My Creative Images Promoting Digital Photo Artistry and Digital Photography
Issue 45 (December 2021)
Welcome to the Mycreativeimages Magazine For me December is normally a time of reflection, looking back at what I have achieved in the last 12 months, a time for family and a time to relax and enjoy the company of people that mean the most to me. Hopefully this is the case for you as well and I wish you a safe happy and relaxing Christmas and New Year. Looking back on November, firstly I’m amazed at how fast the last 4 weeks have gone. But then, when I look at the things I have done I see why. They include, further exploring the world of Crypto currency and art NFTs, finding that you can now buy music and album art as NFTs. Watching the dramatic increase in people using AI created artwork in the form of abstract art generated by collaborative “GANs” using source images and word prompts to create random artwork (see some examples on the next page), finding alternative ways to present my artwork using basic animations via Photoshop and Adobe After Effects, tinkering with Adobe Aero to create augmented reality to again enhance my printed artwork, joining a collective of NFT artists (see the article on the next page) and watching as high profile company’s start to take advantage of NFTs, such of Gary V, Adidas, Atari just to name a few, and enter the world of NFTs to start the corporate takeover of an EXTREMELY lucrative “wild west” marketplace.
Featured artists
Keeley McCleave 4 Bernie Tuffs 14 Carol Abel 18 Claude Trew 20 David Walker 24 James Hurley 30 Joyce Simpson 34 Susan Jones 36 Sue Waterhouse 42 Terry Jane 46 Vivien Capper 48
So phew, yes a busy month but a typical one if you want to keep up with the trend and want to be recognised as an Artist in an ever changing and growing marketplace, which now includes the rapidly expanding virtual arena, and the need to create “thumb stopping” motion or animation effects for your artwork to stand any chance of capturing peoples attention on the web and social media. Anyway, enough waffle from me, head on over to the next page and enjoy the artwork, especially the work of Keeley McCleave, who this month features on the cover, such stunning images! James Hurley Photo Artist / Magazine Editor
Links:
Cover image “Red Snowflakes” by Keeley McCleave page 4
Kindle for Last Months Magazine: https://amzn.to/3GwPGbE Facebook Page: http://bit.ly/MYCIFBpage Facebook Group: http://bit.ly/FBArtGroup
Please note, that some articles contain affiliate links which direct you to 3rd party sales pages, for example Amazon. In the even you purchase something via one of these links a commission is paid to the editor of this magazine or the author of the article. All images in this publication are sourced / created by the artists, unless otherwise stated on their websites or social media pages and as such must not be copied or sold without the express consent of the artist.
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This publication is created and owned by James Hurley, ©mycreativeimages.com 2021. Please feel free to share the magazine but do not make changes to any of the content.
Future Trends - decentrazines Virtual galleries and worlds have been around for a fair old time, in fact I have had an account on Secondlife for over 10 years where you can buy and sell digital assets and property. So, the excitement and focus on NFTs is still building and some amazing collaborations and projects can be found on the web. One of those collaborative projects is “The Decentrazine”. The Decentrazine Project is focused on finding talented up and coming artists and helping them curate limited edition collections to release to eager collectors. Promoting the artists and getting collectors awesome deals on limited edition pieces from web3’s best new artists. First up is the Community Collection. Hundreds of different artists of every style, medium, age, race, sex creed, skill level and interpretation all releasing exclusive 1/1s based around the same focus-word. Check it out here and let me know whose interpretation resonates with you? After that is Dream Girls by Tocka. A collection of handdrawn and sometimes animated girls with background stories and even an alignment meter at the bottom letting you know if your girl is a dream, or a nightmare! Followed by The Chaos Cassette Club by our in-house artist Winter in collaboration with a number of artists. A way for you to support a talented up and coming musician and get to own an early piece of their music. This is just the start of the journey for this great collaboration, why not head on over to the collection
on opensea and take a look at the stunning NFT art that is available to bid on. If you follow this link: https://bit.ly/3EvLaJF you will land on my own personal work but to see more simply click on the Community collection link, shown in blue text at the top of the page. For those that are concerned about the authenticity of a piece of NFT Art, check out the Beta Photoshop function which tags your work and the information relating to the resources used to create it and it is attached to an NFT making it very clear who created it and what assets were used. Visit the link above and scroll down to the Content Credentials section, open it up and then click on the “View details on Verify” link……..
