APPstract RESULT: Weekly APPstract #8 Steal the Style

Art games/art therapy

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A transformation of an image representing a particular distress. The distress image is overplayed with a series of symbols or words or shapes that have positive personal meaning to the artist. Bottom right is her primary image overplayed already for privacy reasons. Three symbols meaningful to the artist, and then the results of some blending and erasing . The final image is filtered in Shift and a bird added from a previous, happy and uplifting image.
This seems quite interesting. I understand the concept more than the images, but I guess that isn’t important. The purpose is for the person working out their distress. Their personal story is encoded in the images in such a way that only they know what it says.
 
Reminds me: A long-time photographer friend, to whom I excitedly (and foolishly) showed my HM in MPA (a still from a video, apped to my heart’s content) said ‘oh, it’s not a competition for real photographs, then?’ :confused: o_O :feet:
UGH. :mad:
 
Well, I did that, too, and it was OK. More like a regular painting. It just wasn’t the particular track I was following. This is a bit like a negative space painting. There’s more abstraction in seeing the spaces rather than the tree. I’m not sure I would do this again but I enjoyed doing it once.

There are just 9 layers to this painting. The tree is on a layer of its own and the different foreground, middle ground areas, and 2 backgrounds are separate also. Layers in Procreate have no fill unless you add one. The layers are transparent so only what you paint there shows up. That means there is no need for blending modes to remove the unwanted backgrounds. So it has lots of potential for further exploration. I kept seeing other approaches as I worked on this one. This is the first one completed. One thing I’m going to do is go back to Topaz Simplify and see what happens if I follow this path with a photo.

Here it is just turning off the tree layer.
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Brian I think I like reading/following your travelogue as much (almost as much) as I enjoy taking in your vibrant images.
(Except in the Hipsta thread, of course, where I suspect you’re practising to be a grumpy old man :eek: and wonder if someone should warn Fabi :alien:).
 
This seems . Their personal story is encoded in the images in such a way that only they know what it says.

Yes, now you mention it; and perhaps true to some extent for all art...

I thought y’all might be interested to see a different rendition of ‘art game’. And a plug for the therapeutic value of digital art :D

As you say that particular process is a purposeful transformation of a representation of [a specific] distress into a representation of ‘sorted’. The artist mindfully applies their own positives (‘good’ ‘healing’ ‘protective’ etc) to an imposed trauma or distress. Then s/he reworks the image in various apps until something pleasing to her/his eye appears.

It’s not for everyone, but for some people it’s a profoundly healing process.
 
Yes, now you mention it; and perhaps true to some extent for all art....

It’s not for everyone, but for some people it’s a profoundly healing process.

I’ve just remembered one person who used Picasso’s ‘split faces’ to describe abusive parents, and then meticulously over hours used a fine black pen to transform that picture into a unified image of the face of a ‘guardian angel’ :inlove:
 
Vaguely impressionist alley at night
Leonardo, Mextures, iColorama

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Original daytime photo attached, unedited.
 

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Brian I think I like reading/following your travelogue as much (almost as much) as I enjoy taking in your vibrant images.
(Except in the Hipsta thread, of course, where I suspect you’re practising to be a grumpy old man :eek: and wonder if someone should warn Fabi :alien:).
I guess I have a certain amount of excitement about the things I’m learning and hope someone might be interested in the process.

Hipstamatic really gets my goat. I should just accept it as a grunge app and walk away.
Edit: I think it causes me to experience a values conflict.
 
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Yes, now you mention it; and perhaps true to some extent for all art...
This would make an interesting discussion. I think of art or photography as mediums of communication & expression. Presumably the artist does have something they want to say and you can tell how successful they have been in that expression if the viewer can read it. It is more difficult if the artist is just making something because they think it looks nice and has no emotion behind the expression. Likewise, an expression that is so concealed or private that no one else can make sense of it isn’t really a communication at all.
 
I thought y’all might be interested to see a different rendition of ‘art game’. And a plug for the therapeutic value of digital art :D

As you say that particular process is a purposeful transformation of a representation of [a specific] distress into a representation of ‘sorted’. The artist mindfully applies their own positives (‘good’ ‘healing’ ‘protective’ etc) to an imposed trauma or distress. Then s/he reworks the image in various apps until something pleasing to her/his eye appears.

