Good Morning Everybody!
I had an interesting experience yesterday. I had a REALLY REALLY bad day yesterday, in RL. Nothing MAJOR, just a lot of things didn't go as expected, and a lot of people were being VERY dumb.
I have never been a very creative person. I love art, and all the different things that people create, but I have never really been able to "create" something that I felt was worth ANYTHING.
I recently have been playing in Photoshop, which has been an interesting. I love photography in RL, but have never gotten into "processing" photos, mostly because of lack of time, and with the digital camera's these days, most of my pictures turn out pretty good.
I have enjoyed doing photograph in SL also, but something about it has always come up short for me. I see what so many residents do with SL photography, and I am just in awe of them. I never even considered doing some of the stuff they do, because I really never knew how.
A couple of friends of mine, do some great things with SL photography, so I finally got brave enough to ask a few questions (I hate bothering people with stuff like that, I usually can figure things out on my own), and from what I learned from these wonderful people, I became a bit more comfortable with Photoshop and all the great tools that it has.
So why am I telling you all this? Well as I said, I had a really bad day yesterday. As I was driving home from work an old song came on the radio that I had not heard in a VERY long time, but I somehow connected with it when I was very young, in a weird way. I don't necessarily connect with all lyrics, but the general theme of the song I do connect with, or did connect with, and the song some has a special place in me.
While I was singing the song...um..LOUDLY..in my car, I had a vision. I picture formed in my head, which is not uncommon really, but this time was different. Not only did I have the picture, but I thought "Hmmm...I wonder if I could create this image in Photoshop".
With that thought, I got a bit excited. I would have to figure out a few things, but I LOVE learning new things, so I accepted the challenge! I got home, had dinner with my boys, who were all excited bout their new Wii game their grandmother got my son, and so I was left to my own devices.
What was so exciting about this idea is that all the way home, I was plotting how I was create this "image". I thought about if I would need to find a certain SIM for part, or what kind of clothes I would want to wear. All these aspects, are not hard to piece together in SL, so I started to work.
I did a quick search on Xstreet and found the clothes I felt would work pretty quickly. I then took a few shoots inworld, tried a few different angles, then set out into Photoshop.
The "image" morphed a little bit as I was working, but the general theme remained. I played with layers, had to figure out how to make a layer about 50% transparent (gotta just LOVE google search, and online Photoshop tutorials!), and had to cut out a few things, and then put them back.
I had a couple of false starts, but I learned long ago to save my work as I go, at different stages so it was easy to go back a few steps, and start over. It really started to come together about 11pm, which is about the time I start to get tired.
So, with all the layers done, I saved my work. I loaded up the final version and I was fairly pleased with it. I learned several new things with this one, which always makes me smile.
After all this, I posted it on Plurk and dropped it on my best friend. I felt kinda bad bout dropping it when I did, cause I was so exhausted, that I just dropped it said goodnight, and logged out. I could not even keep my eyes open long enough to know if my friend even GOT it.
Anyway, I told you all of that, to tell you this. Once again, Second Life...and this time...Photoshop...has given me an outlet, to process something that was happening in RL in a wonderful way. I LOVE this crazy world!
What is that? You want to see the picture? Oh...yeah...sorry. I posted it on Plurk here Plurk Post. By the way, if you don't know what Plurk is, you should check it out HERE. And if you join, friend me HERE.
I also posted it in Flickr here
I really enjoyed the process, and it did come out pretty close to my "image" I had in my head. Not only did creating this help elevate my mood, but it showed me something very important.
Being creative is not just about creating something beautiful, it's creating something that says something, even if that something is only temporary. like my mood was.
OK, enough babbling. I hope you have a fantastic day, and that YOU have some way, of expressing your moods, that helps you process through them!
Til next time!
I had an interesting experience yesterday. I had a REALLY REALLY bad day yesterday, in RL. Nothing MAJOR, just a lot of things didn't go as expected, and a lot of people were being VERY dumb.
I have never been a very creative person. I love art, and all the different things that people create, but I have never really been able to "create" something that I felt was worth ANYTHING.
I recently have been playing in Photoshop, which has been an interesting. I love photography in RL, but have never gotten into "processing" photos, mostly because of lack of time, and with the digital camera's these days, most of my pictures turn out pretty good.
I have enjoyed doing photograph in SL also, but something about it has always come up short for me. I see what so many residents do with SL photography, and I am just in awe of them. I never even considered doing some of the stuff they do, because I really never knew how.
A couple of friends of mine, do some great things with SL photography, so I finally got brave enough to ask a few questions (I hate bothering people with stuff like that, I usually can figure things out on my own), and from what I learned from these wonderful people, I became a bit more comfortable with Photoshop and all the great tools that it has.
So why am I telling you all this? Well as I said, I had a really bad day yesterday. As I was driving home from work an old song came on the radio that I had not heard in a VERY long time, but I somehow connected with it when I was very young, in a weird way. I don't necessarily connect with all lyrics, but the general theme of the song I do connect with, or did connect with, and the song some has a special place in me.
While I was singing the song...um..LOUDLY..in my car, I had a vision. I picture formed in my head, which is not uncommon really, but this time was different. Not only did I have the picture, but I thought "Hmmm...I wonder if I could create this image in Photoshop".
With that thought, I got a bit excited. I would have to figure out a few things, but I LOVE learning new things, so I accepted the challenge! I got home, had dinner with my boys, who were all excited bout their new Wii game their grandmother got my son, and so I was left to my own devices.
What was so exciting about this idea is that all the way home, I was plotting how I was create this "image". I thought about if I would need to find a certain SIM for part, or what kind of clothes I would want to wear. All these aspects, are not hard to piece together in SL, so I started to work.
I did a quick search on Xstreet and found the clothes I felt would work pretty quickly. I then took a few shoots inworld, tried a few different angles, then set out into Photoshop.
The "image" morphed a little bit as I was working, but the general theme remained. I played with layers, had to figure out how to make a layer about 50% transparent (gotta just LOVE google search, and online Photoshop tutorials!), and had to cut out a few things, and then put them back.
I had a couple of false starts, but I learned long ago to save my work as I go, at different stages so it was easy to go back a few steps, and start over. It really started to come together about 11pm, which is about the time I start to get tired.
So, with all the layers done, I saved my work. I loaded up the final version and I was fairly pleased with it. I learned several new things with this one, which always makes me smile.
After all this, I posted it on Plurk and dropped it on my best friend. I felt kinda bad bout dropping it when I did, cause I was so exhausted, that I just dropped it said goodnight, and logged out. I could not even keep my eyes open long enough to know if my friend even GOT it.
Anyway, I told you all of that, to tell you this. Once again, Second Life...and this time...Photoshop...has given me an outlet, to process something that was happening in RL in a wonderful way. I LOVE this crazy world!
What is that? You want to see the picture? Oh...yeah...sorry. I posted it on Plurk here Plurk Post. By the way, if you don't know what Plurk is, you should check it out HERE. And if you join, friend me HERE.
I also posted it in Flickr here
I really enjoyed the process, and it did come out pretty close to my "image" I had in my head. Not only did creating this help elevate my mood, but it showed me something very important.
Being creative is not just about creating something beautiful, it's creating something that says something, even if that something is only temporary. like my mood was.
OK, enough babbling. I hope you have a fantastic day, and that YOU have some way, of expressing your moods, that helps you process through them!
Til next time!
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