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

Tag: Art (Page 3 of 7)

Vientiane Still in Lockdown

Yes, we’re still on lockdown until at least May 20th, but the way things are going it’s going to last longer than that. Though Vientiane had only one case yesterday, we jumped to 14 today; way too many for the city to end the lockdown any time soon. So, if it goes on, there will be no school re-opening any time soon, so no pay, either. Gotta watch my expenditures!

Haven’t been doing a lot with artwork lately, though I have been keeping up with tutorials. I’d also like to learn how to draw, so I found a couple of free websites that look very interesting–Draw a Box and Ctrl+Paint. I’ll have to give one or both of them a try.

I messed around a bit with painting ideas in Photoshop and Topaz Labs this morning and came up with this, made from a photo taken in my favorite place on earth, Glacier National Park in Montana. Enjoy. More later.

glacier national park

Saint Mary Lake, Glacier National Park

Digital Art–Ghost Patrol at the Ancient Gateway

Here’s my latest piece of digital art entitled “Ghost Patrol at the Ancient Gateway.” It uses some black and white conversion techniques, a few filters, Gaussian blurs, and I ran it through a few Topaz filters and a Topaz look. The photos are mine except for the Roman soldiers, which I got from Pixabay. The background hills are from a Morocco photo, as is the ancient gate from the Roman ruins at Volubilis. The lightning storm is from a photo I took in the Dominican Republic.

digital art

Digital Art–Abandoned

Here’s my newest piece of digital art, entitled “Abandoned.” Lots of texture layers were incorporated, LUTs and other effects, and I ran the finished version through Topaz Labs and ON1 Effects.

I find that I just really don’t have enough time to devote a lot of attention to my art due mainly to the fact that I’m working full-time at the college, but we have a few extra days off coming next week, so I’ll take advantage of that. Also, starting around April 10th, we’ve got about a month off for our break between terms, so I’m giddily looking forward to that. I’m still stuck in Laos, unable to travel outside of the country without having to go through a big hassle, but I’ve got Art to keep me company!

Digital Art–Castletown Ghost Town

Here’s my latest digital art composition, from photos taken with a film camera in the Castle Mountains in Montana back in 1993 or ’94. The building photos were taken in old Castletown, a site which may no longer be standing. I went back there in ’97, but the area had been fenced off with signs saying to keep out because it was private property, so it’s possible the site has been razed. I’d like to get back there some day to have a look. I really enjoyed hiking in the Castles back in the day, and there’s a great little fishing stream not too far away.

The photos are mine except for the starry sky and the wolves, which both came from Pixabay. The moon is an old photo of mine that I enlarged for this piece. The buildings and mountains were shot in the daytime, so I converted them to night images in Photoshop. Lots of layers, many of them adjustment layers, a few texture layers and quite a few masks used also. Had fun making this, which, for me, is the whole point of doing digital art. Enjoy.

Castletown ghost town

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope you have a great, wonderful day with your families and loved ones. In Laos, of course, Christmas is not a big deal, but next week’s New Year’s Eve and Day are celebrated by more people.

For today, I might ride my motorbike to visit Nai’s family, only about 5 miles away, but much of the journey is over a very bad, dirty, pothole-filled road. If I go, I’ll take some photos and try to get some of them posted in the very near future.

The school’s on break between terms until January 10th, so I’ve got plenty of time to work on my digital art. Here’s a recent composition I’ve been working on for what seems like forever. It’s entitled “Moonlit Desert City.” I’ve been adding and subtracting objects from it, fiddling with blend modes, shading and tones, and generally playing around with it. I’m still not satisfied with the results, so I’ll probably keep working on it. Anyway, here’s the most recent iteration. (P.S. That’s me on the far left with my eyes peeking out from the mask.)

moonlit desert city

Moonlit Desert City

Digital Art–In the Hall of Masks Revised

I got to thinking about how I could improve my compositions. I came to the understanding that many of them didn’t have a focal point, something that would grab the viewer’s attention when the piece was first viewed. I think this is particularly true of “In the Hall of Masks.” (See previous post.) It’s a nice enough piece, but there’s really nothing for a viewer to latch onto. So I redid it by moving the right foreground character closer to the viewer and adding some glowing eyes. I think this strengthens the image. I also lowered the red saturation, which I felt was overdoing it, and I changed the text a bit. Here’s a look at the new image. I think it’s an overall improvement. What do you think?

digital art Hall of Masks revised

revision

Digital Art–High Heat

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

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.

Digital Art–Suwon’s Papa

Here’s a black and white conversion of a somewhat bland color photo I took of a friend’s father. I think the b&w photo is much more interesting than the color. I added an overlay (the typography) to it, added a bit of a vignette, a color look up from Photoshop, made some adjustments to tone and shadow, added an orange warming filter to give it a vintage sepia look and ran the piece through Nik Silver Efex Pro2. What do you think?

Suwon's Papa black and white

Here’s the b&w conversion. See the original color photo below.

Suwon's Papa color version

Here’s the original color photo.

Digital Art–On the Farm

Here’s my newest digital art piece, which I’m entitling simply “On the Farm.” All the photos are mine, from Morocco and Laos (the truck), except for the farm lady, which is from Pexels and the basket is from Pixabay. (I don’t know why these two links have lines running through them, which usually signify broken links, but both links are working correctly.)

I added a few textures, some blending options, a color lookup (all in Photoshop, of course), and I ran it through Studio 2 from Topaz Labs. I’ve always admired the paintings of Edward Hopper, and Studio 2 has an Edward Hopper look, which I applied to this piece. Enjoy.

On the Farm digital art

On the Farm

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