James Hurley Photo Artist / Magazine Editor
images created by artificial intelligence
Yes its true, and it has been for a while now, you can have art created for you using artificial intelligence (AI). The trend to“quickly” create AI art to use and sell as an NFT is seeing a surge, but are you the artist or is the AI? This is a massive subject and I initially said to myself that creating AI art doesn’t make you an artist, to do it you simply click a button (see https://1secondpainting.com/app/) or type in a string of words into an app on your phone and pick a style and your phone crates some artwork for your personal use (check out WOMBO Dream on the iphone app store). But after a while after a bit of soul searching I realised, I use AI every time I make artwork in Photoshop, the subject selection tool, just to mention one, is AI, so does that mean I’m not an artist.......? In my mind there is a line in the sand, using a tool to help you create art where you spend hours or days tweaking it manually is clearly part of the creative process, but clicking a button and then saying you created some artwork, well no, that doesn’t make you an artist. UNLESS, you created the program, or significantly changed the Google Colaboratory used to create the art then its not your creation, it was created by the AI and the credit for it should be passed to the person that designed and wrote the Colab not the person that pressed the “Go” button. The image on the right was created by the WOMBO Dream App using key words “Community, tree, City, people”. I really like the app and the way I can use it to create ideas and stimulate my creative process, but I could NEVER* use the resulting image and put my name to it as the artist, firstly because I didn’t create it and secondly, the images from this app aren’t licensed for commercial use. *Watch this space, as although I say NEVER that may change.......
James Hurley Photo Artist / Magazine Editor
Keeley McCleave I studied illustration at art college, so there is a story-telling feel to most of my work. During the summer I re-discovered my love of illuminated manuscripts and was inspired to incorporate some richly detailed page borders in some of my compositions. I love the way borders can draw the viewer into an image and help tell the story. More recently my attention has turned to the festive season and I have had fun playing with different aspects of a British Christmas, drawing on folklore, historical costumes and traditions. I love Christmas, so always find it a springboard to creativity! I hope you enjoy my work, as much as I enjoyed creating it.
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Autumn
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Heat
In the bleak midwinter
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Nothern Lights
Winter Chill
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The Snow Queen enthroned
Summer
Bernie Tuffs Hello! I’m Bernie and I live in the little seaside town of Margate and having lived here all my life, I couldn’t live anywhere else now! I’m continually inspired by the scenery here, with skies and light that so excited famous artist J. W. Turner, who said of this area, “…the skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe”. Apparently, a love of the sea stayed with him all his life and I can well understand that! Painting with light holds a real attraction for me - the gentle light that is still strong enough to dispel darkness. I’ve always been arty, progressing from childhood sketching, through gouache and then oil painting, then paper crafting and scrapbooking which led me to digital scrapbooking and finally to Sebastian Michaels and Photo Artistry. My latest venture is designing and selling digital overlays and textures. Now I feel I’m home and am having so much fun with my art!
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/BernieTuffs
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Cold Cold Winter
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Welcome Winter
Khione
Carol Abel My name is Carol Abel. I’m British but have lived in Luxembourg (the green heart of Europe) for more than 30 years. I also spend time in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus; both countries provide me with very varied photographic opportunities. I enjoy travelling but this is now very limited as a result of the Covid pandemic. I was given my first digital camera in 2001 and have never looked back although now I prefer using my battered iPhone 6. I’m a magpie photographer, photographing anything that takes my fancy, as I prefer to use my own images where possible. I work in Photoshop Elements and Photoshop but also increasingly turn to apps on my iPad. When I first started creating digital images I was largely self-taught but have now been one of Sebastian Michaels’ students from the very start of his launching the Photoshop Artistry course, through Awake and now Kaizen.
https://www.instagram.com/cabelcat/
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The Badlands
Jensen
Claude Trew I retired a few years ago, and since I had more free time, I decided it was time to expand my photo art skills. I have been a member of my local camera club for many years, but I wanted to branch out in areas of photography that would be more artistic and outside the style of photographs that are most successful in club competitions. With this in mind, four years ago I joined the international online Photoshop course “My Photo Artistic Life” created by Sebastian Michaels. I have never regretted my decision and I am still a member of this vibrant and artistic FaceBook community. A few months ago I joined another online course “Elevate your Art”, this time learning to paint with Photoshop’s mixer brush. My vision is, one day, to be able to paint images which will look like oil paintings. You are welcome to visit my website to see some samples of my Photo Art.
