The search for Peace - mandala #iPhoneArt

I think this mandala began as the doodle I did for @karinSF
Kaleidoscope X and then photo studio then addlib then back through Photo Studio a few times. The border was added with Filterstorm when I was looking to see how big the image was. Seems Addlib only produces small resolution images too.

Finally had a medic lay hands on me for the first time since my op. I made an appointment to see my GP to check my scars/wounds. (What do you call them at this in between stage when the outside is more or less healed but the inside isn't?) Everything seems as expected, she believes it'll be after Christmas before I start to feel the real benefits of being gallbladder free and made a lot of sense. So although I didn't think I was worried about the added pain etc I must have been, because I feel better for having seen her.
Fibromyalgia - never a dull moment.
And it's a really stupid name for it. Even chronic pain syndrome would be better. It needs the word 'neuro' in there somewhere. Just saying... ;)

The excitement of a trip out of the house left me exhausted, so I haven't dipped my toes in the twitter water today. My apologies.

Re-learning - digital montage with apps

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One of the artists at iPA is astonishingly good at creating the most wonderful montages on his phone. Intimidatingly good actually...it's a whole new way of working and I've struggled with it because I've been trying to approach it using old skills. Skills from the real world and my folders of collected images...I'm still struggling greatly with it but at least I've started to play and achieve some almost pleasing results...so here are the first to see the light of day. Feedback (if not too harsh) is as always appreciated ;)

And pop over to iPA to marvel at Clint Cline's (clix2020) creations.

Doodle - red and gold

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Another metallic doodle - and then I played with it in Photo Studio and I actually had the presence of mind to save as a preset any group of effects that I liked this time. Yay me ;)
Then of course the water my photo obsession kicked in and...
It's a free app and I like what it does, but the file size is tiny. I'd pay for it if it would address that.
And then lastly for no apparent reason I can come up with, here's a screen shot of my phone with one of my pink wallpapers...I like pink. Never used to. Odd that.

It's a tad disorientating going from a photo of a home screen shot to the home screen...most odd. Try it...

The percolated versions...?

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Looking at these today...now I'm not sure about deleting them.
I guess I'll look at them again tonight and then decide...

A doodle for @karinSF #gratitude

Same method as the other art doodles - Art Rage on the iPad, but this time I chose metallic colour to fill the spaces in between...consequently the Percolated version looks bit...hinky. That will go to the big art waste basket in the sky.

I drew this whilst watching 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1' during the tense bits...yes I've read the book so I know what happens, but I still don't really cope with 'tense bits' at the moment. Though I shall leave you with a cliff hanger...will I manage to be well enough to get to the cinema to watch part two?

This is for @karinSF because she's a lovely friend.

...as does the Water my Photo one...

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Wallpaper obsession continues...

...only this is for desktops. I did this for me because my screen needed a make over (much as I love Fringe, it was time for a change ;) If anyone else wants one like this in a different size, just let me know.
Wondering what to do with all this wallpaper actually...?

It's a fluid motion image given some texture and resized in PSP - so not pure iArt...

Water my photo wallpapers

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These are images that have all been posted here before, but given the Water my Photo spin. It's a free app and is fun to play with.
I've resized these (approximately) so that they fit the iPhone, well the old ones. Like mine ;) Let me know if they don't fit the #4 & also drop me a note if you'd like these in a different size.

If you do use these as backgrounds or textures, please attribute, thanks.

iPhone wallpaper - abstract

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iPhoneography - the creative process #1

Here's a before and after of a recent post/image;

This is from/for the August 'App it!' challenge at the iPhone Art website. I created a pin board with a selection of the other entries and to see them all visit the group at iPA

If you're curious about other artists' before and afters, there's a group for that too at iPA.

I got very engrossed creating this and didn't pay much attention at all to my work flow process. Here are a few of the shots still on my phone;

I tend to crop using 'Crop Suey' and of course cropping tends to be the first stage of the process. Then I added a vignette to darken the background and create more of a focal point. An app with lots of editing potential is Photo Studio, I added layer after layer of effects using that, including masking areas, (to add an effect only to certain parts of the image) tweaking colours, saving and discarding as I went. Then I went to one the best editing apps Filter Storm which, along with Snapseed, is my most frequent first choice for editing. The original Photoforge used to be a favourite and I know a lot of iPhoneographers use/prefer Iris but I always feel less intuitive about Iris... I experimented with tilt shift and other various effects (as you can see in the strip above) and I used the clone tool to tidy up my lazy masking and play with the background a little more.

Not a terribly detailed description I know, my goal is to start making notes and keeping a record of the stages that an image goes through, but real estate on my phone (to steal a phrase) is limited. For more detailed tutorials and help, try visiting this relatively new site -iPhoneography Central Hopefully there'll be a more detailed #2 post some time in the future.

Into the fire - red 6 #art

I've returned, after a long gap to my 'Into the fire' (one day it may be a) series.
The background for this image was created so long ago I have no idea how I made it. I loaded it into Art Rage and drew the figure, then flooded it with colour and tweaked the opacity.
Then Scratchcam followed by Photo FX ultra to add texture and light. Somewhere along the way I percolated the image and blended them together with HDR fix. Finally a few Weather FX and a crop.

It's been a long day and this has calmed and relaxed me greatly. Thank goodness for art's many therapeutic qualities...

Free iPad wallpaper

Here's some wallpaper for your iPad - any future freebies will go out via my mailing list, so sign up using the link on the right if you're interested, thanks.

