My Creative Images Promoting Digital Photo Artistry and Digital Photography
Issue 43 (October 2021)
Welcome to the Mycreativeimages Magazine Looking back on the previous month and checking against my list of targets and goals initially I think that I have achieved nothing. In reality I had a surprise result where I won a Judges choice award in a gallery exhibition and I reacquainted myself with using flash in a home studio setting, rapidly followed by converting to and falling in love with a studio strobe with a modelling light. The use of a modelling light makes achieving Rembrandt and Loop lights so much easier as you can see where the shadows will fall and this opens the door, for me anyway, to creating more dramatic black and white portraits. This is why I think it is so important to set goals and to review achievements, as its a way of understanding what progress you have made Without a goal and a review you have nothing to measure your progress against. If you can’t measure progress how do you know when you have achieved what you set out to do? Another example of this is my goal to publish this magazine on Amazon, both in Kindle and Paper formats. The Kindle version is up and running for last months magazine (see link below) but the paper version has caused me some difficulties, in that the layout and size is a little different to the way I currently create the magazine. Hopefully as I write this I have resolved the problem and I’m am now waiting for approval from Amazon that they will publish the mag!
Featured artists
Bernie Tuffs 4 Clare Barton 10 Claude Trew 12 David Walker 16 James Hurley 22 Joyce Simpson 26 Keeley McCleave 28 Sue Waterhouse 34 Susan Jones 38 Vivien Capper 40
Anyway, enough waffle from me, its time you head in to the magazine and enjoy the amazing artwork. James Hurley Photo Artist / Magazine Editor Links: Kindle for Last Months Magazine: https://amzn.to/3mrHqBi
Cover image “Greed will destroy us” by James Hurley https://www.mycreativeimages.com
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.
Creating Digital Products to sell Format and size Have you ever thought about creating and designing digital products to sell online as downloadable printables which may earn you some passive income? There are so many creative avenues you can follow to do this, though there are a few things you need to think about first: 1. Format 2. Resolution 3. What you are going to sell 4. Fonts As many digital products that you make will be downloaded and printed on a home printer, it’s a good idea to use an 8.5″ x 11″ inch or letter size paper: 8.5 x 11 is the standard size for most home printers. For graphic design items 8” x 8” is an ideal size in my opinion. When I create an eBook, I use PDF format (8.5” x 11”) Artwork When I sell my art prints as digital downloads, I always use an A4 format, so the customer can easily print it themselves at home. For printing other types of artwork, I use 300 dpi resolution and offer various dimensions. You can use a print-on-demand gallery or site and they deal with the printing and shipping, often they will offer you options to print on merchandise as well e.g. mugs, aprons, t-shirts etc. Resolution of your images I always use 300 dpi (dots per inch) when creating images and set my image to that as soon as I begin. If you start re-sizing you will lose some definition and your image could
Artist achievements In August the magazine owner and editor entered two competitions, an online photo contest for black and white images and a physical exhibition in a gallery. The online competition offered some interesting insights, one of which was the need to carefully select a photograph that would appeal to a wide range of people, but the main one being the option of running similar events being explored. The gallery exhibition resulted in a surprise 2nd place, which was awarded by a judges selection, this was for the self-portrait composition titled “On Cloud 9” shown opposite. Its always amazing to see regular contributors to the magazine being recognised by galleries and hopefully you will see more similar news here next month. Article by: James Hurley
become blurry, or worse – out of focus. What to sell? Planners, journals or journal pages, invitations, eBooks, templates, workbooks, graphic elements, mini-guides, recipes, patterns, art prints, backgrounds, overlays and so on. Fonts When choosing your font, make sure it is easy to read. Fonts sometimes include a regular, italic, bold and bold italic version. I like to use a maximum of 2 complementary fonts of different sizes in my work and often add a fun font to stand out. I would be delighted if you would also like to take a peek at my creative blog! Please click here. Article by: Vivien Capper This article contains affiliate links. I earn a commission or reward on all qualified purchases made when you use these links. I will only promote products & services I absolutely love!
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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Night-time Friends
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Autumn Love
When All Is Said And Done
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Bedtime Story
Lessons In The Dark
Clare Barton Hello, I’m Clare and I live in the UK. I’ve been doing photography as an amateur for quite some time, I do enjoy taking lots of photos and playing around with my images in Photoshop & Lightroom, so when I came across Sebastian’s Photoshop artistry courses during the first lockdown in March 2020, I immediately knew that this was for me.
