Art
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In the Limelight: Geri Dibiase
This is “In the Limelight,” our blog series that takes a closer look at some stunning canvas prints and the photographers behind them. Our “Limelight Questionnaire” gets to the who, what, when and why, while the photographers tell us in their own words what they want us to know about the shot. You’ll get information and inspiration In the Limelight! -
Canvas Print of the Day: Tilt Collection
Gallery wrapped canvas inspiration – served up from time to time
with the generous permission of APC’s awesome customers!
Photographer: Heidi Schreifels
Subject: “Tilt” Collection
Size: 17 x 30 gallery wraps
“In Spring 2011 I visited the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, with its hundreds of vintage pinball games from the 1930's to the 1990's lined up row after row, lights flashing and bells ringing. I had planned a night out with friends, so I only had my Motorola Droid phone camera with me. Inspired by the mechanics, illustrations, colors and lights, I photographed the games up close through the glass with a forced perspective. The two on display above are from a favorite game from in the 1960's — a time when ‘politically correct’ and ‘digitally programmed’ didn't exist. To see more from my ‘Tilt’ collection go to: schreifelsphoto.com — or visit the Gary Manuel Salon in Seattle, Washington, where numerous additional APC canvas wraps from the collection are currently on display.” — Heidi
Ready to order canvas prints of your own? Like Heidi, you'll love the winning combination of superior quality, highly personalized service and exceptional value at Artistic Photo Canvas.
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How to Transform Your Photos into Classical Oil Paintings
By Lew Bedell
I remember a few months ago a particular piece of art making its way through production here at Artistic Photo Canvas that caught everyone's eye and created something of a buzz. It was a digital “fine art” painting that was beautiful, contemporary, and truly striking. We knew the artist was exceptionally gifted. What we didn’t know at the time was that the origin of the piece was a digital photograph.
The photographer/artist that created “Chiara Bride” (shown here) – which, incidentally, made for a truly stunning stretched canvas print – was Melissa Gallo. It turns out that we’d unknowingly created something of a mutual admiration society because Melissa called our offices a few weeks ago to let us know that she was just blown away by the customer service she recieved and the quality of our work compared to other labs she’d tried. She was thrilled to have found both a medium and a vendor that finally showed her work it in it’s best light.I later learned that Melissa was creating a webinar to teach her photo painting techniques to others. As you might imagine, I’ve seen a huge number of “photo paintings,” but I've never seen anyone who’s work so resembles a “real” oil painting. In fact, until Melissa told me, I had no clue that her art was the result of digitally painting photographs. I was on board for this webinar. I'm really looking forward to seeing exactly how she does it. I told her I would definitely give her webinar a plug on our blog. (It would really be a joy to see more digital art of that calibre coming through APC!)
Melissa’s webinar, “Turn Your Photo into a Classical Oil Painting,” will be hosted by Marathon Press and conducted live on December 7, 2010 from 8PM - 9PM Eastern. The cost is $34.00. Purchasers of the webinar will have permanent access to the taped version to review again and again. Click here to see more of Melissa’s photo paintings. After seeing the the exceptional results she achieves with her approach, I think you’ll agree that this webinar sounds like a great investment.
I asked Melissa if she’d share her thoughts with our readers about the trend of transforming photos into paintings and her upcoming webinar…
What is your experience with traditional painting and what attracted you to the digital medium?
“I was a paperback romance illustrator for 22 years-back in the day when there were no computers! Using acrylics, I worked in a very tight realistic style. It was tedious and hard work. A painting would take me a month to complete, working with a brush that came to a point of one single hair. I could not make mistakes-what I put down on canvas was final and there was no “undo.” By the time my last child was born and I had put my husband through veterinary school with my work, I was ready to quit. I had had it! I vowed I would never paint again! Then several years ago I fell into photography and started a photography business. One day, while flipping through a Photoshop magazine, I saw what I thought to be a traditionally painted oil painting, that they claimed had been done digitally. That painting transformed me. I couldn't believe it and I had to find out how it was done. I delved first in Photoshop and then found Corel Painter – and I was hooked! It was SO wonderfully easy and fun – and mistakes could be done away with the tap of a key.”
How would you describe the differences between “autopaint” and “filter” techniques and a “true” digital painting for photographs?
“There is a TREMENDOUS difference between auto painting/filter techniques and true painting! First of all, I do not like auto painting at all! You are not doing the painting – the computer is. This is not what we are trying to achieve. Instead, we are hoping to facilitate the art of painting using the computer. When we paint, our brains interpret what we are seeing based on our own physiological makeup and all of our experience. If you leave it to the computer, then the computer will do the interpreting for you – without the element of human emotion. That is why a painting can be so moving and magical – it is not “generated” – it is thought over, fought over and imbued with our feelings… Why would you leave your painting process to anyone – or anything – else? I want to demonstrate how we use a photograph as a basis only for our painting – but then take off from there.”
What types of photographs make good candidates for digital painting?
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Dave Cross and crew film at APC
Renowned Photoshop expert and trainer Dave Cross was at Artistic Photo Canvas recently with a video crew filming part of his new class, Photo Painting Basics.
In the class that just went live at Kelby Training, Dave teaches a simple method of turning a photo into a painting – including demonstrating how the technique can be automated.
At the end of the class there's a brief tour of the APC production process showing one of the images used in the class being turned into a gallery wrapped canvas print.
More information on the class can be found here.
Video
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“The Map to My Mind” – One graphic designer’s inspired canvas
When it comes to photography and art, the team at APC is in the lucky position to see a lot of head-turning works. And every now and then, along comes a project that’s just totally “outside the box.” This particular canvas print fits that description and then some. With the permission of it’s creator – the fabulously creative Amanda Kern – we’re reprinting her 2009 account of the creative process that led to one amazing canvas.
By Amanda Kern, Photographer & Graphic Designer
Earlier this year I discovered I’d have the opportunity to display some work in Valencia’s faculty graphic arts exhibition. The theme for this year’s art exhibition just happened to be “self portraits squared.” I spent a lot of time brainstorming ideas and came to the conclusion that creating a “mindmap” would be a perfect solution. I attribute the fact that my mind tends to think of most things lately in mindmap form to the time I spent training with O’Reilly. Ever since that experience, I suppose you could say I’ve been corrupted by intertwining thoughts on paper. In the past I’ve been known to mindmap for personal ideas and training, as well as research papers [1] [2].
After over 60+ hours of work this past week I am quite thrilled to finally share the process I’ve taken to complete my mindmap project which I’ve dubbed, “The Map to Mind.” Here’s a screenshot of the project:
Insight Into My Process
When I first began this project I envisioned this project ending up similar to my very first 365 photo, just a little more complex and better planned out. I designed the project at 24″ x 24″ and began using InDesign to set my type in small sections. My hopes were that some aspects were hand rendered, yet still resembled some of the qualities in the original fonts used. As I worked I would print out small sheets at a time and would use a pencil rubbed against the back of the print out to act as a “transfer” as I traced each of the letters to maintain similar qualities to the original font used, just hand rendered. This became a tedious process – setting type on the computer, transferring in pencil and then drawing the letters with ink. Other things I chose to just scribble my own chicken scratch. Every time I’d create new type I’d photomontage the type using Photoshop. After I got far enough along, I printed out parts of the project and added my own writing to the project. After a day or two my hand was ready to fall off! Here’s a screenshot of many of the words I hand rendered along with printouts.
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