Tag Archives: digital

Photos and Photo Manipulation

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I walk every day, and do not resist taking all too many photos. My phone camera is always with me. So I have hundred of photos and photo manipulation is at hand in my desktop software. Some of my photos I enjoy and save as taken, or only slightly corrected. Many are inadequate, and are deleted. A great many are treated to a bit of digital manipulation before I determine their fate!

My phone has a good camera, and sometimes I take a really nice photo. I have added a new photo album to my online art gallery that features a few of these. These are either untouched photos or photos that have been just slightly corrected. I may adjust the horizon line to be level, or brighten the picture a bit. Now that I have selected some photos that I am proud of, I want to share them.

Below are a handful of simple photos taken in the past 18 months. You can find more of my less adulterated(!) photos in a new album in my online photo gallery.

But I take many photos with digital magic in mind. I don’t use most of the automatic transformations offered in my photo editing software. However there is one effect I rely on heavily. I find that some images that appear dull initially, are transformed into something beautiful by particular manipulations. Usually the effect is only one step in a long process. I use layers to select, adjust, and alter to make the manipulated image satisfying. You can see all too many of these transformed photos online in my album New Digital Media.

Some New Digital Media Transformed Photos

Sometimes I cannot work on my various mixed media art projects. But photos and photo manipulation are an option in any weather. Photography is an enterprise that I pursue whenever I have use of my phone and my computer.

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Abstracted Variations

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I am on Draft Three of this doodle, initially sketched while watching a video by a rather dedicated abstract expressionist/colorist artist. Just decided to riff on something he showed, and my own quick response to it, and to his ideas. I have digital variations of photos of the first two drafts, and have a high resolution scan of draft three, which includes colored pencil in addition to graphite.

This is all just playful to me, with no hidden meanings emerging. But what fun!


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Refinement

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I have refined my watercolor collage sketch a bit, rescanning and working with digital variations. Sometimes I spend a long time in my chosen manipulation software in order to make my transformations and enhancements. It is not always easy or quick selecting the desired sections of an artwork, and this especially true with watercolors that may bleed into each other, and on textured paper where shadows create variations our eyes and brains will generally ignore!

So in addition to working the original a bit, I have tried light and dark as the background frame, and applied different digital manipulations on the trees separated from the window and shadows.

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Not My Words I

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

This has changed a bit in the final version. It is now darker and more complex with the addition of more watercolor and subtle collage elements. It is now time to stop, and to declare it finished!

The scan of the original is on the left. As you can see, it is fairly dark and subtle in color. But since I do enjoy drama as well as subtlety, I have created two digital variations. These are included to the right of the original 10″ x 10″ x 1″ collage on wrapped panel.

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Things Change

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

Sometimes a piece comes together quickly, or at least the basic essential work is clear early on, even if final touches take longer! But at other times, the first couple of versions bear very little resemblance to the final work, although some original forms & colors may still be visible. This piece has transformed several times, and may or may not be finished!

The light blue waterfall with the spidery black hole is the current version of the original acrylic painting, 8″ x 10″ on black canvas, scanned. This is the draft #8; I quite like it at the moment so it may be the final version. The rather garish multi-colored image at right is, of course, a digital foil of draft #8, and a somewhat more subdued digital foil is in the middle.

Above left is draft #2, very pink and muddy, and followed by draft #4 (dark blue and very streaky and busy). I don’t like either of these, or other intermediate drafts.

So in the current version at top the open circle all but disappeared, and most of the original colors are completely covered up… so it goes!

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Not My Words

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

Above is a 10″ x 10″ block wrapped in a pre-printed paper. I have worked over this with ink. I like the earlier version best, so I will have to keep working to “fix” it to a better balance… so it goes!

Below is more of the same paper, worked with ink, and layered/collaged onto a wooden plaque. The original is in the center, with digital variations on either side

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After the Snow

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

Working on black for both of the works above: at top is acrylics on an 8″x10″ wrapped canvas, and below it is a 11″ x 14″ black art board, worked with mixed media, including pastel, colored pencil, pen, and acrylic paint! Of course the versions on the right are the digital variations that I cannot resist!

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