I’ve been doing the Photoshop Artistry and Awake course for over a year now, but I’m still taking my time learning new techniques and more about digital art. I am enjoying meeting new people in our facebook groups and I hope to continue with my creative journey into my future.
https://www.instagram.com/cbartonphotograph
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Dolbadarn Castle
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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Haunted Manor
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Perriot and the Golden goose
Amos lying down
David Walker The Sealed Knot is the oldest re-enactment society in the UK and brings the history of the English Civil War to life by staging events offering a chance to experience at first hand the horrors of a nation at war with itself, as well as providing a glimpse of everyday life in those days. You experience the horrors of a nation at war with itself, brother against brother, father against son, families torn apart. Cannon roar, musketeers volley, an all action battle unfolds when members of the Sealed Knot recreate two forces, one of the King Charles I and one of Parliament under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell. Such an event took place in Staffordshire over the August Bank Holiday weekend at Cauldon Lowe. The whole event was fascinating with many opportunities for interesting photography both in The Living History Camp (which consists of Trades who supplied the Armies and Crafts of the period) and the Battlefield where a realistic battle took place. I took nearly 400 photographs (a colleague amassed over 1,000!) and these easily lead to interesting subjects for my PhotoArt. Find out more about The Sealed Knot at http://www.thesealedknot.org.uk I like to take photographs with the end result of my PhotoArt in mind, this event was a very special one for achieving that…and more!
https://www.vista-foto.com/
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Maintaining the Standard
Cannon Fire
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English Civil War Musketeers
Marching into Battle.
Preparing to Attack
Mayhem Amid the Gunpowder Smoke in the Heat of the Battle
Volley of Muskets Shot
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 submitted one piece of photo art which reflects his current mindset with the increasing trend he sees around him of selfishness, lack of foresight and peoples lack of understanding that negative actions attract more negatives into your life. The message is “Its time to open your mind to what you are doing and how you are affecting the people around you before its too late.” “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” Ansel Adams
https://www.mycreativeimages.com/
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Greed will destroy us
WHAT ARE NFTS, AND HOW CAN AN ARTIST BENEFIT FROM THEM A digital artist, Beeper, sold an NFT (digital artwork) for a staggering $69million at Christie’s auction. What’s surprising is that the buyer will not get a painting, print, or even a sculpture. Instead, the winner will receive what is now a popular digital asset called an NFT. Unsurprisingly, since that famous auction, different industries have begun to tap into NFT’s potential numerous possibilities, including the art industry. This means, artists can reap multiple benefits from NFTs, and in this post, you will learn the basics of what NFTs are and how you as an artist can benefit from them. What is an NFT? In simple terms, NFT means non-fungible tokens. Economics defines fungible assets as elements with units and which are readily interchangeable-like regular currency. For instance, it is possible to swap £20 notes for two £10 notes without changing the total value with money. But if an item is non-fungible, the above is impossible.
share their creations on a surprising number of new ways without the need to pay developers to integrate complex coding solutions for them to have an online gallery or virtual exhibition. These included the purpose built gallery rooms available on Spatial.io, some examples of these can be seen here in the images in this article. This option allows artisits to use a virtual room to host a meet and greet or an immersive session where they can introduce their work or show a work in progress, o reven host a live auction in a similar way to Facebook or Instagram Live. In addition there are also new platforms such as decentraland.org which is similar to secondlife, but has specific areas that host NFT art gallerys and exhibitions. Needless to say it looks like the Digial Art Gallery and Exhibition scene will be going through a series of rapid changes over the next year or two as the world of NFT art expands, which is an obviuos benefit for all artisits.
