Tuesday, October 27, 2009

My New Listing - Earth Saved 8 x 12 inch digital art print

Inspired by the wonderful photo collages of last week's Wednesday Heart, Imagine Studios, I sat down and had a bit of a play around last night and came up with this:



A giant, shadowy man emerges from a smouldering, smokey volcano to save the world from an evil swan monster. It must be true, it was in the paper.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Wednesday Heart - Imagine Studio

The other day I mentioned briefly the concept of images that were in the public domain. As a funny coincidence the person who jumped to my attention as today's Wednesday Heart uses public domain images to create awesome photo fusion collages. I absolutely adore this type of digital art and Imagine Studio practices this artform to an extremely high level.

You all know what a big fan I am of fractals and photographic patterns, so it was a pretty sure bet that I was going to love this wonderful picture of a naked woman with a swirling blue pattern covering her body:



I love the romantic feel that hearkens back to the legends of Arthur and the poetry of the early Regency period. The blue circles echo down to the water beneath her form and it gives the whole piece a dream like resonance.

A common theme through most of the images created by Imagine Studio is that they focus a lot on women and have overtones of celebration and sexuality. This next print is a very clear illustration of the theme:



The sensuality comes through in the full lips and the darkened eyes, the mystery in the veil of shining colours across her face. The curves of hue beneath the eyes and upwards from the corners of the eyes enhance the feeling of a veil and give the image an exotic feel. I love this picture.

The exotic and the foreign is another theme that carries across the body of work. This picture is stunningly beautiful and evokes a Japanese feel:



It also reminds me of the work of some of the more fantastic body painters around. I'll do a completely separate post on them. Suffice it to say that the technical photo editing skills that have gone into this image are really very, very good.

Browsing through the work of Imagine Studio is like wafting through a dream that is both bold and sensual. That is why she has my Wednesday Heart.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Great Photographs - Afghan Girl by Steve McCurry



This is one of the most famous portraits ever taken. This 1984 photo was published in National Geographic in 1985 and Sharbat Guala became the human face of the Afghani refugees for the western world.

Steve McCurry is a photojournalist who makes his living through his evocative and tremendously brilliant images. Have you ever wanted to be a photojournalist but don't know where to start? Have you tried the method Steve McCurry used?

His career was launched when, disguised in native garb, he crossed the Packistan border into rebel-controlled Afghanstian just before the Russian invasion. When he emerged, he had rolls of film sewn into his clothes of images that would be published around the world as among the first to show the conflict there.

(NB - I don't actually recommend entering war zones in disguise unless you are really, really dedicated)

The image was shot on Kodachrome. I'd be lying if I pretended to understand the process, so I'll just give you a link to the Wikipedia page which you can peruse if you want to know more about the technical aspects.

In the end, Steve McCurry and National Geographic went back to find her and talk to her and see what had happened to her. After a long search, they found her and (with the permission of her husband, which is essential in that part of the world) re-photographed her. It's amazing the difference a lifetime can make.



If you'd like to buy a copy of the original image in poster size, please try Steve McCurry's website here.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Alien Cloning Pod

Okay, I made some changes to my purple alien cloning pod and listed it. Here's the finished version:

Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Wednesday Heart - Nature is Art Photography

One of my favourite photography books that I have at home is one featuring winners of the Wildlife Photography Awards. I'm not sure if Greg Ledermann of Nature is Art Photography has ever won such an award, but if he hasn't I'm willing to go out on a limb and say he certainly should!

Take for example this first picture of a hummingbird in mid-flight:



Technically amazing! The capture is perfect, no blurring of the wings at all. And the colours are so crisp and sharp. If I was to be a nit-picker, I might say that the flower distracts a little and maybe a slight crop would be good, but then the green spaces may be a little overwhelming. All in all, good choices, good technique and an excellent shot!

Harping back to my snow theme from my last Wednesday Heart, I love this shot of a red fox standing in the falling snow:



I love the soft blur of the falling snow, the beautiful colour contrasts between the red fox fur, the dark forest greens and the snow white and the excellent composition. Awesome.

Picking my third feature image was really, really hard! A cute little bobcat kitten almost won my heart, but this print of a wolf sitting on a floor of autumn leaves was just really too good to go past:



Again, the composition and colour are excellent. I also love the personality this shot has. The wolf almost seems to be smiling. It's both cute AND extremely well done.

Seriously, I loved almost every image in this shop. If he made a book, I would seriously consider getting it (*hint, hint* ^_^) Nature is Art Photography, you ARE my Wednesday Heart!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Quilting Weight Fabric Finally Arrives!

Quilters, dress makers, designers! My new designer fabric has arrived. I have a yard and a fat quarter of quilting weight cotton that has this wonderful digital art design imprinted on it:








This is a really unique fabric, no-one else has any yet. The blue and black looks fantastic and this could go towards the creation of some really interesting items.

As an added bonus, if you buy this material and send me a photo of what you make with it that I can add to my blog you can take 10% off your next purchase ^_^

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Public Domain Photographs

Images in the public domain are fantastic things for both digital artists and traditional photographers and that's where sites like The Public Domain come in.

As a photographer, it's interesting to study what people have been doing in the past. How they have framed their images, what poses they used, what they bothered taking photographs of and thinking about how that can improve your own skill levels. For artists, it gives you something to work from and also becomes a source of ideas.

I am also a big fan of writers using pictures to inspire their work. Here are two images from the The Public Domain which are just wonderful. I keep trying to make up stories that go with the pictures and thinking about different things I could create using them :-)