www.claudetrew.com
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Amongst Fire and Smoke
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Smoked Gigolo
Double Smoked Trouble
Smoked Dancer
Smoke and Snow
Smoked Giraffe and Squirrel
Dancing smoked dragons
David Walker The Political Artist I could not resist including an image with a “political” slant this month, “War...the Non Nuclear Option”. I have often thought that the best way to solve problems, of any sort, is to place the leaders of the protagonists in a locked room until either one side wins or a consensus is achieved. How many lives would have been saved over the past 100 years or so if this option had been taken! My other “political” art has been ignored in the on-line journals and even criticised by the “editors”. Why they choose to do this is beyond me…several of my exhibitions have included such subjects and have been positively received. I will continue to produce art as I see it, political or not. That is my prerogative and I will not be browbeaten by others who clearly do not understand the real world! I am not alone in my approach…look at Banksy, Gheorghe Virtosu, Jason Bronkhorst, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Norman Rockwell, Shepard Fairey et al. My works are just a fraction of a percent as insightful and meaningful as these esteemed artists, but I will strive to achieve impactful results! The Other Artist As always I am happy to produce more art of a more traditional flavour, this month’s publications centre around a trip to the Black Isle in Scotland in late September this year. Scotland is a very beautiful country with plenty to entice the photographer and hence the PhotoArtist. Scotland’s people are, in the vast majority, honest and a pleasure to meet. I was surprised at the virtual 100% take up of mask wearing to protect from Covid 19 and even more so at the adherence to the 20mph speed limit in most cities, towns, villages and hamlets. A lesson to be learned for the English? Less attractive are the “wee beasties”, or midges whose bites can make life difficult, hence the holiday in late September and on the East Coast!
https://www.vista-foto.com/
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Mermaid of the North
Durnoch Beach
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Highland Beach
Portmahomack- Scotland
Tarbat Ness
Magical Scottish Castle
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The Pink House on Loch Glass
War...the Non Nuclear Option
James Hurley James is BOLD and direct, this is reflected in his art. He doesn’t let other peoples actions or approaches to life corrupt his mind or attitude. He is his TRUE SELF and has learned to follow his own path brushing himself off and carrying on when he stumbles or has taken a wrong turn, he learns from mistakes or failures. James has turned his negative thoughts about his dreams and ambitions, “its impossible”, into his reality “I’m Possible” this was achieved when he realised he is his most underused and undervalued asset. When asked to describe his work James responded as follows: “I am an Artist. I am a creator. I am a creative entrepreneur. I turn Love, Joy, Passion, challenging emotions into art that makes connections between fantasy and reality to make photo-art that feeds the creative mind and generates happiness at a subconscious level. I LOVE who I am and I POUR this love, my compassion and raw emotions into my photography and Photo-art as a way of sharing my LOVE with you. My sole aim is to leave a lasting impression on people that I meet, that interact with me online or choose to invest in my work, either my artwork or the magazine. In short, if you want artwork that resonates with an emotion you have experienced or that fuels your thoughts then look no further, but remember, emotions should be observed and recognised for what they are they should be learnt from and not drive your choice and decision making.” This month James has focused on developing his portrait techniques and incorporating the photographs into his take on frustrations and emotions. “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” Ansel Adams
https://www.mycreativeimages.com/
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The damage one person can cause to a community, no matter how strong its roots are, is mind blowing. The glee and pleasure some people take from causing pain and emotional chaos is totally beyond me. I see it daily on social media, I see it at work, I see it from friends and family. Where are the values, where is the compassion?
For this image I used one light a PixaPro Lumi 2 200, its a super easy low cost strobe and perfect for the “pop-up” home studio. I used a silver beauty dish but covered it with a difuser. It was mounted on a light stand and placed approx 45 degrees in front of my model (my granddaughter) at ceiling height so it was pointing down towards her face. I was looking for a soft butterfly effect with shadows to give some depth and picked a costume that would ensure the the colours of her hair and face were dominant and draw the eye. The insert photograph shows the out of camera image, the main image shows my edited fine art portrait of a “Princess in training” Note, I have not smoothed the skin, I focused on softening areas, brightening the eyes and adding further depth by replacing the background and making some hair shadow.
Joyce Simpson It’s been a busy few months with little time to spend on being creative. On 13th November 14 pieces of my artwork went on display at the Trapezium Gallery in Bradford in the F8 exhibition. The exhibition is made up of work from 8 local photographers and runs until 18th December. A project I have been working on is getting a photography club up and running for Primary School aged children. We have been working on the basics but I have been blown away at their imagination and creativity. The children are working towards showcasing their work in an end of year exhibition in July 2022. Things are beginning to calm down so here is the piece that I have been working on for the past week entitled ‘Elegance’.
https://joycesimpson.myportfolio.com
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Elegance
Susan Jones My name is Susan Jones I have loved photography all my life, though I was rejected from the photography class at school due to not having my own SLR camera. About 20 years ago a bought a DSLR and haven’t looked back, I love taking photos, mostly studio but as often as possible getting out and about, particularly London. I have been using Photoshop for a few years, and to my joy found Sebastian Michaels Photoshop Artistry courses and then Awake and have learned so much about Photoshop and continue to learn every day. I love the program, I love changing plain photographs into fantasy colourful worlds. I hope you enjoy looking at my work as much as I enjoyed creating it.
