Digital Art and Acrylic Art

I like artsty stuff, I like it better if I can do it myself.

Last night I was wandering through DIY information for making crackled paint with Elmer's Glue when I happened on something called Acrylic Pouring...or Fluid Painting.
Wow, just cool enough to be right up my alley!
I worked on some play blocks and used two different glues to 'crack' the paint. My results with the wood glue were so-so. But heck it is going in the painted block box for building, so no big deal.

The second block I did turned out even neater. Now I have to find sticks to make a welcome sign.
I use sticks because I couldn't paint a pretty Welcome by hand no matter how I tried and stencils always make a mess anyway. Glue some fake leaves to it, and viola! I have a cute sign thingy to set on the entry way table.

The last little block I messed with was really interesting. I gooed the top with Elmer's Glue, then used a 'dirty pour' method with layers of acrylic paint in a tiny cup and dripped it in one spot on the block. The I tipped it around so it would cover the whole side.
The glue is drying and separating the paints and making cracks. The paints look like a swirl of madness on the little block.
My impression? Very neat.

I'll do pictures a bit later.

Because it was soooo windy 47 mph gusts yesterday, I stayed inside and did some Digital Art also.

Here is a slightly Van Gogh layer over a photo I took coming home from my CrossFit on Friday morning. I like it and it pleased me.

Then I turned to DeepDream and decided to see what artificial intelligence would do to my fall photo.

Original:

DeepDreamGenerator:

The acrylic paints? I'd like to try something like this just once....Through a strainer, the flip cup method, or the dirty cup method...or paint with a string.

I like wild and weird stuff.

Now my favorite digital art is computer generated with a program called Mandelbulb 3D, and Incendia, and JWildfire. All free programs and a lot less messier.

This time of the year I usually take a bit of a break from the camera and do a bit of digital artwork and painting as the days get cold and dull. I also work on some still life to keep my creative juices going.

My next trip to town will involve getting a couple of cheap canvases to try some of the flip cup acrylic pour.

I'm putting up my little corner of fall decorations too. I caved in. Summer is over, fall is here, and winter is just around the corner.
It snowed here yesterday again.

In the meantime, the sun will be up in a bit and perhaps Charlie and I should go see it.

Somewhere over the Rainbow & photo manipulations

Last night after the third or fourth rain shower flowed through, we had rainbows appear in the eastern sky.

I ran out barefoot to capture some shots.

It was quite beautiful and to the naked eye, I could count several of the primary colors.
We were lucky enough to have a double rainbow!

The sky kept changing so rapidly before the heavy clouds moved in and gave us an early night.

I was pretty happy with how the FujiFilm FinePix HS30 EXR handled the panoramic scenes.  This was converted to B&W for dramatic effect using Corel PaintShopPro Ultimate 6X, along with Topaz plug in Filters.

I then used CS2 to take the same photo and edit the color version to see what I could do to make a striking difference.  The rainbow colors inspired me so I took a 'rainbow' gradient and swiped it into a blank layer above the color photo.

I changed the layer to 'Overlay' and reduced the opacity a bit.

It was a fun exercise in manipulation of photos.

Here is the original:

The effect may not be exceptionally realistic, but using gradients can help a 'edit' colors in a most interesting way.

Then there is the texture and lettering edit.
I decided to take a decent sky photo and just mess a bit with it, adding textures, colors, and finally text.

I think the rainbows last night inspired a little creativity in me this morning!