Right click to save, or press and hold if you're viewing this on your iPad, then go to photo album and click the arrow button in the middle of the top left of the screen and choose 'Use as wallpaper'. The home screen is what you see all of your apps on, the lock screen is what you see when you turn the screen on. (Depending on your settings of course ;)

Free iPhone wallpaper / iphoneography textures

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I need some coloured backgrounds for a project I'm working on at the moment, so have been experimenting with the textures in Photoforge 2 combined with the effects in Photo Studio.

Using Doodle I used the chalk tool to completely cover the work space.
Then I opened the image in Photoforge and added a texture to it. Next I used the various colour tools in photoforge to alter the colour and saved each different colour as I went along.
Finally each colour was loaded into Photo Studio and I added a sparkle frame and a water effect.
(The text watermarking was done with Watermarker.)

Feel free to snag one or as many of these as you want to use as wallpaper on your phone or as a textured background when layering images in iphoneography / digital art. Because I made them with the idea of wallpaper in mind they are small (around 300x400) but they'll do to play with when experimenting with adding texture to an image. Then you can make your own :)

Let me know if you use any...and if you do use them as textures or backgrounds I'd love to see what you create.

Water my photo...

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Phase two of this image...

What do you see?

A friend at iPA sent me a photo to play with after reading my bio there...and some other discussions about other artists work, he sees something quite specific waiting to be brought out of the photo and I'm not sure I see the same thing. It will be interesting to see what we individually create from it.
As Appit has finished and the voting begins (why not pop over and vote? There's such wide variety of interpretations to feast your eyes on ;) I've begun to play with Jim's photo.
This is just the first exploration...& the title is a sincere query -
What do YOU see in there?

Peace in a fractured world #iphoneography

Yesterday I couldn't speak for a little while. Not the usual "oh darn it what's that word I need" kind of way. No that's familiar now, I'm sure it is to all chronic pain sufferers. The brain just can't cope with that much information to process and a big chunk of the time the pain wins the brains attention. So it's not unusual for me to say things like "can you pass me that....(pause)... white stuff that you shake on your food please."
Oh I'm sure you know what it feels like up to a point. It happened to me before Fibro when I was overtired or stressed. But this is most of the time. I'm clumsy, I'm slow, I say things wrong, I can't spell anymore. The pain has stolen so much from me.
Then yesterday, fatigue worse than usual, I was recounting the message I'd just received in a text. Not complicated, short text, familiar person, familiar place (too familiar because I'm still housebound) and I stopped mid-sentence. Nothing came out of my mouth. It wasn't that I was lost for a word. I didn't know what I was talking about. I managed to squeeze out "can't talk" and then shut down again. After a few long minutes my brain stopped being an empty vacuum and thoughts came back into it. I was reminded what I was talking about. Still no relevant thoughts came along, let alone words to try to speak. Long story short what eventually got me out if it was having the last thing I said repeated back to me and I was able to recite it back the second time it was said and after another long pause was able to finish it.
Might not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but it scared me. My post op recovery is as slow as treacle, my patience is turning out to be finite after all and I'm feeling bereft again.
I had a profession, a brain that could teach people how to understand and learn new things. Now I can't walk up the stairs unaided and I can't even rely on my powers of speech.
I know I'm being self indulgent, forgive me! This too shall pass...my internal and external worlds are fractured and I wish I knew how we could find our way to peace.

This is another AppIt entry for iPA, processed from MaryJane's iPhone photo.

Just watched the second episode of Torchwood. A two parter being stretched into 10 episodes is how it seems. How the mighty fall...why do they try and fix things that aren't broken? I have no idea if it's a strong enough story yet but surely it would have worked better as a story arc running alongside the usual monster of the week format. Ignoring the fact that they KILLED OFF MOST OF THE CAST.
Sorry, but I need escapism in my fiction.
Anyone still there?? Hello lovely reader :) hope that wherever you are you're safe and that lady luck smiles upon you everywhere that you go. Thanks for 'listening'.

The power of imagination...

Another appit entry from MaryJane's photo over on iPhoneArt.com

Let me show you the world in my eyes...

Another AppIt! entry.
Title from Depeche Mode...

Dreaming #art #photoStudio

It's a new month, so there's a new Appit! challenge at iPA
This is my third image so far, MaryJane has given us a photo with lots of possibilities...well every person so far has actually. Hope I never win it, I couldn't match them ;)
I really wish I could remember how I achieved this effect. It was all Photo Studio, but what combination of choices I have no idea :( @artbymimulux has suggested I make notes, a good suggestion, at least for when I achieve something unexpected. I'm not disciplined enough at the moment to do that all the time.

Because I'd masked the image quite roughly in Photo Studio, which keeps crashing since the update :( I used the clone tool in Filterstorm to soften the edges and add to the background.

Space Doodle #art iPadArt

Here's the latest doodle for the doodle fans out there ;)

Finger painted on my iPad with Art rage, then the Percolator app as usual. Then recoloured with Photoforge app and the triptych design was created with the Diptic app.

Self portrait 3 #iphoneography #mobileArt

Because I can't leave it alone...

...& I'm not happy with that last doodle, it needs rotating...

A doodle for @whichsongtitle #art

An abstract art doodle to brighten your day, as a counterpoint to my introspection ;)

I think the title is "The Meeting Place" but I'm not sure...
Finger painted and drawn in Art Rage, given the circular treatment by Percolator.
I love colour...

Self portrait #iphoneography #art

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Doing a lot of napping and sleeping and resting :sigh: and hoping...yes, hoping. Though it is hard to stay positive when your world shrinks...and hard not to want to hide away. Whether this is conveyed in these two images I have no idea...the viewer decides...is it the viewer who has the power in the relationship or the artist? I guess I know the answer to that...I just need to work at making it true.