Diane Clancy’s Art Blog

It is so inspiring to have so many bloggers yesterday participate in Bloggers Unite for Human Rights Day.  There are so so many issues that need attention and I am grateful to all who participated.  If I had more time to read, I am sure that I would have learned about many more issues!  Frances, yes, that was a bubblescape created in Bryce with the electricity thanks to a Photoshop filter - KTP Lightning.  Nora, I am very very disappointed to hear that the Netherlands went back to private health care with your “pay(ing) three times the insurance fee for less coverage.”  Very disappointing!

Orange Spring, Digital © Diane Clancy

You can see that my feedreader problem is now fixed. Whew! One problem off the plate. It had been going on for quite awhile before I even caught it. Thank you again for stopping by and commenting.  

Hope you are all doing well today!! This is my hospital day when I go and get Remicade for the Crohns.   I plan to spend some time thinking about priorities and how I really need to spend my time. Since I feel on a treadmill, clearly something needs to change.  I can’t work on the computer or paint there, so it is a good time to think.  Thank you again!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Photoshop, feedreader

Thank you for all your wonderful comments on my Illustration Friday entry yesterday!! You Really Made My Day!! Beverly said she had an entry ready to go but got stuck on making the thumbnail for the challenge. Obviously I would love to see her entry and would love to see Bev enter this challenge!! So I am going to share how I make the thumbnail … in-Photoshop there are usually multiple ways to do things … here is the way I do it. It takes a lot longer to tell how to do it (and read about it) than it does to just do it .. so please give it a try! Please forgive the large files … I thought want to make sure you can see the details to be able to follow.

Selection

First, I am bet you know the selection tool … the tool that allows you to choose a part of your image … it is circled in red. Choose this tool.

Fixed Aspect

Set it to the fixed aspect ratio … highlighted in red … and set it to 1 to 1 ratio. This makes it so you will have a perfect square as you make your thumbnail. Now go ahead and choose some part of the image … whatever part you want to use as the thumbnail that people will see.

Crop

Now that you have chosen the part of the image you want to save, go to Image on the top bar and go down and choose crop … highlighted in red.

Image Size

Next we will set the pixel size for our thumbnail. Illustration Friday has a pixel size of 50 by 50 … so that is what we will choose. Go to Image again on the bar across the top and go down and choose Image Size.

Set Pixel Size

A window will come up after you choose Image Size. It is good to set the resolution to 72 pixels/inch for the web. (Lower red highlight) Some people may use a slightly different number … but 72 is fine. This makes an image “lighter” for the web. For printing the resolution would be much higher, but for the web setting this number to 72 helps a page load faster.

Now … it is time for that 50 by 50 pixel that is their standard. The upper red highlight shows the pixels in the image. Here it is important to set 50 height and 50 width because that is Illustration Friday’s specification. Now you can see what we cropped the image to a square … this way it is easy to set the size to 50 by 50. Then press OK.

Save for the Web

Next we Save for the Web. The first time I did Illustration Friday I was hoping I could just upload a 50 by 50 jpeg … but it was a larger file than their specifications and it wouldn’t upload. So we now go to File on the top bar and go down to Save for the Web … highlighted in red.

Set Jpeg

It will open up into a big window like this. For a regular image, you will choose jpeg … and high is good. I use the default of Optimized checked off and Quality to 60. These are highlighted in red to help you find them. If your file has transparency, you will probably want to use gif.

Save

Now the Save box will come up. You want to make sure you like its name. For the web, there are no blanks in names … Save for the Web automatically puts “-” into between names. Choose where you want to save it and remember that. When you go to upload your thumbnail, you will, of course, need to find it again.

This was done in Photoshop CS2 …. I think you will be able to follow this .. even if you are using a different version. These are not the new fancy tools. I sure hope this was helpful to you!! I apologize again for slow download times for so many images!! Please let me know if you have questions.

It was so weird using the program to do what I was teaching you to do … all these images went through this process also (except resizing to 50 by 50). Enjoy and please let me know how it goes!! I am looking forward to YOUR Illustration Friday!

Golden Glow, Digital © Diane Clancy

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Illustration Friday, Photoshop

One thing that has been great for me in blogging is getting back into creating paintings again. I had gone on quite a digital image binge a couple of years ago and then slowed way down (except for animal pictures). I have not done that much new painting with traditional materials except for working on a couple of series that I knew I wanted to work out to four in each series. And I have spent a lot of time marketing and doing graphic design and web design for clients.