It’s not for everyone, but for some people it’s a profoundly healing process.
I’m ready to try just about anything. I never experienced art games as a child so all of this is new to me.

I’ve heard that drawing seems to be significant in some way according to neuroscience. It certainly feels satisfying and it does something for me that photography doesn’t do.

For this particular healing art I can see a person would need to be willing to dig deeply to reach the heart of something with real emotional content. Something minor wouldn’t be significant enough to elicit an emotional response. I’m not sure how the healing is supposed to come about. It seems that doing this and that in various apps until you get something that pleases you is not very focused. I don’t yet understand how it is supposed to work.
 
I’m ready to try just about anything. I never experienced art games as a child so all of this is new to me.

I’ve heard that drawing seems to be significant in some way according to neuroscience. It certainly feels satisfying and it does something for me that photography doesn’t do.

For this particular healing art I can see a person would need to be willing to dig deeply to reach the heart of something with real emotional content. Something minor wouldn’t be significant enough to elicit an emotional response. I’m not sure how the healing is supposed to come about. It seems that doing this and that in various apps until you get something that pleases you is not very focused. I don’t yet understand how it is supposed to work.
Sometimes as l’m “playing with art” I find insights without any digging at all.
 
You can also do colour fills by simply dragging the current colour from the colour dot at the top right onto any closed space. You have to sort of pause before you drag the colour and when you have it properly selected you see a coloured circle follow your finger or pencil tip to the area you want to fill. But this only makes solid colour fills. Much easier, though. Called the Colour Drop Tool.

Edit: while on the topic of the colour dot, a long press on the dot will go back to the previous colour, so you can easily alternate between two colours when painting. This is very handy when masking as you end up using both black and white often.

Another Edit: if your enclosing shape is not exactly closed it would normally just fill the whole canvas... but... when you drop your fill colour, don’t let go of the spot for a second and a new adjustment slider will appear that controls the sensitivity of the fill. Lowering the intensity will allow you to fill an unclouded shape. Also, somwetimes the lines you draw are not completely solid in tone but have pixels fading towards white at the edges. So... when you drop your fill colour there can be a halo of white specks around the inner edge of the outline. Instead, when you drop your fill colour hold for a second until the sensitivity slider appears and INCREASE the sensitivity to fill in more of those stray white pixels. It might not get them all but it really makes a difference.

And: When you have a shape layer and you want to colour it in on a different layer just identify that shape layer as “reference” and your painting on the other layer will be confined to the shape.
I don’t know how I missed this post before, but I use Procreate a lot and didn’t know about most of this. Did you find this by reading the manual available on iBooks? I tend to refer to it when I’m looking to do something specific. I know I looked through the whole thing, but didn’t exactly READ it.
 
Wow - I’m getting double education here ! I’ve never heard of Delaunay (and Mrs Delaunay?) - I’ve seen the more well-known circles but didn’t know their work. After browsing some galleries I reckon yours is a theft to be proud of ! :notworthy: :thumbs: And now I know about making black layers for masking, too :notworthy: :notworthy:
Me too. I’ve lead a very sheltered art life, apparently.
 
Sometimes as l’m “playing with art” I find insights without any digging at all.

:) Do you have a sense of why/how that happens for you? Do you have a problem in mind, and solutions pop up? Are you just art-ing, and notice insights arising? Something else?


On more structured therapeutic interventions, over my *cough* *mumble* 40 + years. [excuse me a moment while I go breathe into a paper bag] in mental/health, I’ve become increasingly certain that ‘less is more’.
 
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Hipstamatic really gets my goat. I should just accept it as a grunge app and walk away.

But your little rants are so entertaining for the rest of us!!!


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Edit: I think it causes me to experience a values conflict.

Well I’m glad you’ve worked that out. We can spend the best parts of our lives stuck in versions of ‘but it’s wrong/not fair/illegal/evil/whatever’ - effectively glue-ing our whole being to the thing that causes us such discord.

If we can get a handle on ‘my values and these values don’t line up’ it can be easier to shrug and walk away.

