Tag: Portfolio

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portfolio requests

9 of 365 is a postcard from the gulf #GIMP

 

Greetings from the Gulf of Mexico
Greetings from the Gulf of Mexico

 

My very good friend Angel suggested that I do a postcard from a disaster area in the style depicted here, and I thought it was a great challenge. In particular I imported the Greetings from Brigham Young University postcard on that linked Flickr page as a base. First I made the text layers in separate lines, to give more flexibility. I removed the text info from those layers so that I could manipulate them. I skewed and resized the text to emulate the style of the source material. I then used the resulting text to create a selection, which I converted to a channel, so that I could reuse it several times. I imported all the gulf disaster photos as layers. I used the selection channel to copy and paste a letter shaped part of each photo, erasing anything that overlapped where I did not want it to. I created a background with a solid field of blue with a single black application of a splatter brush. Finally, I used the channel based selection to create the black and white outlines around the letters (by increasing the selection size a bit for each) and the shadow behind the letters.

It kept me busy for a while, and was more involved than most of my work here, but it was a lot of fun, and I recommend trying something like it to appreciate the power of the GIMP, and the detailed work of the original, which I only began to approach.

tags: postcards, fun, disaster, BP, gulf, oil spill, politics, GPL, GNU, Open Source, GIMP, Creative Commons, CC-SA, free, lemasney, postaday2011, 365

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brand classes and presentations design principles Illustration Inkscape instructional technology portfolio professional activities technology

8 of 365 is a new header for 365 Sketches

365 sketches logo
365 sketches logo
New header
New header for 365 Sketches

So, today I decided to make a new header for the project to show the difference in the new series. I started off by importing the older blue header with the open location import tool to get just the right size. After making a text layer with my project name and choosing a font and applying kerning, I added a few transparent layers underneath it. On each of those layers I used the paintbrush or eraser and various brushes to make the marks you see here. Using the palette color selector and a built-in fiery palette was especially helpful to create a cohesive color scheme.

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portfolio

7 of 365 is a family with rainbow #GIMP

 

Family with Rainbow
Family with Rainbow

 

Karen Sue, who I’ve not yet met but consider a friend and supporter of this project, asked if I could take a pole out of the middle of an otherwise beautiful photo of her and her family under a rainbow when I asked for suggestions and ideas for this project. Thanks, Karen! So I did most of this work with the clone tool on a Wacom tablet, where I would sample parts of the image that held interesting or appropriate imagery (sky, trees, rainbow) and use it to replace parts that were neither (unknown people, houses, poles, etc.). I also brightened the photo just a bit and used the dodge/burn tool to brighten their faces specifically. Her original photo is above my edit.

tags: photo, repair, rainbow, family, Karen Sue, 365, postaday2011, GIMP, GNU, GPL, Open source, creative commons, sharing, tutorial

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portfolio

6 of 365 is an homage to Atlas #GIMP

 

Atlas
Atlas

 

This is an image I created of Atlas, the mythical figure who held the world upon his shoulders. I most often depict him after he has dropped, thrown, or cast the world off, which I think is an interesting concept. I also wanted to show the Gestalt visual principle of closure, where the human mind will create an image of something that is not present if given enough clues. You’d agree that I have not actually illustrated Atlas himself, but rather the negative space that Atlas might fill. I decided to focus on designing the background space to help you to see the figure Atlas in the negative space. In the GIMP, I used an image of a bodybuilder to create a selection to mask the figure’s space, then I hid that image’s layer. Then, I began painting on a few overlapping transparent layers, all the time keeping the selection present to keep the figure’s contour. The result is what you see here.

tags: fantasy, myth, mythical, atlas, world, GPL, GNU, GIMP, open source, creative commons, sharing, free, lemasney, postaday2011, 365

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portfolio

5 of 365 is a very pretty Martian #gimp

 

Pretty Martian
Pretty Martian

 

What? Your Martians don’t look like this? Sad… for you. This is a morguefile photo brought into GIMP, with a duplicate layer that has been offset so that the left eye of one photo overlaps the right eye of the other. Once that’s done, you can use layer masks to hide and show parts of both faces. After I blended the two faces together, I used the clone tool to recreate a third set of lips. Then, I used the blur, smudge, and clone tools to smooth out the skin, make it continuous and believable, and to bring all the various parts together in a sensible way. I hope you like it a lot!

tags: face, Martian, girl, three eyes, GPL, GNU, Open Source, Creative Commons, postaday2011, 365, GIMP, fun

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design principles Illustration insights open source photography portfolio

4 of 365 is a disjointed triptych self-portrait

Self portrait in triptych
Self portrait in triptych
Self portrait in triptych
Self portrait in triptych

I decided to use the GIMP to make a disjointed self-portrait. By starting with the base image on the far left, I duplicated the layer twice, then I resized the canvas to three times its original width. I moved the images into three equal positions on the canvas, then on the second and third portions, I began making rectangular selections with the marquee tool of the eyes and other features and copying and pasting as new layers, then rotating, lowering opacity, and otherwise playing with those layers.