Above the Race Track, Digital © Diane Clancy

Coming here and having you want a new painting every day, I worried if I would have enough. I am sure I had enough for maybe a year (or 2 depending on what I use), but I am very conservative in a certain way (not politically), and I didn’t want to use up all my paintings.

So I started creating new digital ones to hopefully delight you. And it has been great - because you have helped me go past what I was doing before in working with Studio Artist. In Photoshop I am probably working very much similarly. But your comments have pushed me past where I was working with SA. To a bunch more steps and taking images and working and reworking and reworking again.

Then - about the names - you pushed me to get more creative when I was going on and on with the Beyonds - since I was working with the same base image. That was how I was naming before - using one name for all 4 or so images I would make from one source image.

Right now I have over 300 images in a folder from one painting. Almost all the images I have created the last couple of months have been from the one base painting. So, obviously, Beyond 301 doesn’t cut it.

The Confession - for my Blog Action Day painting, I want to use traditional mediums - which means physical paints, physical collages, physical pastels, etc. Now … here is the confession really - I am scared! I feel I can never do anything worthwhile and that it just won’t look that good … and I can’t do it. I am nervous to so this!

The Appreciation - I want to thank you all for helping me develop into another stage in digital painting and also naming of paintings. Having to come up with a new name every day has made it much easier to be creative in names.

Thank you for sharing my process and please feel free to share yours!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: marketing, graphic design, Studio Artist, Photoshop, Blog Action Day, traditional mediums, creative process, digital painting

This painting is also a tip of the hat to Harry Potter. It took me about 10 tries before I got the “eye” how I wanted it. It is amazing to me how the name of an image can change the whole way I look at it.

Behind the Mirror, Digital © Diane Clancy

Answering some comments from previous posts … Sue O’Kieffe, to answer your question, I am looking at the blog (and particularly the paintings) on my CRT monitor, and I see a bit of a color difference, but not much at all. With all my files they are a little different on the large monitor upstairs versus my laptop. Mac vs PC can come into it too.

I am ready to print “In the Cathedral” but waiting for Susan to come home to put her image into the file too to save paper … but it looks good on the screen and usually it prints pretty closely … except the purples are usually too reddish when printed from Photoshop files … so I may need to work on that … We shall see!

Sue, it is neat the way we work so similarly!! I enjoy working and painting when I feel that I am at least as much as vehicle as a creator. For me it is so much more fun!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Sue O’Kieffe, color difference, printing

Update - the purple printed redder than I see on the screen.  I think I should have chosen all the purple and shifted that color somehow to a more bluer purple.  But this is the consistent off-printing that happens.  It is pretty close but not exact.  And I tried to adjust the saturation on certain colors, but I couldn’t get it how I wanted … so I printed to see what happened - but it looks great!

It is delightful that we are talking with each other about these issues of creativity and supporting each other as artists. For me, it is much different doing things digitally than with paper or canvas and paint. Lately I have been sitting down with an image and just saying - “go ahead and change it.”

Here We Are, Digital © Diane Clancy

First, actually I cruise a bunch of images and see who speaks to me. Someone jumps out and yells, “me, me me!” So I say, “OK.” I don’t have anything in mind … I work from the process before me with the Studio Artist program. That is how I have made most of these images lately … and often gone into Photoshop for while too.

It is much scarier for me with paper and paint. Though I used a similar technique for using paper and tempera for awhile and 2 of those images are very popular ones of mine. With paint I feel I have to create something “special” to justify using resources and stuff .. so it is much harder to create.

Also, with paint and paper or canvas, sometimes I do sit down with a specific idea - like to create another image in a series. Allowing myself to play obviously works much better. And I absolutely agree with Sue - don’t worry too much about being original.

Start with something that you want to do and constantly stretch yourself. Hard as it is, try to compare yourself to you - not to anyone else. Though that is easier to say than to do!  I know!  What else are you thinking?

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Studio Artist, Photoshop, tempera, creative process

Rima Koleilat has issued another challenge for anyone to play the game of changing an image. Details are here. So I have taken up playing this game too. Here is my first image - with a tip of the hat to Aldous Huxley (who wrote “Doors of Perception”).

Doors of Reflection, Digital © Diane Clancy

Part of the game is sharing how you got from the original (see Rima’s post) to the final image. I decided to start out in Studio Artist. As before, I started with Translating the image - which moves it in the direction you pull and then doubles as one moves. Because I wanted to keep a sense of realism, while adding mystery and a sense of otherworldliness at the same time, I only pulled in one direction at a time.