Lots of influencing variables of course. Try telling this to people who bomb clinics, put burning crosses on people’s lawns or call the council 90 times a week about the her neighbour’s kids playing too loudly in the back yard.
 
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At the gallery: in progress

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Inspired by David’s image (don’t ask: I don’t know) . Mondrian meets both Miro and Klee on a bad day. What are the chances? Klee had a hangover and Miro brought the wrong pen.

‘In progress’ because I can’t quite make up my mind about muted hues or strong primary colours in the art works, how many art works and how much detail (black) before they become too fussy and blend too much into the abstract background.

Miro makes those scribble plus line compositions look easy - to my eye they never look ‘busy’.



Anyway I’ve got the days right now and I’ll have to close the thread in the next 24 hours or so. And I have work to do :mobibabe: I’m being very virtuous - gave myself an hour this morning (after giving myself three last night :eek: :D) and now I’m off to do grownup things. If I finish them before 24 hours I’ll be back for another three hours :rolleyes:

Starzee I have to say this is one of my favourite ever themes, thank you :inlove: (My grownup work ethic says ‘don’t let her pick again’ :lmao:)
 

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I don’t know how I missed this post before, but I use Procreate a lot and didn’t know about most of this. Did you find this by reading the manual available on iBooks? I tend to refer to it when I’m looking to do something specific. I know I looked through the whole thing, but didn’t exactly READ it.
I have the Procreate ebook but it’s a Big Read. I make sure to get the updated version whenever one comes out. Big changes have been happening. The main thing is to check out the “what’s new in this version” info.

By the way, have you checked out the painting potential in Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer? Makes me wonder if Procreate could be surpassed.
 
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Me too. I’ve lead a very sheltered art life, apparently.
It is surprising how being immersed in the photographic life shelters us or doesn’t expose us to the greater goings on in the art world. The photographic arts have different requirements but could really benefit from more crossover.

I’ve just been reading The Betty Edwards (author of The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain) book about colour. This book describes what art students go through before they are allowed to paint. Actually, I think the book is exactly the course itself. Drawing first, how to mix and make colours next, once that is sorted out they begin teaching how to paint. It’s turns out that without this middle step art students often flounder. The book is all about mixing actual paints. You have to buy the required paints, brushes, etc and proceed to make your own colour wheel from scratch. learn about the colour relationships and placements on the wheel. Then all the colour lingo. Then, all about complementary colour relationships, dissonance, etc. I can’t see any way to do this digitally. It has to be done by mixing actual pigments. It worry’s me what might happen if I actually buy some physical paint and brushes.

There’s a picture in the book of an early Mondrian painting in the faintest of greys and barely-there colours. The familiar form is there but it looks like a picture left out in the sun too long - compared to the colourful works he is better known for.
 
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It’s beautiful. I wouldn’t call it abstract because I can still see it’s a tree, but it’s lovely nonetheless.
I’ve been thinking about this. I always find I learn something from these questions that get at the heart of a topic. You’re right that it still looks like a tree. It is supposed to give you the impression of Tree-ness, although if you compare it to a photo of a tree it only resembles a tree until you examine the branch structure more closely. But the tree isn’t the abstracted part.

On the other hand, in your picture with the circles and rectangles. I can still see they are circles and rectangles. So it isn’t the circles and rectangles that are being abstracted. It’s the “something else”. At least, that’s how my thought process is going so far.
 
Art games/art therapy

View attachment 121940

A transformation of an image representing a particular distress. The distress image is overplayed with a series of symbols or words or shapes that have positive personal meaning to the artist. Bottom right is her primary image overplayed already for privacy reasons. Three symbols meaningful to the artist, and then the results of some blending and erasing . The final image is filtered in Shift and a bird added from a previous, happy and uplifting image.
Stepping outside of the distress therapy aspect of this series of images, I always have difficulty in making sense of images abstracted to this degree. The part I find most interesting is the transition between the two pictures with the crow/raven. First it appears black, later lavender, yet the rest of the image is not similarly inverted. Also, lavender is not an inversion of black so another emotional step is taking place. The use of bird imagery is interesting in itself as it can signify many things.
 
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