Catching Up

I was away from here because my internet betrayed me. Anyway, meanwhile I have finally used the T-shirt markers that a cousin gifted me quite some time ago. I did three practice runs on torn tee material. I drew a bouquet, a girl, and a block of houses with just them 6 shades: red, yellow, blue, green, orange, black. I am overwhelmed with how good they turned out given it's my first ever time with this medium. I can't say if there will be photos. Also, I'm doing good with my new phone. The inter-school fest Vibes, run by us, the students who are coordinators at The Statesman Voices, went well just like the past two years. This Saturday we had an exhibition displaying our craft work. There was some spontaneous rivalry between classes even though there was no official reward. Most classes had some innovation in their presentation, and our class's display was a hit.
I haven't made a wallpaper in ages, and I think my considerable collection of unposted ones is taking my attention off that. So I'm gonna post some right now:

#41 was made while I tried to create painting-like effects in Photoshop. It portrays a caveman crouching in his cave behind a fire, locking eyes with the dangerous beast outside, clutching at a piece of rock just in case. Good for keeping on your desktop if you're feeling unlucky -- it'll remind you of how much worse your life could be. I made with the different watercolour brushes on Photoshop, using the finger painting setting of smudging.

#42 was inspired by a salwar suit my Mom bought. It is everyday wear, with rather simple black flowers on dark blue. I liked the dark blue and black combination, and also the shapes of the flowers, which matched a preset flower shape in Photoshop. I added and subtracted a few concentric flowers to create the shape I wanted, and then coloured it. I also created the background, but I wasn't completely satisfied. I played around a bit and then did the curvy lines, tinkered with blend modes, painted the background colours and copied in more flowers. Then I blurred the flower layers, merged them and applied the plastic wrap (of all things!) filter on it. I like the final product.

#43 is another one I made with repeated use of preset shapes. I remember that I began this with no idea in mind about what I'd do. I did a row of green branches and made two more copies of it. I overlay those copies with yellow and red. Then I used different blending modes, bevels, etc. and transformed several copies in different ways to get this. You will notice that there's nothing in this but that leaf pattern, even in the background. Even the filling of the leaves is actually more overlays of the same layer, moved or rotated a bit.

#44 was completely whimsical. I took the four watercolour brushes, and set them to have the maximum rotation jutter, spacing, scatter and colour jitter. I did some random brushwork with my colour set to black. Then I changed the settings, the brush shapes, the set colours, the jitters and speeds and everything else I knew how to change about brushes. At one point I had enough on my canvas to proceed more logically, which I did. I think I used something else for finishing but I don't remember what.

I dig #45, because it actually involved some conscious creation from the beginning and was spontaneous at the same time. I used the bonfire and the spiral from the preset shapes, loads of gradients, blending modes and masking. I also used some fab colours: the flames are blue and purple. The basic colour I hit upon was the onion-peel colour that I really love. It's a bit metallic, and a bit soft as well, this colour. Another reason I love this one is because it shines! I made something shine, at last! I remember almost everything about the making process for this one, but I fear that I am so self-taught that I will use wrong language for half the things I did. Yes, I know the terms. But there I things that I know can work, but don't know the background workings deeply enough. I also don't have enough training to know the general effect of some tools, and only know what situations I have worked with. And this wallpaper involves a lot of those things. Otherwise, in all this that I have said, I might as well have told you the process. I'll see if I feel any spunkier one of these days: spunky enough to tell you in my amateurish way.

CIAO!