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.