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April 1, 2016 by Kat

Castles on the Sand (A Mobile Tutorial)

Part of living a creative life is exploring new techniques and learning new tools. I’ve been doing more and more with an app called iColorama, an amazingly featured and versatile artistic app. This tutorial on how I created “Castles on the Sand” will give you an example of a few features you will find inside this app.

Bandon Oregon Coast Kat Sloma iPhone Photography

The image starts with a walk on the beach in Bandon. Our spring break trip was quite rainy, but we had some clear patches each day for a walk on this amazing beach. The tide was going out so the wet sand was perfect for reflections, and a storm was blowing in so there was this amazing light and sky.

My starting image is not perfect. It’s not even on focus! I’m not sure if I just missed getting the focus right (I can’t tell unless I have my reading glasses on, which I didn’t), or if it was blowing so hard I couldn’t hold the camera still (I do remember wind), but either way it’s out of focus. But the shapes, light, and reflections are perfect, so I thought…I’ll try a painterly look!

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The first step of the edit was in Snapseed, to change the color tones to a more monochromatic look using a Vintage filter without the vignette. As much as I like iColorama for a lot of things, the color filters are not my favorite. I’ll usually start in Snapseed, Mextures or Stackables if I want to change the color tones.

Isn’t this a nice blue?

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Next into iColorama. Since I’m going for a painterly look, I start with the Painterly filters, found in Style on the main menu. The way iColorama works, the main menu is always at the top. After you select a main menu, a submenu appears below it to scroll through, left to right. Look for available Presets in the bottom right, which will pop up effect options you can scroll through (top to bottom) if there are any available. In the bottom left, you will find an Opacity slider which allows you to reduce opacity and blend with the previous image if you want to reduce the intensity of a given effect.

File Mar 31, 7 45 00 AM

This screen shot is from the iPad, which gives you a lot more room for all of these menus and options. The menus can be found in the same relative location on the screen with the iPhone version, but you don’t see as many options at a time and they will overlap the image. To close a pop up menu, like the Preset options on the right, just tap the Preset icon again. You can tell which menus and options are on at any given moment by the blue text and highlighting.

I liked the simplified edges of the Painterly 3 filter at 100% Opacity, shown here.

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That was a good start, but I wanted more variation in the feel of the painted look so I decided to “paint” it myself, which you can do from the Brush menu. Unlike many painterly effects in apps which apply an effect to the whole image, in the iColorama Brush menu you actually get to paint!

Choose a type of Brush, I chose Bristle here, and then look at your options. There are different Presets, which in his case determine how much you smear color from one area to another, different brush shapes and other settings. You can change the color of your background canvas from white as well.

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Along with the usual Opacity slider on the left, you can also change size and stroke opacity for your brush. There are so many options it can be overwhelming, so to get started stick with the defaults and play around. You know me, I’m all about learning from experimentation! A finished product doesn’t have to come out at the end.

As you get into this type of detailed brush work, you are going to want to zoom and pan to see exactly what is going on with your brushstrokes. You do that my tapping the Zoom Move option on the left of the window. When this option is highlighted, you can zoom in and out using two fingers and pan the image using one. When you are ready to brush again, just tap to turn off the Zoom Move menu.

File Mar 31, 8 14 52 PM

You’ll also note on the left that you have a few undo options. Undo will remove the last stroke (unfortunately it doesn’t have a longer memory than the last stroke!), Erase will allow you to erase an area back to blank canvas, and Clean will revert the whole image back  to blank canvas. Don’t you love digital painting? Can’t do any of that with real paint and canvas!

I played with a couple of options on this image. My first one left a bit of blank canvas in places, shown here.

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I thought those bits of white were distracting even though I liked the variation they added, so in the end, I painted the whole image.

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I still added variation through the stroke texture and color blending that happens in the painting process. You can see that better in an enlarged view.

