It’s incredibly hard to forget certain moments in your life, and I’m very happy for that sometimes.
tags: memory, reminder, note, lemasney, 365, postaday2011, daily, sharing, gimp, GNU, GPL, Open source, open
I was really intrigued by Joaquin’s experiment and I hope it works out for him. I like or love most of his work, but I think to make so many people believe you’ve truly gone away is an amazing accomplishment. It seems so obvious now that it was all a rouse, but I don’t think anyone knew for sure when it was going on. Good for him for getting one over on us, and I hope he returns to the screen soon. Anyway, here I brought together his well-known image from “I’m still here” and another photo that was a far more photogenic JP, and used a mask on the photogenic JP to allow his face to appear through his bearded character’s face. I tweaked with adding and removing the mask in transparent strokes until I had what I wanted.
tags: JP, I’m still here, Joaquin Phoenix, GIMP, GNU, GPL, Open source, 365, postaday2011, lemasney
Many friends see my posts in their daily Facebook stream and wonder what it’s all about. One person pulled me aside and asked me to explain it. I gave a much more detailed explanation in my conversation, but it boiled down to this.
tags: postaday2011, GIMP, GNU, GPL, Open source, lemasney, 365, design, painting, fun
My friend Laraine wrote me recently with a request:
“I need help with the attached photo…it is the Blawenburg Band at the Hopewell gazebo, being directed by clarinetist, former member and my dear departed friend, Rich Hill, who died this past spring at 51…
I want to use the photo as the cover of a thank you card, 5 x 7, to people who contributed to a band scholarship in Rich’s honor. I am choosing and writing the thank you cards; I’m secretary of the band.
But the problem with the photo is that Rich’s clothes looked rumpled… (maybe) shadows from the gazebo cut outs…
I feel the spirit of the photo is just right for the memorial thank you’s. (Do you think so?) But Rich looks rumpled…”
He was a bit rumpled, but that was easy enough to take care of with cloning, burning and dodging tools. I moved on to restoring the gazebo, band members and audience members with the burn dodge tool to bring out the shadows, highlights and midtones after doing some work on the picture overall to improve brightness and contrast. A bit overworked perhaps, but I really enjoyed the challenge. Thanks Laraine!
tags: lemasney, 365, dailypost2011, band, Princeton, Blawenburg, Hopewell, NJ, photo restoration, GIMP, GPL, GNU, Open source, Creative Commons, CC-SA
I recently saw a friend’s very wonderful painting of a rooster, and was inspired to do this as a compliment to it. In GIMP, I used a preexisting silhouette of the bird you see here, which I selected by color and converted to a mask, which I then used to paint into a new transparent layer.
tags: hen, rooster, chicken, egg, 365, dailypost2011, everyday, GNU, GPL, GIMP, photomanipulation, photo, sharing, gift, friend, lemasney, open source, creative commons, cc-sa
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.
“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
tags: mlk, martin luther king jr., service, reminder, of service, sharing, lemasney, GIMP, GNU, GPL, open source, 365, postaday2011, peace