A New Series and Gibberish Baby Talk

Omens and Endurance

Finally, I am writing my last sentence in the Geisha's diary and tucking her in for a temporary slumber. It's been such a rich and nourishing journey for my now somewhat fuller mind. All the knowledge and cultural experience were extraordinary, although I'm sure that I had just barely touched the surface. But who knows? The Geisha might one day reawaken into another transformation. Only time will tell.

So here I am, closing one page of a diary and turning another leaf of a journal. Omens and Endurance is also the first piece of a newly brewing series, Sweet Delights of Misconceptions. It is a series that has been storming in my head for the last couple of weeks under constant consumption of caffeine and a few aspirins (only when desperately needed, of course). Something that I have been putting off to do for so long, after succumbing to my poor time management and my stubbornness to always do things that appear more important than they seemed. Sounds familiar? :)

Anyway, if you've noticed, I have recently been plunging into vaguely known territory of digital painting in Photoshop. My minimum skill and experience in this medium, stored in the bleak memory of my college years,  is by far the biggest challenge. But hey! if I could bear two children for 9 months each, then it could mean nothing, right? Well, all I have now is a sore arm, stiff back and a blurry vision (the aspirins took care of some others). So I think I'm still good to go.

And to answer the questions many of you asked about this alien medium I've been using, here are a few peeks into my very amateurish attempts...

I started with a black and white graphite drawing which was done with softer and more detailed shadings. After scanning it in high resolution, I began 'painting' one color per layer as I would when painting in oil. Yes, it needs precision and definitely a lot of patience as I had to use just the right tones to achieve the smoothness I wanted.




Experimenting with the layers was the the next big step. At first all those effect names came only as gibberish to me. I even thought "multiply" literally meant that I would end up with a dozen different layers and "color burn" would allow me to see the layers turned into something singed and black. Silly old me. :)

Then after carefully painting the whole drawing, I began tampering with the textures with some surfaces I had prepared beforehand. A few crease here, a little smudge there with pastels, and I ended up with a texture template like this one. Of course, many of you are probably a lot more creative than I am, so by all means, throw in some paints or anything else you have in mind.I won't go too deep with all the steps of mixing the template with the painted piece, because all I did was 'plunged and dived'. The only key is to try out everything more than once.

So like a child with a new toy, I discovered that Photoshop is a haven of layers and effects. It's fun to try different things, singularly or by mixing them up. I know, I know, this whole step-by-step description probably sounds like 'baby talk' to most of you super experienced digital artists. But, I am, without a doubt, just a baby in this medium. But babies will walk and run someday, don't you agree? So if you're like me and have been putting off to create art digitally, maybe it's about time you dipped your little finger in and just see how the water suits you.

Believe me, you won't lose your touch with the traditional skills you already have, but you'll find them more enhanced than before.


Have fun!
Amalia oxx