was watching the Yankee game this morning (Sunday, in the States) when the broadcasters announced the starting pitchers for the August 23rd game, Yanks at Toronto. One of my students at the Dominican Republic Yankee baseball academy is going for New York. Ivan Nova is a charismatic, 6-foot 4-inch, 23-year old from the D.R., and I’m really going to enjoy watching him pitch his first major league start, though he pitched a few games in relief earlier this year. It’s quite a huge deal for him. Here are his stats on Baseball Refrence.

I joked with Ivan about what his nickname might be in the Majors; I said it could be “Ivan the Terrible,” but he told me that “Super Nova” was going to be his moniker. I think I have his email address, so I’m going to send him congratulations after he wins tomorrow. Good luck, Ivan! Here’s a photo of him that I posted back on Nov. 16, 2007, when part of the team visited an orphanage in Santo Domingo. The kids loved him, (like I said–charismatic), and he was swamped by young autograph seekers.

The university conducts student surveys after every semester to ascertain how we teachers are viewed by our classes. Well, the results from last semester came out last week and I had the highest rating by far, at 93%, with the faculty average being 85% or so. The students “grade” us in categories such as “The teacher arrived in class on time,” “The teacher was well-prepared,” “The teacher used outside materials appropriately,” etc. However, I look on this stuff as mere popularity ratings, not proficiency, and your score is dependent on the kind of students you have for that particular semester (age, hometown, interests, major, etc.). I won this before, in my first semester here (Fall, 2008), and I received a 100,00 won prize and a nice certificate. I also finished near the bottom in the semester right after that, while not drastically changing my methods or presentation, though I’m always striving to learn from my mistakes and get better. Like I said–a popularity contest, though it’s not bad for an old guy, I guess. 🙂 More later.

Beach Dreams

December 5, 2009 /

I’ve been preparing a packing list today and looking around for items on that list to include in my bags for the upcoming vacation I mentioned in the previous post. While doing this, I’ve been listening to free internet radio site Live365, where you can find all kinds of music. I’ve had the Dominicana Digital station from the Dominican Republic grooving me all afternoon with merengue, salsa, bachata, reggaethon and other hot Latin music. With the cold, blustery weather in Yeosu right now, I sure have a yearning to be sitting in my former Weekend Office, but, alas, it’s too far away and too expensive to get there. No, unfortunately, that’s not where I’m going on winter vacation. Here’s a shot looking toward the Boca Chica lagoon from my old Weekend Office.

Boca_Beach_5

And, looking further down the beach . . .

Boca_Beach_1

Someday I hope to return for a visit to the Dominican Republic and Boca Chica, but it’ll be in the summer, when the Yankee baseball camp is in full swing. Until then, I’ll have to settle for the warmer climes of . . . Laos and Thailand, next weekend. I won’t be going to any Thai beach areas, but at least it’ll be nice and warm there and in Vientiane. Can’t wait. More later.

Final Dominican Post

July 14, 2008 /

Yes, that’s it for the lovely Dominican Republic. I’m leaving the land of perpetual summer tomorrow around noon. I’ve got a long flight ahead of me, stopping first in Newark, NJ, then over to Minneapolis-St.Paul, and finally into Great Falls at 10:45 p.m. I’ve said more than a few goodbyes already, but still have to say adios to many of the players, staff and coaches. It’s really been a wonderful experience here, but I guess all good things have to come to an end. However, I’m sure Korea will also be good, and, of course, there’s a month in Thailand and Laos to look forward to before then.

Sorry I haven’t posted much lately, and I probably won’t be posting too much until I finally arrive in Korea on the 25th of August, if everything goes according to plan. If you’ve tried to post a comment on the blog lately, I’ve had to turn off the comment feature for now–I was getting mercilessly spammed by porn sites! I’ll try to find a workaround for this or maybe I’ll go to different blogging software or to one of the online sites, like Blogger.com. More later.

Goodbyes

June 28, 2008 /

There are some very nice personal advantages to working here, among them, these. First, the camp is tranquil, despite all the baseball, and beautiful–quite isolated, surrounded by scrubland and forest, with lots of birds, woodpeckers and yellow thrushes especially, making their homes in the trees. Next, we’re only a 5-minute ride from a beautiful beach–swaying palms, turquoise waters, and gentle, cooling breezes. Finally, living at the camp 24/7 naturally leads to good friendships with many of the players. That’s also a downside. A number of players have been released lately, dropped from the academy and sent home, mainly due to lingering injuries that just never fully healed and negatively affected their performance. Some of these guys had become good friends, and when I found out they were leaving, I shed a tear or two. Three in particular, who were released in the past month, stand out.

First is Jean Paul Conde, a handsome and friendly 19-year old Venezuelan pitcher with a confident attitude. With his dashing good looks, he would have been a major celebrity if he had made the big leagues with the Yankees. Here’s a shot of a rental car with Jean Paul on the left, Richard Martinez in the middle and Nixton Perez outside the car (all from Venezuela), along with a few chicas that Jean Paul had attracted.

JeanPaulCar

Then we lost Andres Varilla, an outspoken and high-strung Venezuelan. He is a good English speaker and we had more than a few discussions about Venezuelan and American politics. He plans on going to university and he’ll do well in whatever he decides to do. Here’s a photo of him (on the right) and Jean Paul with Reggie Jackson from November, 2006.

CRW_5468

Finally, my favorite player was also released a short while ago. Juan Lopez, from Nicaragua, is such an easy-going, friendly 19-year old that no one could help but like him. He speaks decent English and helped me out in a few of my beginner classes. I was taken by surprise and stunned when I found out that his smile and optimism would no longer grace the camp. Here’s a photo of him (on the left) with Gabriel Tatis, a Dominican player.

OD_Players6

Of course, I wished these guys well when they left, and I’m going to try to keep in contact with them vie email. Unfortunately, there are many more players who have become friends and whom I must leave in a few weeks. I never thought that would happen when I first took the job. It’s going to be a bittersweet departure from the D.R. More later.

« Older posts

© 2026 MontanaRon

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