Even though I haven’t blogged and I haven’t drawn or made new art, I have been creating. It may not seem like it, but everyday – every hour, every minute, every second we are all creating with our thoughts. And simultaneously, we are also destroying thoughts, ideas and mental patterns that no longer serve us.
Continue reading “Rainbow Cobra Drawing from Guided Meditation”
I’m not going to lie; there is a part of me that really wants my art to sell, but that is definitely not my sole purpose of creating. I make art in hopes that I can push my creative limits and because I just love it. It’s part of who I am, like I’m just wired for it. Even when I don’t create anything for months, I am still drawn to some kind of art or I surround myself with it.
So I’m posting this because this is an example of me pushing my creativity. My friend & local art dealer Alfie is currently curating a comic book themed art show and this is what I came up with.
This is a new marker drawing that I made today. Most of my artwork is usually feminine in nature so I wanted to channel in some masculine energy. I also promised to type up a tutorial so here goes!
Here’s a simple technique that I like to use for my drawings. Beginners new to Photoshop can follow along 🙂
I am using Adobe Photoshop 2015 by the way and the key commands I use are for Mac. Control key is the equivalent of the Command key on a PC.
1. I scan the drawing at 300dpi and it gives me this large TIFF file. You can take a pic with your phone, email it to yourself and download it from there but I find that the resolution isn’t high enough. I could be wrong though, feel free to try it.
2. My scanner software (Image Capture) is kinda janky so when it scans, it gives me a washed out scan. To fix this, I usually hit Command Shift L or Auto Levels in Photoshop. Or I adjust the Levels and Curves until I’m happy with it. In Adobe Photoshop CC 2015, it’s now called Auto Tone in the Image menu.
3. I want to add a cosmic background to the blacked out area of the drawing. It would be good to find a background that’s about the same size of your scanned image. In your layers panel, double click to turn your locked background image to a layer so that it can be edited. It’s going to become Layer 0.
4. Hit W on your keyboard to select the Quick Selection Wand tool, third tool on your toolbar.
5. With your Layer 0 still selected, on your image click the area you want to select and see how much it covers. You will see a selection (some people call it marching ants). If you need to select more additional areas, hold down the Shift key and click another area. The more solid the area is, the better your selection will come out.
6. Now that you have a selection, hit Command Shift I or go to Select menu > Inverse. This changes your selection. You won’t see it until you put a mask on it.
7. With your selection still active and your layer 0 still selected, at the bottom of your layers panel, click the Add Layer Mask tool, third one from the left. This masks or hides the area that you selected.
8. Now you can bring in your cosmic background by dragging the file right into your Photoshop document from wherever it’s located. It will place the file right smack in the front so once you’ve adjusted it to your liking (size and position), hit enter or return; now you can move that cosmic background layer to the bottom of your layer stack.
9. Make sure to hit Command S to save your work! Save often if you’re doing a lot of edits.
10. I like to play with the blending modes in the Layers panel, the tab that says Normal but has a dropdown menu. I added another layer and played with gradients and changed the blending modes on there too.
Endless fun!
If you want to practice with the files I used, you can download them here.
I just realized that I have a lot of original content that I created for myself to use for social media stuff and really just for the sake of creating and experimenting; for example this one was my old Facebook cover photo from 2013. I always like things to match to the point where I become obsessive over it, like my cover photo and my avatar. What can I say, it’s one of the few things I CAN control.
I used an old drawing that I scanned (the woman with a rose and a skull); I then played around with colors and gradients in Photoshop. For some reason I was drawn to using bright colors, triangular shapes and checkerboards at the time – not really knowing the significance of each. I then created a black square shape, duplicated it and layed it out, grouped them together, flattened them and used the Perspective tool to create the floor. The white part is just one big shape.
I hope to type up a decent tutorial soon on how I create my graphics, so my blog posts can be more useful and have some kind of value to you, the reader.
Here is a good reference of the meaning of the checkerboard in Freemasonry
Would you like to know more about how the hexagram compares to the pentagram in ritual magic, or are you looking for its appearance in a specific work like Faust?
I have posted this before but as a static image. I was digging through my old files when the idea came to me to post this as an animated gif, unfolding itself like a flower.
Most girls grow up loving unicorns when they were young, I was definitely one of them. I had an insane collection of My Little Ponies and She-Ra’s unicorn.
As I learn more about spirituality, metaphysics and symbolism – I’ve come to realize that the unicorn is not just a mythical creature to be adored but also a symbol of magic – a symbol that you can meditate and draw upon when you need some imagination and creativity in your life.
The unicorn is synonymous with imagination, dreams, fantasy, magical things, otherworldly realms, thinking of the impossible. And I totally get it now.
Here is an old drawing that I made into a GIF.
So today, dare to dream. Dare to imagine that anything you can think of is possible.
