Spotlight On An Artist – Michael Maggs

Michael Maggs is a professional photographer who has donated some very beautiful images to Wikimedia Commons. Several have received top honors. Visit his gallery of work.

Expect to see this colorful image as the January 1, 2008 “Picture of The Day” for Wikimedia Commons. It is also used on Wikipedia as the main image for the “Color” category.

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What a clever way to present the color wheel. View the full sized image and the Creative Commons license that goes with it. Michael releases most of his photographs under Creative Commons licenses. A few are in the public domain.

Thank you Michael for your contribution to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Your work is very pleasant to look at. Most of all, thank you for making this image available for use on my blog.

©2007 colorserenity.wordpress.com

All content on this blog is the property of the blog owner and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and cannot be stored on any retrieval system, reproduced, reposted, displayed, modified or transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise without written permission of the copyright owner except as noted below. A brief excerpt of content may be quoted as long as a link is provided back to the source page on this blog. No part of this blog is under a Creative Commons License.

Fun With Patterns and Pallets The Colour Lovers Way

As an artist I love how freeing artistic expression can be, and whenever possible I suggest people “go artistic”. On-line color scheming is a really great place to discover your talent. Color scheming is not only for artists and designers. It is for everybody, and after a hard day’s work it is a great way to relax.

The site of choice for me is http://colourlovers.com. Not only because it is manned by a nice guy who is a good caretaker, but because the tools are outstanding and the people are so great.

At Colour Lovers you can express yourself freely in two ways. With the pallet maker or the pattern maker. And you don’t have to be a professional artist to create a pattern like this:

icanhardlywait.jpg

You only have to be willing to try the pattern maker. It is a fun tool that is free and easy to use. How great is that?

Upon publication your work goes to a gallery where it is judged by fellow colour lovers. It may be given a rating of up to five hearts. If you don’t get the ratings you want, keep practicing. Study the work of others, which is pretty easy because everyone can see everyone else’s work at least once as it goes through the gallery. And everyone has a chance to comment on it.

Sometimes I have been discouraged when nobody voted on my work. But I also know that maybe a person who would have really liked it just wasn’t around. No need to ever worry. There are many built in ways that keep pallets rotating around “out there” for others to stumble across. Besides, it’s a two way process. Other colour lovers need your feedback as much as you need theirs. Giving your love keeps things rolling.

And if all that isn’t enough for you there is always the efficient communication between members with “love notes”. There are the groups you can join and forums where you make comments and show off your work. Communication and fun is the true spirit of Colour Lovers.

icanhardlywait-pallet.jpg

There is another way to test your color skills. Aside from creating patterns, you may also create a five color pallet. The pattern maker is a recent addition. The pallet maker has been part of Colour Lovers from the start.

If you try the pallet maker and you don’t feel very good about your work, don’t give up. Have fun and just go for it. Read the CL blog articles for good information about what is new in the world of color. And be sure to try both tools, the pattern maker and the pallet maker. Over time you will get better and enjoy yourself a lot.

winterpallet.jpg

I hope you give Colour Lovers a try. It will broaden your artistic skills. You will learn much by reading the blog and talking with others. The courage to try it may even propel you towards an artistic career you didn’t know was possible.

 

©2007 colorserenity.wordpress.com

All content on this blog is the property of the blog owner and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and cannot be stored on any retrieval system, reproduced, reposted, displayed, modified or transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise without written permission of the copyright owner except as noted below. A brief excerpt of content may be quoted as long as a link is provided back to the source page on this blog. No part of this blog is under a Creative Commons License.

 

Tutorial # 1 – Blending The Blue Shell

 

If hope you enjoy creating digital color pallets because I am thrilled to share a revolutionary method I devised for obtaining great colors. It involves smoothing an image by blurring it. From that blurred image it is possible to harvest a coordinated “family” of hues.

blue-shellsm.jpg blue-shellsm-blr.jpg

The first sea shell has a lot of color variation. The contrasts between the dark veins, the medium blues and the light colors is well delineated. But there is too much difference in “key” or contrast of light and dark. This makes it difficult to obtain colors with a creamy look as shown in the color pallet below.

blueshell-colorpallet.gif

The second thumbnail image has been treated with a “Gaussian” blur in Photoshop. Blurring the image blends the underlying gray scales just enough to lessen the severity of the original photo. The colors run together and even out the key, softening the differences. Colors “puddle” into areas as shown in the second image – the image I obtained my pallet from. Once you find the smoothness you like, start taking samples of color. With practice you will learn how to map out areas which work well together.

icp-image1.jpg

If you don’t use Photoshop try FotoFlexer. It’s a free membership. The Style FX tab and “soften” option will blur your images.

To create pallets like the one shown above you must purchase the ICP color picker for around $20.00. It can store far more than 5 colors as shown. The link is in my right sidebar under “Tools”.

For a free color picker try color cop. The link is also in my side bar. The shell photo is courtesy of publicdomainpictures.net.

Update: I forgot to mention there are two 100% free open source image editors that will do a variety of tasks for you, including Gaussian blurs. If you don’t mind loading another piece of software, look into Paint.net. The link is in my “Tools” category on the right side of the screen. Paint.net is the name of the software. Not the site address. And it is by far the easiest software for this kind of work.

Then there is Inkscape. It is also a free tool, but more for vector drawing. I am a newbie to Inkscape, but I look forward to seeing what it can do. Check out some screen shots here from the Inkscape website. Thanks! :-)

©2007 colorserenity.wordpress.com

All content on this blog is the property of the blog owner and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and cannot be stored on any retrieval system, reproduced, reposted, displayed, modified or transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise without written permission of the copyright owner except as noted below. A brief excerpt of content may be quoted as long as a link is provided back to the source page on this blog. No part of this blog is under a Creative Commons License.