After pulling left to right horizontally, I Translated downward vertically. I wanted to continue this process but as I tried it, I was losing the main elements of the image that I wanted to keep. So I used Scale Uniform to just make everything smaller to give me room to fool around.

Then I Translated from right to left to double the door and and Translated from top to bottom to add to the upper stories. After that, I Translated from bottom to top to double the shop and doors to deepen the sense of mystery established with the doubled sign on the shop awning.

I wanted to differentiate the bottom shop and doors from the top to make it look like a reflection. I made a selection in Studio Artist to choose just the bottom reflections and was struck by the striking nature of the inverse color that showed up as I was highlighting it.

I couldn’t figure out how to make things work from there in Studio Artist so I switched to Photoshop since I know certain things much better in that program. Again, I choose just the bottom reflection and tried a few things like watercolor filters and such. But that inverse color was stuck in my mind. So I did a simple inverting the color in the reflection part.

There is an article that I have written about “Art that Changed Me” - it is the topic of the current and next issue of the People’s Voice which is a local newsletter of which I am the editor. There wasn’t room for me in the current issue so we are going to run the topic again. It is now quarterly - it used to be monthly and was way too much work! In that article, I talk about how the reflective surfaces of the bathroom window sills and bathtub walls of my childhood impacted my perception and expanded my viewpoint. This image reminds me of the mirroring wall quality.

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Rima Koleilat, Aldous Huxley, Studio Artist, mystery, Photoshop, People’s Voice, creative process

Colors on computer are so complex and just plain weird. Tonight I have used this image in 4 different programs. I created the image in Studio Artist, added an adjustment layer in Adobe Photoshop to change the hue, looked at this and several other versions in Adobe Bridge and then finally working on this post in Firefox.

Coral Liquid Light, Digital © Diane Clancy

The reddish/orange hue in the Bridge looked very very orange and extremely elegant! Then when I was resizing it in Photoshop, all of a sudden it looks much pinker than orange. Hence the name “coral.”

I remember looking at a post in Lisa Call’s quilting blog and she was writing about being very distressed because the color didn’t come out right on a photograph she was putting on the web. I think I must have had 2 browsers open - Firefox and also Safari - probably to look at the image and post in one browser and comment in the other. The color difference was amazing - like 2 different pieces. So I am not going to be in too much angst right now over this color difference.

In the comments to this post a few days ago Chris made an anoucement about changes he is going to make in his art marketing blog.  You might want to check out these comments and definitely check out his blog as he makes these changes.  I will point you to his blog as he does make this change.

Thank you again for all your support and encouragement!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Studio Artist, Photoshop, hue, Bridge, Firefox, Safari

Here are my current entries for Rima’s challenge. You can see the deatils of the challenge on her blog on this post. You can also see some other people’s entries in the posts after this one. here is the original image to work on. You can see more details on how to use Studio Artist on this post on my blog.

Lily Pad

This painting is done in Studio Artist using warp translate and rotate tools quite a few times.

Peeking Through the Lilies, Digital © Diane Clancy

I then took “Peeking Through the Lilies” and used translate local to make the swirls to make these lilies dance.

Dancing with the Lilies, Digital © Diane Clancy

“Dancing with Lilies” was turned into this painting with with more translate local and some sphere2.

Whirling Lilies, Digital © Diane Clancy

More rotates and translates create this next painting.

Square Dancing Lilies, Digital © Diane Clancy

Then it became time to try a different method. I decided to move to Photoshop and see what to do there … I actually made “Night Light Lily” before I made this painting. This is an exclusion layer over the Night Light Lily. I copied the layer several times and the top layer is exclusion mode is on the top.

Lily at First Light, Digital © Diane Clancy

This is a luminous mode over “Night Light Lily.”

Lily at Dusk, Digital © Diane Clancy

Exclusion over saturation mode creates “First Blush Lily.”

First Blush Lily, Digital © Diane Clancy

Saturation mode creates this Night Light Lily. I made several more variations of this but got tired of prepping them for the web … so this was great fun!

Night Light Lily, Digital © Diane Clancy

I tried a whole bunch of filter in both Photoshop and Digital Studio and I don’t know how I got these next two paintings. So sorry … I didn’t follow the rules.