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I didn’t feel this was quite done yet, so I went back into the Style menu and played with more painterly options. I liked one of the Presets from the Water menu, which gave more contrast to the edges of the rock as well as color variation in the open spaces, but still brought through the stroke variation I had added in the prior painting step. It also brightened the color back up. And this felt done! Here is the final image again:

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You are going to see me using this app more and more. I’ve had it forever and recommend it in my book, Art with an iPhone, but didn’t start using it regularly until #30edits pushed me out of my comfort zone. I’ve barely scratched the surface of what it can do. As I  continue to learn, I will share with you. I’d love to see what you do with it!

Filed Under: Mobile Tutorial, The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: iColorama, mobile tutorial, Oregon Coast

November 17, 2015 by Kat

A Human Snow Globe

Every now and then it’s good to step out of the routine. Whether it’s through a vacation or a class or a retreat, it gives you a chance to look at things from a different perspective. Things get swirled up internally, giving you the chance to review and reconsider your direction. Giving you new tools to use moving forward.

Last week was a jam-packed week for me. It started with a relaxing, but rainy, yoga retreat at the Oregon coast. Good food, good company, good times. After two years of attending right after my open studio, I consider this retreat a little reward after my art fair season. 

   
Normally I would come back from the retreat to my everyday world, rested and recharged. Instead, I went straight from the retreat to the airport, and heading to California for a week-long business and leadership course taught by the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

 
It was a crazy week, “on” from 6am for a bit of exercise to 9 or 10pm with studying or socializing with colleagues from around the world. Intense classes and discussions, full of new ideas. Whew. 

While the content and the tenor of the course was quite different from the retreat, I realized they had something in common: Good food, good company, good times. A great group of people, brought together by a common goal and interest, is always an invigorating space.

  
And the two events had one other important thing in common, too. They both provided the opportunity to step outside of my normal life. They both swirled up thoughts and ideas that may land in a different place. I’m like a human snow globe right now, a blizzard of sparkly thoughts flying around. Things will be different as they land.

Life is change. If you don’t seek opportunities to learn and grow, they will find you. Sometimes it’s good to get out of your routine and stir things up, whether it’s through a quiet yoga retreat or an intense business course. 

It may be a while, but I’ll let you know when and where all these sparkly new ideas land. 


Busy weeks mean simple edits! Info on the photos:

Top
: Oregon Coast, edited using the Formulas app.

Middle
: Hoover Tower on the Stanford Campus, edited using the Stackables app, my Heceta formula

Bottom
: Rodin sculpture garden on the Stanford campus, edited in Snapseed. I was able to get an art fix during my morning walks at Stanford. An unexpected bonus!

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: art museum, California, Oregon Coast, travel

November 11, 2014 by Kat

Seeking Peace

Where do you find peace?

Is it in the curve of a stone, the reflection of the sky?

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Is it in the path of the moon, the color of a sunrise?

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Is it in the line of a branch, the light of the evening?

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I found peace in all of these things, while visiting the Oregon Coast for a yoga retreat this weekend. Of course, four yoga classes, a massage, visiting with friends and yummy food didn’t hurt either. I’m not sure I’ve ever had such a relaxing weekend!

Sometimes, when you go seeking peace, you actually do find it. It helps to choose the right place.

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: branches, ocean, Oregon Coast, sea, sunrise, tide pool

January 3, 2013 by Kat

Blending to Perfection

When you are creating, do you find moments when everything comes together and it just feels right? Your know your piece is finished. When you are new to a medium, it’s not as easy. You may not take something far enough or you may go too far, ruining something good. As you learn and progress, I think it’s easier to know when something is “done.” It’s part of the learning process, and our own style, to develop that feeling of done.

In mobile/digital art, I’ve learned that the name of the game is blending. Using multiple apps and blending them together, until it feels “done.” I had already started on this path, as I created some of my earlier pieces like Rain Painting and Winter Flowers. I had only touched the tip of the iceberg of what is possible with blending in those, however. I’m going crazy now. Today as I share one of this week’s pieces for Paint Party Friday I thought I would also give you a taste of the kind of blending I’m doing now, and how I created this one, called Under the Surface.

