Wordless Wednesday: Landscape

It is only a little planet, but how beautiful it is. ~Robinson Jeffers

Hmmm, Wordless Wednesday...it's hard not to say any words? And I can't not include a quote with my photo - it's impossible.

This image was initially taken with my iPhone and processed with apps. But I moved it into PSE this morning and edited it further, cropping it, putting it in Radlab, sharpening the pines, blurring the sky a bit...it was good to practice my very rusty Photoshop Elements skills. It's been awhile!

Thank you for stopping by - Happy Hump Day to you.

iPhoneography: Stacking Makes me Appy

I'm happy to hear about another digital art prompt on Saturday of each week - thank you, Claudia, for telling me about it. I'm happy to participate!

I'm sharing an iPhoto I took at a wonderful restaurant recently. They had the most delicious southern cooking, with lace tablecloths and napkins...and real china on each table. It was mismatched, and eclectic, and simply lovely. I won't even think about the fat content of the Salted Caramel Chocolate cake we shared for dessert - all four layers of it. Sometimes you just have to splurge, right? It was our wedding anniversary so I think that cancels out the calories.

I did a lot of app stacking with this image - I put the original photo into iColorama and used Edges to create a "lines-only" image, which I saved into my camera roll. I also put the original image into Glaze and chose a painterly option I liked. I merged those two together in Superimpose - the lines from my iColorama image gave a little more detail to the painterly one. The background was a little busy for me, so I used the Charcoal option in Repix to smudge the background a little and make it less distracting. And my final step was to move it into Stackables, which is always my favorite app for adding more grunge and texture.

If you'd like to participate in this prompt, or just see some beautiful images, click below to visit Claudia's blog.

Do the Heart Work

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

On this Friday, I find myself in flux...there's a transition taking place and my creative self feels a bit lost, a bit as if the rug has been thrown out from under me. I haven't just physically moved to a new state...I'm finding that my old creative habits have moved, too. It's as if those old habits are stored in boxes somewhere from our move, and I'm trying to decide if I should even unpack them...or maybe I should put them straight up into the attic? And maybe I should go out and redecorate my heart with new habits that speak to me.

This is my state of mind these days, and my head is filled with all sorts of new ideas about which direction I should go in. My "big camera" is gathering dust and I haven't used it in months. My iPhone continues to be my biggest source of inspiration. More and more, I'm drawn to abstracts and how I can create them with my apps and iPad (see my last post HERE). I want to paint, I want to play with watercolors, pen and ink, pencil portraits, shrink plastic...I'm excited about what may be coming. But I also feel a bit off center. My poetic muse is completely gone for now, and that makes me a bit sad...I hope she returns soon because writing poetry is one of my biggest joys.

In the meantime, I'm happy to participate in Friday Finds over at Kim Klassen's blog - and I'm sharing some of my recent iPhone photos that I've edited with apps. I continue to be amazed at what's possible with apps. It's such an exciting way to be creative.

Thank you for stopping by - have a great weekend.

From iPhone Photo to Abstract: iColorama, Glaze, Stackables and Artrage

In every landscape should reside jewels of abstract art waiting to be discovered. ~Melissa Brown

I have been fascinated with the idea of using my apps and an iPhone photo to create painterly looking abstracts. I really know nothing about abstract art...I just know that I find it very appealing to look at. I like the feeling I have while attempting to create something abstract. It comes from the gut - it's all about balance and symmetry to my own inner eye. I like that it's purely subjective - what I find to be balanced may look completely unbalanced to someone else. But, I guess that describes all art, doesn't it?

Last week I played around with a beautiful sunset photo I recently took near my house. I was very excited at the abstract results I was able to get! The photo was taken with my iPhone, but all of my editing was done on the iPad. Here is the original photo:


I first put the photo into iColorama and used the Triangle feature under Style. It, obviously, turns your photo into a bunch of triangular shapes:


Next, I moved it into Glaze and chose a painterly effect that I liked:


Then I moved it into Stackables because at this point I wanted a little more texture and grunge. I added various filters till I was happy:


And last came my favorite part - I moved it into Artrage where I used various pencils (and colors) to randomly add the circles and triangles. Artrage is an incredible app and I won't even try to explain how it works because it does so many things. If you Google "Artrage" there are tutorials everywhere that teach the basics. I've only begun to scratch the surface of what it's capable of:


If you want to attempt an abstract without all the paints and mess, go choose one of your phone images and give it a try with your camera apps! Who knows what jewels you'll discover?

Today I'm linking up with the digital art meme over at the Nature Footstep blog. Click HERE to visit.