Fun with filters, a how-to guide… part 1… (and you should really read these in order)…

Posted on June 14, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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Over the next day or two… or longer, if the crack squirrels that live in my head decide it should be so… we are going to have some fun with filters. I know, everybody says I have no filters. But you probably do. And if you don’t, I can tell you where to get some… for free… and they are easy to use, and will make your blog art pop.

Also, I will tell you, step-by-step, how to do all this stuff.

To begin with, I am using a picture of the little girl I babysit. Yes, it is my buddy, Olivia, the daughter of some friends of ours. And yes, I supplement my meager income from a part-time job as an apartment manager by doing some babysitting. I even undercut my competition… teenage girls… by charging only ten dollars an hour, which, I think, is below the actual minimum wage. Hey, don’t judge me, selling my books isn’t making me rich.

I chose this photo, left over from my daughter’s high school graduation party the other day, because it is just a normal photo of a cute kid. I didn’t do anything special with it, except to save it at 72 DPI and eight inches tall. Don’t worry about any of that if you don’t know how to resize an image, but the stuff I am going to teach you works better if the picture isn’t a huge file, that’s all I’m saying.

Okay, get ready for some fun.

See you soon.

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Taj Ma-huh??? the final chapter… now with more pictures per post!

Posted on June 14, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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Oh, don’t worry, we are going to do more of these amazing ‘filter’ posts…

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But, instead of a photo of the Taj Mahal, which I just added some funny colors to, we are going to use some different pictures.

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I am planning on using the picture of me in sunglasses that you see around here a lot, a photo of the little girl, Olivia, that I babysit, and I am going to take some Escher prints, add color, and then run them through some filters too.

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Maybe I will do the whole thing as a step-by-step, how-to series. What do you think about that?

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Because this is an interactive blog, and I care what you think…

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On the other hand, I have crack squirrels living in my head, so I am going to do what they tell me to do regardless…

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Taj Ma-huh??? part 9… now with more pictures per post!

Posted on June 13, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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This will go much faster if I do multiple pictures in each post.

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I mean, you should still look at all of them… and read all the words…

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Yes, these are all the same photo of the Taj Mahal… but I did go to the trouble of coloring the photo in… because the place needed a little color.

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So I added some stripes and polka-dots and even some tie-dye.

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But then I put the picture through some filters in a program I know about… which is free, and easy to use, if you want to know about that sort of thing, so you can do this stuff yourself.

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This is some serious multi-media stuff here, people.

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And you can do this to your own photos… well… the coloring in the buildings did take a while, but you can skip that part.

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Unless you have crack squirrels living inside your head too…

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Then by all means, knock yourself out.

 

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Taj Ma-huh??? part 8…

Posted on June 13, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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Basket case…

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Taj Ma-huh??? part 7…

Posted on June 13, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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Okay, I don’t know what that is, or how I did it, but I know I like it.

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Taj Ma-huh??? part 6…

Posted on June 13, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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Okay, it’s just a photo of the Taj Mahal, run through a filter that makes it look like a charcoal drawing, but, because I painted in funny colors in Photoshop first, it does lead to some strange effects.

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Taj Ma-huh??? part 5…

Posted on June 12, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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Oh yeah… that, my friends, is what happens when you use a ‘neon’ filter on a photo of the Taj Mahal that you already added funky colors to in Photoshop.

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Taj Ma-huh??? part 4…

Posted on June 12, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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Oh yeah, when you add some color to the Taj Mahal, and then use a filter to make it a negative image… and it comes out positively positive!

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My daughter really knows how to throw a party… the final chapter…

Posted on June 12, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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There is my daughter, Mollie, on the right, holding little Olivia. Mollie graduated from high school. Olivia hasn’t started school yet.

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Well, we all knew I was going to throw a random selfie in here somewhere, right?

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So these are the last photos from Mollie’s graduation party, organized by her older sister.

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I saved most of the Olivia pictures for the last post… because I love that kid… I mean, obviously, I love my own kids too. But two-year-olds are just so awesome. There is Olivia’s dad, Joey, lurking in the background… like dads do. He is going to be the father of new twins very soon… so I am going to get more babysitting jobs. HA! He is also a friend of my wife’s, from when they grew up in San Diego together.

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Okay, here is why kids are awesome when they are two. Because everything is magical, but it also makes sense, because it is what they see. Adults can’t accept magic and reality simultaneously.  They think everything is either/or.

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But watch a two-year-old play with helium balloons. Flying balloons. That is magical, but it must be real, because they can see them.

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All their lives, they have watched gravity make anything they let go of cause that thing to drop to the ground. Now, all of a sudden, gravity don’t mean doodely-squat.

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But they totally roll with it… as long as there is someone around who is tall enough to get the balloons back down off the ceiling. Magic and reality.

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I do miss when my daughters were that age, and I was a stay-at-home-dad… before it was cool to be one.

 

 

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My daughter graduated high school… (or): My daughter really knows how to throw a party… part 3…

Posted on June 11, 2017 by pouringmyartout

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There she is, my younger daughter, Mollie. Remember, she is 18, so she can be on the blog now, according to my wife. We were at the awesome graduation party that my other daughter, Jessica, organized. Mollie has a new camera. It is sort of like mine, only better. You can also see my mom, who came all the way to San Diego to see Mollie graduate… yes, I know, I was just up in the Bay Area visiting my mom until last weekend… hey, we get around.

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Yes, my little buddy, Olivia, was there too. She loves Mollie. There is Olivia’s dad in the background. If he looks a little frazzled, remember, they are having twins any day now… not him and Mollie, him and his wife, silly!  Oh, yeah… more babysitting for me!

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There is my older daughter, Jessica, with my new son-in-law, Jason.

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I tried to use the photo-op-wall, just one of the many decorations Jessica was responsible for, but the sun was in my face, so I moved over, and missed part of the wall. HA! Remember, Jessica planned this whole party, and did all the decorations… just like she did for her own wedding. We are an artistic people.

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Jason, with Mollie’s boyfriend, Dashawn.

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No, Jessica doesn’t hate me… she was being silly. I told her the picture was going on the blog… no… she doesn’t hate you either. And there is Beth. Jessica met Jason, her husband, and Beth, her best friend, at the college they all went to… which is where Mollie is going, at the end of the summer.

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Just a few of the honors and trophies and awards Mollie has earned, just at school.

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Yeah, she was a cheerleader, with impeccable grades, who is going to go into the medical field. Did I mention my daughters are awesomely smart, sweet and artistic?

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A bunch of photos of Mollie. My wife came up with a great idea a long time ago. If you have kids, put copies of all the photos, on top of one another, inside the same frame. This is a great way to keep the pictures safe, and you can always find them… when you want to do something like this.

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