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Here’s the starting image, taken with the ProCamera app. I love it! You can easily separate exposure and focus, and switch between aspect ratios within the app, going from square to rectangular.

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Then the fun started. I’ve created this little matrix of images to walk through the process of creation, but it doesn’t even cover all of the steps. To be honest, I get so many layers going I don’t even remember the exact steps but I’m trying to recreate them to share.

photo

From left to right, top to bottom:

  1. The first step was into Snapseed, to shift the color a bit. This also added some texture and vignetting.
  2. Next I pulled that image into Distressed FX to add textures. The next three are the image with various textures added. You can’t add more than one texture within the app, so I save an image of each texture I like on the photo. Distressed FX also will do color filters in addition to textures, but I often turn that off and just use the textures. It’s become my go-to app for textures lately.
  3. From there, I start to blend. The center image is a blend of the different texture images I saved out of Distressed FX. I’ve starting using the Image Blender app for blending, because it is easier to use and has more blending options than Iris Photo Suite. When blending, I just play with the blending modes and percentages until it looks good to me. There is no logical sequence I’ve got for this step.
  4. Once I had a nice blend, I started to use the painting apps. I take the blended photo into the apps and play around with different effects to get some I like. Middle right is the “Aquarell” painting filter from Autopainter HD (a recent favorite) and bottom left is from Glaze.
  5. From there I started blending again, with the textured image and the painted images. Bottom middle is the new blend.
  6. I was starting to lose the colors, so I took that blend back through Distressed FX and added a filter or two.

From there, I did more blending with previously created layers to get the final result.

Under the Surface

Under the Surface

There were more steps and layers than these I shared, but it gives you the basic idea of how the final piece was created. There is a depth of color and texture in the final painting that is built through blending layers which won’t exist when you use a single app. It’s really the creative part of the process, and where the unique touch of each person will come in. I’ve started to learn the apps, what works on different images and how to achieve a certain look, as I play. Eventually I might develop a “style” but right now it’s all about play and exploration. Lots of fun!

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: blue, digital painting, green, mobile photography, mobile tutorial, Oregon, Oregon Coast, silhouette, tree, tutorial

September 21, 2012 by Kat

The Benefits of Space

As we finish up this month’s Exploring with a Camera: Allowing Space, I can see that we’ve all learned a lot. We’ve learned how space can give you room to breathe in a photograph. How the subject can be highlighted and enhanced by the space we allow around it. How a simple, open composition can lead to strong emotional impact.

Many of us have also drawn parallels between our photography and our lives with this exploration. We’ve noticed how allowing space can make room for other things to grow in our hearts and minds. I especially love how Gina put it: “Allowing space in our hearts, homes, and minds is really one of the keys to happiness.” Yes! Whether it’s physical space in our environment, space in our schedule or just space in our thinking processes, it’s all beneficial to us.

Let’s all take a deep breath, allowing space in our bodies as air fills our lungs, and enjoy the benefits of space in our lives, in any way, today. You can still link in your photographs through the end of the day. I’d love to see what you have found in this exploration!


Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: allowing space, Astoria, Oregon, Oregon Coast, texture

July 9, 2012 by Kat

Where Land and Sea and Sky Meet

I spent the last week at the edge of the continent, where the land and sea and sky meet. We had family come from Colorado and we camped out at the coast, enjoying the rugged beauty of the Pacific Ocean along the Oregon coastline. After growing up landlocked in Colorado, I will never tire of living so close to the ocean. There is a power and a peace that can be found no other place.

So after a week of sand and salt water, today it’s back to the routine. I’m getting caught up on emails and everything that piles when you unplug for a week, but I had to pull out this one photo to share with you today, taken on an early morning clamming trip at low tide. Whoever made up the “rule” that the horizon shouldn’t be in the center of the photo must have never come across a scene like this, where the sea meets the sky; becomes the sky. The horizon could be no other place.

Ah, the beauty and peace of it. I am still there.

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: bird, clouds, Oregon Coast, reflection, sea, sky

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