Pouring My Art Out

Just for the heck of it… part 5…

Posted on September 8, 2017 by pouringmyartout

What is that? Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, that’s what it is.

Posted in My art, my weird moving pictures | Tagged art, books, childrens books, colors, humor, social-media, wizards | Leave a comment

Just for the heck of it… part 4…

Posted on September 8, 2017 by pouringmyartout

Okay, one more… because who among us hasn’t ever wanted to take the cover of a children’s book they wrote and illustrated, and make it do something magical?

Posted in My art, my weird moving pictures | Tagged art, childrens books, fiction, humor, social-media, wizards, writing | Leave a comment

Just for the heck of it… part 3…

Posted on September 7, 2017 by pouringmyartout

No, I’m not explaining it all again… read the previous posts…

Posted in my weird moving pictures | Tagged art, books, childrens books, fiction, humor, social-media, wizards, writing | Leave a comment

Just for the heck of it… part 2…

Posted on September 7, 2017 by pouringmyartout

Okay, I am still working on a bunch of stuff… editing my princess novel and working on the cover art, editing the fourth book in my action/humor science fiction series and working on the cover for that, helping my older daughter try to make a digital media presence for my books, so I can sell more, and trying to colorize that photo of Abraham Lincoln.

While I am doing those things, you still have to have stuff to look at. So I am taking some of the art from my children’s books, and working some digital magic on them.

I wish I could make the actual book pages do this stuff.

Here is the cover with no magic… or just my regular artistic magic…

Posted in My art, my weird moving pictures | Tagged art, books, children's book, drawing, humor, magic, painting, social-media, wizards, writing | Leave a comment

Just for the heck of it…

Posted on September 6, 2017 by pouringmyartout

imageedit_1_3403934691

I am working on a few other things, but while you wait, this is what happens when I work a little magic on one of the pages from my children’s book; The Lonely Little Wizard.

Here is what it looked like with slightly less magic…

back cover copy

Posted in My art, my weird moving pictures | Tagged art, books, childrens books, colors, drawing, humor, magic, wizards | 2 Comments

Living color… part 3…

Posted on September 6, 2017 by pouringmyartout

Seated portrait of President Abraham Lincoln. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/US Army Signal Corps/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Okay, I know, it isn’t working out so good, my attempt to colorize a picture of Abe. That is where I left off yesterday, Here is where I ended up today…

b 1

I lightened up the whole thing. I added a few more layers of new browns. I added a little color to the eyes. But the more color I add to his face, the weirder he looks. Hey, that is the thing about art. It only sucks if you give up before it is finished. And I am not giving up yet!

Posted in My art | Tagged abraham lincoln, art, history, humor, photography, Photoshop, photoshop art | 2 Comments

Living color… part 2…

Posted on September 5, 2017 by pouringmyartout

I have made a little more progress on my attempt to colorize Abe in Photoshop. Here is where I left off on stage two…

b 1

Just a simple, yellow-brown base coat for highlights. I used a high transparency setting on the brush, and made it a soft brush tip… digitally speaking.

b 1

Okay, I admit it… it is sort of creepy right now. Hey, this is a learning experience for all of us. I used a few shades of brown and then a little pink. I added a slight red tint to his lips. This might end up being horrible. Or, I might be able to fix it by adding more layers… or, as a last-ditch effort, I can play with the photo settings and change the color balance and brightness and contrast in the final stages.

Also, I am hoping to do something with the background… and his hair… and clothes… sigh.

And what color should I make his eyes?

Posted in My art | Tagged abraham lincoln, art, color, history, humor, photography, Photoshop, photoshop art, presidents | 6 Comments

And my other new project is… (drum roll, please)… another new book cover!!!

Posted on September 5, 2017 by pouringmyartout

z 50

No, that isn’t a concept idea for the new cover. That is a silly picture I did for an old post where I told people to buy my books or the alien would shoot me. However, that alien race will be in the fourth novel of my action/humor science fiction series: The Otherwhere Chronicles. As will I, because the hero of the books is me… but not this me, a me in another dimension almost exactly like this one… except chock full of aliens and silly adventures, where I… he… we… save an alien space station… (where I work as a janitor)… and then save the San Francisco Bay Area from a plot hatched by a huge, evil human/alien corporation… and then I try to take a vacation in the third book… until, in this last one, I am forced to save the entire universe from an invasion by evil, and not overly-bright aliens from yet another dimension.

z 51

I will probably try to make the cover from this picture, which contains a spaceship made for me by my son-in-law in a 3-D program, and which is featured on an earlier book cover from the series. I just made a bunch of the ships and put them in outer space. The one on the earlier cover is coming in for a landing over the Golden Gate bridge.

Posted in My art, Pictures of me | Tagged aliens, art, books, fiction, humor, novels, photography, Photoshop, photoshop art, science fiction, writing | Leave a comment

Living color… part 1…

Posted on September 4, 2017 by pouringmyartout

b 2

I told you I had a couple of projects in mind. This first one is just for fun. I was watching a TV show on the history channel called ‘The American Civil War In Color’. They used advanced coloring technology to add color to hundreds of Civil War era photographs. I thought that sounded like fun, so I am going to try it in Photoshop with this picture.

I can turn this into a tutorial kind of thing for anyone who is interested, telling you what brushes and tools I used, and the settings. But I won’t bother if you don’t ask.

So far, all I did was add a base layer of yellowish-brown. I will gradually darken it up, but let some of the bright color show through as highlights… hopefully.

Here is what I did so far…

b 1

Not really much to see yet, but I am hoping this gets more and more lifelike.

I will intersperse this project with posts about my other new venture. Maybe some of one or the other will interest some of you.