Creamy Yellow Rose

While people up north are getting autumn temperatures and colorful leaves, the weather is is only just starting to cool off as we start to enter the dry season.  While I wish I could get photos of snow and leaves for holiday themed artwork, I also enjoy having some flowers all year long.  In cold climates there is a burst of flowers in a few short months while in warm climates you have them all year but not quite so many at a time. Every plant has its season.

While walking back from the bank yesterday through Tultitlán and then Cuautitlán, I took a few photos of flowering trees and plants.  I almost missed this rose flower from a very tall shrub growing over a wall. The flower was above me in the light so as photos are judged, it was very bad lighting, but I thought it was very pretty so I took the photo anyway in hopes of turning it into art.

Creamy Yellow Rose

Creamy Yellow Rose by Christopher Johnson

Creamy Yellow Rose 2

Creamy Yellow Rose 2 by Christopher Johnson

Creamy Yellow Rose - Divinity

Creamy Yellow Rose - Divinity by Christopher Johnson

Large Yellow Wildflowers 3, 4, and 5Flores Silvestres Grandes y Amarillas 3, 4 y 5

Here are the next three in the large yellow wildflower series of the beautiful large sunflower-like flowers which started blooming around the first of October in the now-naturalized park in northern Mexico City.  This just shows you how important it is to visit natural and nature-taken-over areas frequently because the changes can be huge. It is hard to imagine that it is the same place where I took my Agave photos in the winter.  It looked so desolate then, but now at the end of the rainy season it is just full of green foliage and flowers.

Large Yellow Wildflowers 3

Large Yellow Wildflowers 3 by Christopher Johnson

Large Yellow Wildflowers 4

Large Yellow Wildflowers 4 by Christopher Johnson

Large Yellow Wildflowers 5

Large Yellow Wildflowers 5 by Christopher Johnson

Large Yellow Wildflowers 1 and 2Flores Silvestres Grandes y Amarillas 1 y 2

Today was a busy day editing two artworks. Although the second one might look like it came from the camera, that is not the case.  These large yellow wildflowers look like small sunflowers, but they weren't turning with the sun so I'll have to assume that they're not sunflowers.  I have a few more great photos of them to post-process.

They were very interesting because they only started to bloom about the beginning of October, before that I took photos of other wildflowers.

Large Yellow Wildflowers 1

Large Yellow Wildflowers 1 by Christopher Johnson

Large Yellow Wildflowers 2

Large Yellow Wildflowers 2 by Christopher Johnson

Large Yellow Wildflowers 2 Antiqued

Large Yellow Wildflowers 2 Antiqued by Christopher Johnson

Pink and White Carnations 2 Claveles Rosas y Blancas 2

Pink and White Carnations 2 is from the same batch of photos I made the first, but as you have probably noticed, I don't like making cookie-cutter artwork.  I post-process each photo separately. Sometimes they look similar and sometimes they don't. While art galleries may not like truly original artwork, I find this to be much less boring.

In this artwork, I decided to enhance the lines and colors present as well as enhance the white in the white flower which in the original photo had a bit too much yellow-green highlights.  I did darken the background a little and reduced the light coming from the window to the left.

Pink and White Carnations 2

Pink and White Carnations 2 by Christopher Johnson

Riding in the Desert

Riding in the desert and riding in the desert antiqued is a "simple" digital collage of two images one of a rodeo scene and another of mountains with water in front.  Most people seem to prefer the simplicity of the sepia version and perhaps they don't like the fantasy element of the blue mountains in the first version.  After combining the two I had to fill in the gaps with fake desert soil and then worked on the effects to add the canvas texture and quite a lot of burn and dodge on the horse and on the first row of mountains.  I decided against adding desert plants because it would take me many hours more to add them.
Some might not like the intensity of color in the original which i could have reduced by partially applying sepia over the color, but the horse was a very strong red-brown in the reference photo and I just didn't feel right in changing him to a boring common brown.

Riding in the Desert

Riding in the Desert Antiqued

Old Crypt in Green and Gold

There was a post in WetCanvas, an art forum, where someone shared their photo of a crypt (yes, just that) and asked for others to make their own version and we could do what we want with it so I added it to one of my favorite, but reworked backgrounds and I found another photo with steps and started playing with the image so it went from a crypt in a cemetery on a sunny day to an ancient crypt in the woods with light filtering down through the trees.  The only thing I'd still like to add is a ghost or perhaps a vampire.  I'd have to admit that my version went to an extreme.

The most difficult part was deciding on how much light to include and where. Just moving the lighting a little completely changes the focus and mood. I loved the light in the distance in the original background, but I had to lighten the tomb especially the door to make it show up yet not enough to make it cheerful.   I finally felt satisfied when I make the background trees in the middle appear a little closer and I brought the light almost to the ground which at least to me justified the extra light on the door.

Old Crypt

Old Crypt in Autumn

Life is too short to be petty

I've worked very hard at adding community features for quite a few months (some of which I've later seen added to my ex-friend's site.  yes, a friend, unfriended me after making some obscure comments on her site.) and I would really like to see Artists get away from small-mindedness and competition and go to growing  COMMUNITY.

I opened up VisualArtGifts to the visual art community because I saw a need that was not being fulfilled to get seen and promoted. Many people in art site forums would ask what to do and how to get traffic to their art sales pages because there art work wasn't being seen and currently available art sites were not fulfilling that need.

I've added some free software and other software which I coded myself. Yes, many hours and days and in a sense months of hard work and testing.   I didn't get any ideas from any friend art sites. I have been testing my most recent software addition ever since Buddypress was in Alpha (extremely early test version) about a year ago.   I had only delayed to use it because it was very unstable and in general didn't work right until recent changes fixed the most important bugs.

It is time to help instead of harm, to BUILD COMMUNITY instead of breaking them down through rumor and unfounded accusations.  I want to challenge art community and art site owners to join and become part of a greater visual artist promoting community.  There are thousands of visual artists in the world and millions of Internet users, so it is time for us to grow up and be friends and promote each other without letting personal jealously take hold. Visual artists need to promote their art, get seen, and make sales.

Lets Promote Art, Share Art, Grow Art and build communities because the need still exists and participating in just one site (even one which now also gives links - you're welcome to use this idea, I'm not complaining, it was a good idea that I didn't see any other art site do before VisualArtGifts )  is not enough.  As visual artists we need to promote our artwork on multiple sites because each one will get different results in Google and each site has different readers.  Being in Facebook or just having a blog isn't enough either.  Marketing visual art is very hard work and even harder if  we try to pull whoever is working hard down to our level.  Instead lets help each other up to the next level!