I was going to post the Q&A video today and this post tomorrow, but I’m a bit tired and wanting to curl up with my Smash book, so the Q&A is going up tomorrow and this tonight. Which means things may be confusing for one line or two in the vid, but if that’s the only odd thing, we’ll all be lucky. When I’m not bouncy excited, I’m weird-humor even-keel, and living a life on camera, well…welcome to me!
Ever since Becca got an iPhone, I’ve been a green-eyed monster, especially when she whips the thing out to show me her most-recent Instagram pics. In fact, while we were hanging out last night, we spent half the time with our noses in our phones, playing around with pictures! It’s quite addicting, and even though I have Mad Skills on teh Photoshop, I love the different filters and textures available in all these camera apps. And before you ask, no, I don’t have an iPhone (to my eternal sadness. Actually, the phone I have is marvelous, especially since I bought it for $200 on eBay. What I don’t like is that I have a 4G phone, pay for 4G service, yet live in a city without 4G service. Oh, Sprint. You piss me off for the tune of $120 a year…).
All of these photos were taken with Vignette, which is very, very worth the cost for the paid version. I love it to pieces!
I processed them in either Magic Hour — another paid program that I just purchased this morning and adore — or GO Photo, which is free and goes with GO Launcher, which is a ton of fun, if you have the time/inclination to personalize your Android.
But that’s it. Lots of playing around and clicking and adjusting. The knowledge I have from Photoshop actually helped make things easier (for example, Magic Hour allows you to adjust the Curves, which I only know how to do because of playing in Photoshop since I was 13), but it’s so user-friendly, you can get started with no experience at all!
But let’s not make this whole post techny! I carved those stamps from craft foam with my new wood burning tool (thank you, 50% off Michael’s coupon!) and it really is like cutting through butter! I messed up on one, but then got the hang of it really fast and it was like drawing, except then I could make block prints with ‘em! The foam was $1 and I still have over half a sheet left, and can’t wait to make more. Oh, why was I intimidated in the first place?
Except for the fumes. OH, the fumes. Really. I was sitting in front of a window under a fan at high speed and have learned that I need to dig a mask out of my garage or else I’ll get sinus headaches very easily. Or I could go outside and work on ‘em. Either one — trust me, darlings, the warnings are in the books for reasons. And this is one of them. Even when I was working with wood, I needed to take a step back for a bit and relax. Then again, I have a tendency to lean over my work when I get into the details (which isn’t good when your back dislikes you most days!), but still. Better safe than sorry!
We also wrote on tissue paper with Copics to layer, but didn’t know that the markers would leak through the tissue and stain the table, so that’s a reason to have a black craft table (I honestly had no idea as I bought my desk in black for this very reason).
And I found out that GAC 100 is so super awesome, I’ve got to play with it some more to see what else it can do.
Most of these are close-up shots of backgrounds I have yet to work over. I have a few awesome pages in the works -- why can't I post everything all at once by visiting you all and gushing over art?