A Digital Portrait

Some years ago, after I learnt Paint Shop Pro, I started getting into digital painting and even bought a digital drawing pad. It's kind of ironic though because I have never really painted with real paints before. Well actually I can think of one time at school when we had a project to paint a wooden spoon for a Mother's Day gift. So I made a butterfly which I copied from a nature book. Years later my mother showed it to me, and I was quite impressed! Apart from that, I had only ever used coloured pencils and pastels and I didn't create anything particularly fantastic.

The reason I think I enjoy digital painting more than on paper is that there is the undo button - and I tend to use it a lot!

This picture is the only portrait I have ever made on the computer. Other than that I only ever did a few pencil portraits at school. Technically I am not sure I can really call this a portrait because I actually used someone else's portrait painting to make mine, seeing as I didn't have the luxury of having a real live person to paint. Why I chose to copy someone elses art I will never know and I don't even remember who the artist was. My picture doesn't look like the original either.

There are some things I love about this picture and some things I hate. First of all I never made a background for it, the ear seems a bit on the small side and I know I rushed the hair. Perhaps I got bored with it because like always I starts questioning why I am going to all that trouble. I am working on changing my internal dialogue! What I do like though is the face; particularly the eyes and the lips. It gives me a glimpse of what I am capable of. At the same time it leaves me a little sad that I never went to art college, the biggest regret of my life.

Anyway, if you would be interested in me making you a digital painting, maybe from a photo of you, or a family member, or of something else, I will certainly have a go (and I promise to put in a background :-) )! Just leave a message here.

A bowl of glass grapes

Time goes so fast and it's hard for me to believe that it was over ten years ago that I belonged to many online groups relating to Paint Shop Pro. I remember one such group where they would post an image as inspiration for the members to create their own image. Once completed you would share your picture with the rest of the group and they would give feedback. I remember some people had such exceptional talent that it was a real privilege to see what they had created.

One week this photo was put online to give us inspiration.

As you can see by my version below I changed the background to a darker background which I felt made the glass grapes stand out more. The bowl I made fairly similar to the original just by creating a half circle which I filled with blue and dabbed with a grey colour. The grapes I am pretty sure I created with just one oval which I then duplicated, recoloured and rotated several times. Looking a little closer I am fascinated at how I created the highlights of each grape. I do sometimes forget how I created a certain effect unless I write it down at the time which luckily I did nine times out of ten. But this time was the exception I guess.

As always, if you have a picture/s you would like me to use as inspiration for a new image just let me know and I would be happy to create something for you.

My First Digital Painting

Some years back I came across some fabulous tutorials on how to make digital paintings in Paint Shop Pro. I don't think the tutorials are online anymore, which is a real pity as they were very detailed tutorials and the pictures you could make looked really impressive.

One of the pictures was of a mountain and looked really astounding, so I decided to give the tutorial a try. This was my result:

I remember that to make the reflection of the mountain you simply had to flip it. Then you created the effect of water by making a few horizontal lines. So simple yet so effective!

Ok so my effort wasn't a real masterpiece but when I look back at it I find it wasn't bad for a first try. I still enjoy making digital paintings, I find it very relaxing.  One of the benefits it has compared to real painting is if you make a mistake you can simply press the undo button!

I would like a challenge to make a digital painting of something or someone, so if you have any requests just send me an email.

First blog post – creating for you!

Over the years I've often thought about, and attempted to make, various websites without ever fully completing them. The problem isn't that I am unable to make a website or that I lack ideas for content. No, I have plenty of ideas, too many sometimes. It’s just acting upon them is proving to be the challenge. This comes through an internal struggle with my self-identity and trying to find my purpose here on this earth.

At the age of 46 I find myself in the privileged position of not having to go to work. It's not that I don't want to work but circumstances have prevented me from doing so. This has subsequently left me with a whole lot of time on my hands causing me to do much soul searching to try and figure out what exactly I should be doing with my life.

The answer started coming to me recently after reading someone else’s blog. Her solution to leading a fulfilling life is both simple and eye-opening at the same time; that we should serve others. Of course! This started me thinking back to past jobs when I worked in IT support. Nothing gave me greater pleasure than to help colleagues out with computer problems. I enjoyed the work itself of course but making other people happy played a bigger role.

So how can I apply this to my life as it is now? What skills can I possibly offer to other people that I would feel driven to do every day? The answer is obvious to me yet conversely lacks clarity. I realise I spend a lot of my time creating things; whether it is on the computer (for instance making graphics and tutorials in Paint Shop Pro) or off the computer (eg art, photography, writing or anything that involves the creative process). As long as I am creating I am happy. So I have decided, rather than just making things for my own pleasure, I want to spend my time making useful things for other people.

But the question is, what can I make that other people would find useful? This is a question I struggle with all the time and that continually stops me from moving forward in some direction. So instead of waiting any longer for life to take me by the hand, I figured I just have to throw myself out there and see where I land (I’m a poet, and I didn’t know it, lol)! So that is when I decided to make this blog to showcase some of my work. 

So this is how I wish to advertise my services. You get to see my work and you get to decide if I can help you in some way, whether it is creating graphics for a website, or making a tutorial in Paint Shop Pro, or something completely different and non-creative!

One last thing I must mention before I finish this post. All my services are free. Yes, you read me right. Free. I am sure some people might be sceptical as to why someone would offer any service free of charge. Everything revolves around money these days and its hard to get anything that is genuinely for free. However, I find making people happy is more important than making lots of money. That’s just the way I roll. So please enjoy looking at my various creations and hopefully I can be of some service to you in the near future.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Flower art I made for a cancer research walk

A couple of months ago my husband gave a donation to a colleague who was doing a walk for cancer research. In return he got a paper bag which he was told could be decorated with pictures or text related to the cause. This bag would then be used in the evening of the walk to put a candle in. (I still haven’t quite worked out how they would light the candles without posing some sort of safety risk, but anyway). As I am the creative one in the family my husband asked if I might like to decorate the bag. A few people close to me have had cancer so this was quite a meaningful little project.

I used this picture from the internet of a beautiful bouquet of flowers as my reference and inspiration.

I drew a few of the flowers and leaves and coloured them in with markers, then cut them out and arranged them into a bouquet. Then I coloured and cut out the pink paper so I could stick all the individual little pieces down with double sided sticky tape. To finish off I made the breast cancer awareness ribbon and added this to the bottom of the bouquet before attaching it to the paper bag.

So this was the finished result!

Having never made anything like this before I had no idea if it was going to work out, but I must admit it turned out better than I expected.

I would have liked to have added more detail and perhaps more flowers but I only had a day to make it and I ran out of time. I really enjoyed making this and would love to make something else using this sort of technique. Perhaps there something I could make for you? Let me know in the comments.