Lily in the Rain, Digital © Diane Clancy

This was tweaked quite a bit in Studio Artist.

Sun and Shade Lily, Digital © Diane Clancy

Thanks for letting me play!!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Studio Artist, Photoshop

The illusive, almost mythical, Susan has posted on her blog, Susan Elkin Photography. She has a much smaller request than I have been making of you - Susan has only her own business card. So she is hoping that you will take a hop, jump and a skip over to her blog to welcome her back and to give your input. She has been touched by people’s concern here … Thank you so much!

Reflections Below I, Digital © Diane Clancy

Thank you for your help in working on my business cards. At some point today I will have lightened up the middle image on the Art Business Card to see if that speaks to Sue O’Kieffe’s concerns. (By the way, thank you so much Sue for a birthday mandala at Sacred Circle Mandalas!) I tried several other paintings in that spot, but I think that will be the best … I think it shows a different style that is very popular. But I am hoping that my lightening it will make it work for you.

And Soul Fish, thank you for your comment about the little text. I am not sure if you mean the list of types of art I have or if you mean the address and such … or what. Perhaps you can be more specific. I have enlargened the text in the list on the back of the card. But, again, that will be uploaded some time today. I welcome more specifics of what you mean.

Sue and Soul Fish, I have made the changes and uploaded them.

You see, my powerbook cord went totally caput! So I do not have access to a lot of my things and files and such. It is mostly backed up so I can deal with it later today … technical issues … like which version software is on which computer and such. Some of these computer programs are foolish enough that they have no backward compatibility with older versions. For Adobe InDesign, you cannot save backward to even one version older. It is a real problem! I think they are very foolish to be so rigid - whatever they may gain financially, they more than lose in goodwill. At least Adobe has allowed Photoshop to stay extremely flexible.

They perioidically have problems and I think the problems are theirs, not our cookies. Again, I still welcome others’ feedback on the posts of the last 2 days. I take it that people are happy with the first version of the “Fanciful Animal Images“? I will be checking back through a borrowed computer to see what you have to say. And, thank you again for your birthday wishes!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Susan, business card, Sue O’Kieffe, powerbook cord, computer programs, Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Fanciful Animal Images

Violet looks like she is surrounded by butterflies with spring in full force! This digital painting from my enhanced animal images was created in Painter as explained in the post Freckles in Flowers I and the post Abby in Butterflies that discuss this method of layering. This is the first you have seen of this special animal companion, Violet, my sister’s dog.

Violet in Butterflies, Digital © Diane Clancy

These butterflies are created from nozzles that I made myself from clipart that I have rights to use. I used Illustrator and Photoshop in creating this image while working with the nozzles and layers. I enjoy the almost 3D quality of this painting.

These images I have created using companion animals are some of my most popular images for cards. Many times when someone sees “their” kitty or puppy, they immediately want the card or print. It is fun to feel like I bring happiness to people as they see a touching image of their special friend.

Some people have asked me to make these paintings from photographs of their own animals. Because I use layering, I am able to keep the cost more affordable. I have also created specific backgrounds for people’s companions. I am happy that so many people like these paintings so much!

~ Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: digital painting, enhanced animal images, Painter, layering, Illustrator, Photoshop, animal, nature, creative process

I can use some “inner flow” internally at the moment. I have been pushing very hard to get this blog and Susan Elkin’s Blog up and running and to establish the habit of posting every day. It is cold and rainy and I miss the warmer weather we had a week or two ago. I am in a maintenance mode rather than an inspiration mode. But I do feel inspired when I look at this digital painting. That feeling of being uplifted by my images is one of the highlights of my work!

Inner Flow III, Digital © Diane Clancy

One of the ways that I decide if an image is finished, is by how it makes me feel. If the results of my creative process make me feel more connected to my soul, then it is a painting that works for me. I want to be creating more beauty and bring more light into the world.

This is a painting I created in Photoshop with KPT filters with many transluscent layers. This layering gives this image the depth of field that it has. My posts of Creativity - Balance of Play and Persistence and The Light Within give more details of using these tools to create layers and light.

Thank you for being with me as I have been enjoying “Inner Flow III” and, in the process, strengthening my own inner flow.

- Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Susan Elkin’s Blog, inspiration, digital painting, creative process, Photoshop, KPT filters, layering, uplifting

Abby in Butterflies is another example of someone’s special animal companion enhanced by nature. Again, this is a complex layering process where Abby is scanned into the computer, “cut out” of her own background and placed onto a neutral background. This neutral background is actually my aunt’s photo as before.

