A tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. #GIMP 1

Martin Luther King Jr.

Today’s sketch is a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the greatest thinkers, writers and orators of our recent history, on his nationally recognized day of service. Using a famous AP photo, I used GIMP’s threshold tool to essentially break the photo into two colors: a highlight in white, and a shadow in black. Then, using the select by color tool I selected the black shadow and began to paint into a new transparent layer with a variety of brushes in a blue palette. I put a new transparent layer behind the blue painted layer, removed the selection, and painted from a gold palette, which showed through the remaining open spaces in the blue layer.

An excerpt from his brave and poignant “Letter from a Birmingham Jail. “

“Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.  You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.” – Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.] from https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

tags: mlk, martin luther king jr., service, reminder, of service, sharing, lemasney, GIMP, GNU, GPL, open source, 365, postaday2011, peace

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