AppIt returns to iPhoneArt.com - WARNING this post contains trees.

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After a break - both for AppIt! and for me - the challenge returns. This time the photo comes from iHeart.

I've avoided iPA for a while, along with a lot of things, because...oh a multitude of reasons. Mostly because I'm aware that I can no longer keep up with much and just posting and not commenting/replying much stresses me out with guilt.

Also, my muse doesn't seem to approve of my mood of late and has gone elsewhere.
Till Appit started.
The photo is of a tree.
Just a tree.
In a field.
...and I couldn't for the life of me decide what to do with it apart from alter its colour etc. But it's turned into a journey of app revisiting and I'm having fun.

Tsk...missed a tree

Using the app...so here's the last one
Possibly

the Creative process - collaboration

It's entirely possible that you're fed up of hearing about the Appit! monthly challenge at iPA...but like the Muses' challenges there's something undefinable about working with someone else's vision. So far all I've worked with are photographs and as I write this it occurs to me that I'd like to play with someting that someone else painted. The place to start with that is where I started at in college I suppose, with some 'art' that's out of copyright. It's an old tradition after all.

So far I've not truly collaborated. I've worked with a photograph taken by somebody else and other artists have used the same photo as their inspiration too and it's fascinating seeing how differently we approach things. Or how similar the results sometimes are. You get a glimpse of the human condition...how we're socialised...the differences in perspective...how our past artistic habits inlfuence the directions we go in. Is it a good thing to keep going along the same track? Or follow your instincts? Or push at the barriers? I'm using art as therapy so perhaps the direction I need to go in will be different to someone consumed by their muse...I'm not drafting this and then editing it. Sorry dear reader, it would never get done if I did that. And I'm writing it in Posterous, which is dumb because I don't have the safety net of a spell checker. Not good. Hang on a mo...

Okay that's better. I'm in the safer embrace of google now. Where was I? Collaboration was the title, but my musings above reminded me of a conversation I had with Prof Kassabian, (who wrote this 'Hearing Film'. The cover of which she detests by the way.) We were lamenting the lack of value that society places upon the arts and humanities. She mentioned an article about Google , which I found here which is a little ray of light, but that was in my mind when I read a blog post via Twitter about how mobile photography is making vast numbers of people without artistic talent think they have a creative gift. When clearly they don't. But who says? (BTW I'm sorry I can't find the blog link, I'll go through my twitter stream later) Then a little later the same day I read this by Adrian Graham, lamenting how mobile photography is turning everything into a popularity contest and that the boundaries of photography aren't being pushed because of it. Even my fibro brain knows that these things aren't closely connected but it's started me thinking. Or trying to anyway. I've always believed passionately that if education gave the arts equal value in the curriculum that people would have more confidence and more skill at creating. And that the world would be a better and richer place because of it. 

I see the tools that technology puts into everyone's hands as a good thing. More people are creating than ever before. If mobile phones and iPhoneography sites encourage people to share tips and skills and develop a means of creative expression then I'm sorry but I can't see that as a bad thing. Artists have always needed to make the choice - do I create what I feel/want or do I create what sells? Who's to say that 'chocolate box' art that gives some people pleasure isn't valid? Yes there's a lot of dross out there, but then who am I to decide it's dross? Almost everything is subjective, the arts more than anything require the audience to make a value judgement. I also know that humanity forms groups and that groups make us resistant to change and can foster elitism...but it's a yin/yang thing and I see the benefits balancing out the negatives. 

So, yes the internet seems to be making Art a popularity contest, but I for one am getting a lot out of the potential it has opened up for sharing and learning.

I've not attempted to gather my thoughts in writing very often since fibro hit. My brain can't cope very well and it uses a LOT of spoons. If you've stuck with me this far, thank you. I'm not sure it's been worth your time but I at least have created some semblance of order in my head.

Here's this month's Appit iPhone photo, taken by the peerless Clint Cline (@clix2020) and the initial stages I went through with it.

Paper camera and possibly Segmentix where my first apps, to soften details and bring out form. Then I used Crop Suey to crop out the hand. I used Colour Shadow and then Percolator to give a strong graphic feel to the form.

Then I put the hand through Stripecam before using Kooleido to create a mandala. Then the hand went into Superimpose where I put the mandala onto the hand. Then the colour didn't pop enough for me so I used Camera+ to make it more intense and to give it a subtle border. Which is how I ended up with the image I posted yesterday.

I have a plan...to try to write each Sunday or Monday about what I've created and how and also perhaps to ramble a bit. Think of me as that crazy person that sits besides you on the bus and strikes up a conversation. It doesn't often make sense but sometimes it's interesting anyway. Maybe...

Contemplating creation #art

My plan was to post the work process behind this digital art work...but time has run away from me, so I'll do a longer post tomorrow.

September's 'App it!' has begun and this is my first entry.
Taken from an iPhone photograph by Clint Cline (@clix2020)

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.

Day 42 #iPhoneography #iPhoneArt

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So - my queued posts have ended (the initial post-op euphoria has ended too and in its place the boring business of Fibro slowed recovery has descended ;) But 41 didn't seem the right number to end on...42 is MUCH better seeing as it's the answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything.

Here are the last of my July AppIt! images. The voting has started over on iPhoneArt.com and I look forward to seeing what next months challenge will be. I was hoping to have made a Pintrest board of my faves from this month, but my body wanted to nap so that's something for another post...

App it! July challenge, iPhoneArt.com

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There's another challenge brewing over on the App It! group at
http://iPhoneArt.com
These are my attempts so far. Click on the menu entry for groups at the top right of the web page and take a peek at the 'AppIt!' Group. Some fabulous creations to gaze upon...

day 9/30 - #iPhoneArt #30daysofcreativity

There's a group called 'AppIt!' on iPhoneArt.com where each month a member submits an image for the rest of us to play with. Here's what I've created so far; three colourways for the first...

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a final decision made for these ;)

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To see the original image and what other talented peeps have come up with, surf on over to have a browse here.