Abby in Butterflies, Digital © Diane Clancy

Then butterflies are placed gracefully encircling Abby through the computer program Painter and then manipulated further in Photoshop. For more details of this process, see the post Freckles in Flowers I. The order of the layering is especially critical with these butterflies. Notice that I have sized them differently to give them perspective.

As far as I know, I am the only one using this particular creative process for digital paintings. I made it up and perhaps others have also - but I haven’t heard about them. Most people use Painter in different ways than I do.

Thank you for accompanying me through this journey.

- Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: animal, nature, layering, Painter, Photoshop, creative process, digital painting, enhanced animal images

I am being inspired by Sue O’Kieffe’s mandalas to share this digital painting with you today. Sue’s mandalas are very different from this, but tonight after looking at her blog, Sacred Circle Mandalas, the vibrancy in her latest mandala sent me searching for a similar “feel” in my own work.

Nature Reflections II, Digital © Diane Clancy

This image was created in Studio Artist (SA) from a pretty photograph of yellow and blue birds. This program specializes in transformation of images. If you would like to see another variation made from the same photograph, you can check out post Nature Reflections I. There you can find the start of the following conversation.

I have been asked the difference between SA and Photoshop. SA is vector based, like Illustrator, rather than bitmap or pixel based like Photoshop. In a vector based program, one can make a circle and it is determined by a mathematical formula. If one enlarges it to as big as a house, it is still a perfect circle since it is created by a formula or vector.

With a bitmap image, when one increases the size, the circle will get ragged because it is based on a certain number of little squares next to each other. When one makes those squares bigger, all the jagged edges of the squares are more obvious. Truly the circle never was a circle, but a circle drawn by squares.

More about this another day … I love the vibrancy of the colors - especially the purple.

- Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: Sue O’Kieffe, mandala, digital painting, Sacred Circle Mandalas, Studio Artist, transformation, Photoshop, Illustrator, color, inspiration, nature

My “Enhanced Animal Images” are another kind of digital painting that I create. This particular image is of my beloved kitty companion of 18 years - who merged with the universal life force over 10 years ago. My 90+ year old aunt, that I have mentioned before, took this photograph years ago (in black and white). One day I decided to put Freckles into a field of flowers …

Freckles in Flowers I, Digital © Diane Clancy

I scanned the photo of Freckles into the computer so I could work digitally. Then I enhanced this image with layering as I did with some of the other digital images. The computer program Painter has a great feature called “image hose” and “nozzles.” One can load up a type of digital brush with images and then paint with the images. I have many layers so that I can non-destructively make changes and try different things out.

From trial and error, I have learned to have an individual layer for each kind of flower, grass or butterfly in general. Usually, I flip back and forth between Painter and Photoshop. Painter has these nozzles and other great features but I find Photoshop is easier to work in with layers. Again, the order of the layers make an incredible difference in the final painting.

Another great advantage with the layering of these enhanced animal images is that I can slip in another animal. Once I have a file (very large) with a neutral background (from my aunt’s first picture), then I can “cut” out another animal and slip them into the flowers. Of course, this can take hours even though it sounds easy!

- Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: digital painting, layering, Painter, Photoshop, enhanced animal images, animal, creative process, nature

The “Light Within” is the name of this digital painting. Each day I need to nourish that light within as I dance my way through life - balancing maintenance and creativity. Today I have gotten the code on this blog as well as I can for now. Please let me know if you have any problems with this blog.

Light Within, Digital © Diane Clancy

This frees me up to get back to other work. That light within is so important whether it is attention to close technical details or playing with paint spontaneously or figuring out what isn’t working with a painting or de-cluttering. In all these pursuits I must - to the best of my ability at the moment - align with and support that light within.

This image is made with KPT filters in Photoshop. There are several dozen layers in this image. (See the post - Creating “Inside and Out” - if you want more details on this layering process.) It often took an hour or more for each layer. So, you can see, an invloved process.

But fun! Changing the order of the layers, changes the look. Again, see the post listed above for more details. I put a black background to have the light vibrate. These layers of “light” look very different when there is a different color behind them.

My light within feels very nourished knowing that at least one person is reading what I am writing, looking at the images and following my creative process. I feel very blessed by my connections with those I have met.

- Diane Clancy

Technorati Tags: digital painting, KPT filters, Photoshop, layering, creative process