An NFT is a unique digital asset that you can buy and sell and it does not have a tangible form. How Do NFTs Benefit Artists? Digital art can be challenging to sell and even more difficult for buyers to own as it lives on an electronic device and the only way to view it is on screen or by printing a copy of it. However, NFTs offer alternatives that can benefit artists: 1. NFTs Offer a Convenient Way to Share Art Artists joining the NFT world have realised that NFTs open you to a new format and space to create and even share their art and gives fans another way to support their work and career. This applies to artwork in the form of GIFs (like the Rainbow cat that sold for a whopping $690,000) to other more complex and remarkable pieces which include 3d renders with complex animations. The development of a range NFT platforms and sites that support the use of NFTs means artists can now
2. A Source of Revenue NFTs also seem an enticing revenue channel for multiple brands worldwide. Taco Bell is among such brands and sold their taco-themed images, GIFs, and 25 pieces sold out in half an hour! Each NFTs
featured a gift card worth $500 that the original owner could use hence their initial popularity. However, these images and GIFs are now available on the ancillary market, with one going for as much as $3,500. Astonishingly, they don’t even come with the gift card! Artists can also do the same for their brands and clothing lines and could enjoy the same benefits, and potentially earn a significant income. In addition artists can earn royalties through resales of their work, if that option was locked in as part of the original sale. 3. Help Authenticate Art NFTs also promote transparency and enable you to locate your work and actually prove ownership digitally. Some artists have used NFTs to create certificates of authenticity which are then attached as a printed asset attached to the back of physical artwork and these have a barcode link which opens the NFT thus providing a digital proof of authenticity. 4. Allows Artists to Preserve Their Artwork Securely Although prints and physical paintings tend to relinquish and fade with time, a digital art piece or asset tends to remain accurate and intact. Unlike many licensing agreements, using NFTs allows artists to store data and transactions in a unique blockchain system. This is helps combat ownership conflicts since the NFTs database holds transaction details dating back to the digital asset’s initial minting. This means it is possible to audit the information and determine the legitimate owner/artist. Summary If you’re a professional artist, content creator, or simply a member of the art industry, no significant promises, but NFTs could be worth checking out. Nonetheless, it is all on you to make the first step.
Start by picking a site where you can “mint” you art such as Opensea, into an NFT and learn about the various costs involved, such as “gas fees” and explore other platforms such as Lazy to help list and promote your work . Once you know the basics, you can make your NFT and potentially sell it. Please feel free to visit my personal NFT collections either via my two gallerys or via Lazy.com or Opensea, the links are shwon below: Links Galleys: Spatilal: https://bit.ly/MYCI_Spatial Secondlife: https://bit.ly/MYCISLGallery Marketplace Platforms: Lazy: https://lazy.com/mycreativeimages Opensea: https://opensea.io/JamesHurley
Joyce Simpson This month my piece entitled ‘Moon Dance’ is inspired by the works of Ingrid Klerks. I love the visual simplicity of her artwork but can see there is a lot of thought that goes into refining the textures that bring the pieces together. Her artwork is accompanied by the words to a song which really brings the pieces alive. Fresh from exhibiting artwork at the Sunbridgewells Arts Trail I am looking forward to the next exhibition showcasing some of my work. This will be a pre-Christmas exhibition at the Trapezium Gallery in Bradford from 13th November to 19th December.
https://joycesimpson.myportfolio.com
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Moon Dance
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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Fixing a hole
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Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Rocking horse people
The girl with kaleidoscope eyes
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The girl with kaleidoscope eyes again
The girl with the sun in her eyes II
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! For this month I have put together four very different images , I hope you like them.
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Stay
Find my soul
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Walk on by
From the pier
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.
Credits: Model - Marta Svetek Kootz - Honiahaka Inuits Wolfalikes & American Wolfdogs Concept - Salli Gainsford Workshops MUA - Jo
https://www.instagram.com/sulisloveswater/
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Shooting star
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 tried doing something a bit different in my artwork. I love vintage/classic cars and have a few photos in my files (some by Alison Bailey – thank you, Alison!) and another (the blue one) from my Photo Artistry course bundle by a fabulous designer/artist itkupilli. So I’ve used a few simple techniques and overlays to make the photos more artistic. My favourite is the Powder Blue one, with the White and Wood a close second.
https://saatchiart.com/vivienjane
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Burgundy Blaze
Powder Blue Vintage 42
White and Wood
NFT artwork
The advent of NFT artwork on multiple platforms using various types of cypto currency is an exciting new platform for artists to promote their work and offer images with commercial liecences without the need to rely on stock image sites. It also enabes an artist to explore the options of offering a certificate of authenticty created from an NFT, thus providing a digital method to confirm proof of ownership of artwork. There are a number of high profile platforms available, some require nomination from other artists, some require an application process. All require the use of a wallet which authenticates the artist or buyers identity, stores the purchased NFTs and allows them to buy cyrpto currency. In all cases to buy or sell an NFT you will need a wallet attached either to an app or a browser. There is simply thousands of pieces of artwork available to buy, but the main thing to bear in mind is read the sales post and ensure you are aware of what you are buying and any associated cost or usage rights. Visit https://opensea.io/collection/cherry-series-photo-art for some examples.
NFT Art on OpenSea by James Hurley
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
