Growing as an artist

 Over the last 18 months I've been learning to create digital art using photoshop.  A lot of what I've been learning is based on Sebastian Michael's courses on My Photo Artistic Life  Its been a lot of fun.  This month, one of the lessons asked us to think about our artistic journey over the last year and how we have grown and how we have approached living a life that embrace being an artist and celebrating our creativity.  Then to create a piece of digital art about that journey.  

This piece was my answer to that exercise:

If you look carefully, there are three models.  The one furthest back is hiding behind the wall and peeking out.  Not sure if she wants to share her creations or not.  The one in the middle is out in the open but still a bit afraid and still hiding a bit.  The one in front is embracing her creativity and sending out creative beams, ready to share her work.  

I definitely started out last year being the one peeking out.  I would share in a small safe group of other people who started the journey at the same time I did.  I occasionally posted into a larger safe group of others who had been on the journey for differing times but didn't share anything publicly.  

As the year progressed, pieces got posted to my Adobe Portfolio site here and I changed one of the email signatures to include the link (with three places to send email from, I've managed to end up with three signatures).  More pieces got posted to the larger group and a more advanced group as well as to my Instagram and Facebook pages.  I submitted several images to the magazine associated with the course and had some published and have participated in a number of monthly challenges over on Shiftart.  I've had a few pieces noticed by at least one of the judges but mostly have been in the also submitted group and had fun creating the pieces.

This piece started with a photo I took on the phone while out for a walk early one morning:

To this all of these images got added:

No I didn't forget a person.  The first of the girls is actually used as the two models in the background.  I used photoshop to change the shape of her wing a bit on the one peeking from behind the wall so it came closer into her face to help hide her.  Four of them will be hard to find in the picture.  They are there if only to provide a change of value somewhere.  They might be a different colour or not entirely present but the picture changes if I remove one of them.

Background finished

Added model furthest back

Middle Model added

Structure added

Main Model added

Finished Piece

I had a lot of fun creating this piece and thinking about the journey over the last 18 months.  Quilting has helped a lot.  Lessons learned there apply here as well.  The biggest lesson I think was to take inspiration from those whose work you admire.  Don't throw up your hands and say I might as well give up because I can never do work like they can.  Be inspired.  See the possibilities.  Go play.  Make mistakes and learn.  There were a lot of experiments in this piece that have been deleted.  There are pieces that will probably never been seen off my computer.  Some have been deleted but each taught me something.  

Oh, and for my quilting friends.  Digital artistry is more similar to quilting than you'd think.  Just like buying fabric and quilting are two different hobbies (or so it seems sometimes). Collecting or buying digital art supplies and creating pieces can be two different hobbies (or it certainly seems that way) and I have a few digital UFOs, WIPs and PhDs.  Just like my quilting, I really do need to figure out which of those will get finished and which have taught me what they can and which should just be discard.

I hope you have fun playing, creating and growing with whatever medium you choose.