Models: Georgia Norton and Jade Tayla.
https://www.instagram.com/sulisloveswater/
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Sue Waterhouse I was given my first DSLR camera for Christmas in 2013 and very quickly became addicted! fortunately, I was lucky enough to take early retirement at the same time. From 2013 to 2019 my husband and I split our time between Spain and Portugal in the winter, travelling in our motorhome, and the UK and France in the summer. This provided lots of opportunities for many styles of photography. When the first lockdown was introduced in March 2020, I decided I would use some of the extra time that we were spending at home, working to improve my Photoshop skills. Discovering the Photo Artistry course and more recently the AWAKE training has made me appreciate and enjoy creating digital art as much as I enjoy digital photography. I enjoy using photographs I have taken over the last few years and creating digital art from them. I also use models and digital assets provided within the course materials. I have not yet found one particular style that I prefer….maybe I never will! I have recently been working on a series of images illustrating “Collective nouns” Here are 4 of the images from that series.
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A crossing of Zebra
A stand of FLAMINGOS
A band of wolves 44
A stand of FLAMINGOS
Terry Jane I served for 26 years in the Royal Navy over 20 years of which was as a Fleet Air Arm pilot. I have always had two main passions outside of flying, photography and computers. When I left the RN I set up a computer support and web design business. This excited my interest in graphics and digital art. I pursued my photography through online courses in fine art and became adept at Lightroom and Photoshop for post processing and editing photographs. It wasn’t until late 2019 that I discovered the “Photoshop Artistry” course by Sebastian Michaels. I went on to complete the “Creative Black and White Photo Artistry” course and the “Wield Photoshop Like an Artist” course. The whole process captivated me and for the first time in my life gave me a medium to create art that I now realise I had always craved. I signed up for the “AWAKE: Photoshop Mastery Edition” at the beginning of 2020 and I am loving every moment. Now fully retired I am able to devote much of my time to my art though I have a range of hobbies covering cycling, angling, walking and, when Covid-19 allows, travel.
https://terryjaneart.myportfolio.com
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Bergen town
Venice Canal
Vivien Capper Hello. My name’s Vivien and I’m from the beautiful county of Kent, England though currently living and working near Rome in delightful Italy with its exciting, lively way of life and vibrant colours and designs . I started out as an artist developing Indian ink artwork of a variety of subjects especially figurative artwork and abstract floral designs, then progressed into creative photography and digital artistry thanks to Sebastian Michael’s courses at ‘Photoshop Artistry’ and the advanced courses ‘Awake’ & ‘Kaizen’. My inspiration is drawn from my love of nature, figurative artwork and Italian design and I love using many textures, patterns and colours. This month I’ve again tried doing something a bit different in my artwork and have created variation on two pieces applying different colour tones.
https://saatchiart.com/vivienjane
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Geometric
Chance Meeting 50
Geometric
Ice Queen
The Social “Trap” The following text is the reason behind the artwork created by James Hurley on page 33 of this months magazine. This is a rough transcript of an internal conversation with myself: Growing up in the world these days isn’t as fun or carefree as it used to be. It is very easy to pick up bad habits and end up following the “crowd” and losing your own individuality. Its very easy to fall into the routine of watching TV, streaming programmes and “living” your life on social media, the web or YouTube. Its very easy to let your imagination and creativity get pushed back into the dark corners of your self conscious and to begin to forget your own dreams and start to rely on “canned laughter” and fake video clips to tell you whats fun and what you should be doing. By all means take advantage of the web for entertainment, but dont rely on it. Dont make the web your sole source of contact with the outside world, dont believe whats in front of your eyes, because mostly its there to lead you in a specific direction and set you in a specific mindset. Social acceptance is a very powerful marketing tool and the web is populated with millions of “Social Traps” aimed at capturing your interest and getting you “hooked” on content. Just think about it, that video showing that box of money they just found inside the wall of their new house yesterday was a setup, that key that magically led them to a safe buried under a shed in their back garden the next day was a set up. How many things can one person magically find before you realise its a video made just to get you to watch their content. Don’t forget, views of videos make the creator money, the more views they get the more money they make. So see it for what it is, see that you are spending 6 hours a day or more watching made up stories showing things that don’t actually happen but that you are accepting as real and see that you are making money for the creator. Don’t be a sheep, don’t let someone else’s stories dull your imagination, don’t be the same as everyone else, be YOU, let your mind wander and don’t just accept what people tell you is reality. Follow YOUR dream, make YOUR own reality. See online content for what it is, entertainment to fill the gaps, BUT not to take over your life, don’t fall into the “Social Trap”. Be the creator of YOUR own story, don’t become a heart icon mixed in with ten thousand other identical heart icons. Don’t lose sight of YOUR individual spark. James Hurley - Photo Artist / Magazine Editor
Back Issues If you enjoyed this issue, follow the link below and check out the previous months magazines. Each one is packed full of photo-art made especially for you.
https://issuu.com/mycreativeimages
M e t v IImages ae My CCreative Promoting Digital Photo Artistry
