Gimp Tips and Tricks: Giving Art a New Life

In my early days of playing with Gimp and trying out the various filters, I created an image using ruby fonts outlined with silver metal. I love to use scripture in my art so I this one showcases  Proverbs 31:   Here is my original art:

Yeah, I know- it's pretty bad. I was happy with the font effect but not pleased at all with the background. This week I decided to revise it.  I thought maybe adding an image would help, so I found this over at Pixabay.

I elongated the right end of the image with the scale tool, desaturated the image and overlaid it with a black and white radial gradient.  Here is the result:

It's not perfect but I think it looks quite a bit better than my original creation.

All these images are free for the taking by the way.    

Fine Art America: My First Art Uploads

 

There are so many opportunities for artists on the internet- it actually could get rather confusing. I joined Fine Art America in June of this year but hadn't done much with it since I didn't consider myself to be an artist (at least not in the traditional sense of the word).

I started looking at some of my photos and considered the possibilities and out of that came my first attempt at "stand alone" art. I used a photo of a rose I took last summer, the Gimp and my Genius MousePen Graphic Tablet and came up with this design:



A set of 3 blue and gold roses on mosaic background

Gimp Tips: Dealing With Jagged Edges

One of the first images that I submitted (to various photo submission sites) was this birthday 

balloon illustration.

From a distance it looks pretty good and most places accepted it. However a few places wouldn't take it because the edges were pixelated (jagged). I'm not sure how I missed that ... but I did. Here is a close up.

Now what do I do? I did some research and found a way to kind of fix it. It was actually not that hard since I had the balloons on transparent layers.

 


I simply duplicated the balloon, and added a Gaussian blur (Filters > blur > Gaussian blur > setting of 4) to the bottom layer.

and merged them together (Select the top balloon layer  > Right click it and choose Merge Down)


You can see here that it's not smooth but the edges are softer so the problem is less obvious. Thankfully, the file is big enough so I can scale it down and it becomes even less noticeable.

   

MagCloud- An Exciting New Discovery for Me

Lorene Troyer

I haven't posted for awhile- I thought I'd share about a company, MagCloud, I heard about while watching a Youtube video by Barney Davey.  I'm quite excited about this company because of a  business venture I'm working on. I need an economical way to get my products printed (since I don't want to invest in a commercial printer just yet).

MagCloud is a content publishing web service. It looks like you can publish your own magazines and digests, flyers, posters etc. The prices seem to be very reasonable. I'm thinking it would probably be a good way for churches and businesses to create economical but professional looking bulletins and other hand-outs.

I read several reviews, most of them were favorable. One complaint was that the paper for the magazine cover seemed too flimsy. After I get some items printed, I'll let you know what I think.

Scripture Art: My First Scripture Art Designs

What do you get when you combine a love for creating graphic art with a love for the Word of God? Scripture art!

Joshua 1:8, one of my favorite Bible verses, talks about the benefits of meditating on God's Word. To me, this scripture is the perfect success formula.  After thinking about it and researching the meaning of some of the words, (in order to clarify it for myself), I wrote it like this:

Keep speaking the Word of God out of your mouth. Meditate on it (study it, imagine it coming to pass in your life and talk about it all the time). Then you will do everything that you meditate on and you will make your way of life (your conversations, your habits, and your manners) to be good and profitable. Then you will have good success.

I liked it so well, I wanted to be able to hang it on my bedroom wall. I had the thought that if I liked it, maybe others would like it as well.  So I spent some time at the drawing board (aka the Gimp) and came up with these two designs.  

Joshua 1:8 Scripture on Lavender and Navy Design by Lorene Troyer

Joshua 1:8 Scripture on Navy and Lavender Design by Lorene Troyer

I put them for sale at Imagekind to see what kind of response I'd get.

Do You Have to Draw to Be a Graphic Designer?

by Lorene Troyer

Do you have to be good at drawing to be a graphic designer? It certainly would come in mighty handy at times, if I could draw- but the truth is, I never learned to be real adept at drawing or painting on paper.

I did teach myself a few things with an art kit my parents got me for Christmas one year, but I never really enjoyed it that much- it was more like a chore than anything else.

It's kind of hard to do any kind of graphic design without graphics or images. Here are some ways to get around this issue (if you are fairly adept at using programs like Photoshop, Gimp or Illustrator etc).

*Have a family member or friend draw what you need.

*Buy art or photos that have a commercial-use license.

*Get art or photos that are in the public domain or are available for commercial use. 

*Take your own photos or in my case, I have a photographer friend who told me to let him know what I'd like and he'll shoot it.  I also pay my 11 year old son for any photos he takes that I can use (after editing).   
*Create digital art using filters or geometric shapes.  

*Cut out items and shapes from photos (you have the rights to) to place in your design.  

I keep thinking that one of these days I'll learn how to draw, but so far it has not been absolutely necessary. I'd rather spend my time learning how to use my software more effectively. 

Anyone else have any thoughts on this matter. Please leave a comment.

Gimp Tips: How to Add A Gold Border to an Image

Here is an easy way to put a gold border around an image (or photo).

Open the image. You may want to make a duplicate so you won't be working on the original copy.
Right click on the layers dialogue and choose alpha to selection.

Create a new transparent layer.
Click on the foreground color square and when the color dialog opens, set the HTML notation to: a28826

 
Make sure the transparent layer is selected. Go to Menu > Select  >  To path >  Edit > Stroke path. Set the line width size to whatever size you want. (I set mine to 20.) Push OK.

 

Right click on the top layer in the dialogue box and choose alpha to selection.

Go to the menu > select> shrink and shrink the selection by one pixel.

Next grab the blend tool, pick the golden gradient, the shape should be bi-linear. Set the repeat to triangular wave.  With the blend tool, come down across the top part of your image at an angle. You should have something like this:

When you are happy with the way it looks, go to menu > select > none.

There you have it- an easy gold border for your pictures