The Last couple weeks have been keeping me busy. I have been getting everything set up to function while being self employed, picking up some photo and web design projects, but I am still trying to set time aside as well to hone my craft.

I was just visiting Phlearn.com for the first time in a month or so to go through some of Aaron Nace's tutorials. If you haven't heard of Phlearn.com, it is one of the best Photoshop learning sites around that you can get for free. He also has some great pro tutorials that you can go through at a pretty affordable rate.

One of the lessons that stuck out to me was one on gradient mapping which is something that I have not played around with too much with in Phototshop so I decided to give it a try. The end result is what I have attached above.

I started with a photo that I had taken about a month ago from a concert where the performer was wearing an anime inspired mask. Initially, I was playing around with some more metallic colors and found one with whites and silvers that really stuck me, but I wanted to make some adjustments. I introduced some blues into the gradient and was really pleased with the colors that were coming out. The image was still really noisy from the processing and just didn't feel right, so I grabbed the blur tool and started painting with it to even out the image and give the impression of motion to the (water) hair while still trying to keep the overall detail to the image.

I ended with brushing in a bit more color and doing some more toning. I am pretty pleased with my first attempt but I definitely want to tray this again and maybe even revisit this to do some painting with the image to see what else I can do with it. I regret not recording this one but will have to next time around so I can share the process with you. What are some of your favorite experiments that have turned out well in your favor?

I had told myself that I would wait longer, just a little more gear, just a little more in my portfolio, until I left the job that was sucking the life out of me to join the ranks of those who pursued art as their main career full time. But, as the conditions of my workplace worsened, I found myself having less and less time and energy to make creative things and this was taking a toll on me far worse the prospect of not having as much money as I used to.

I think what really set off my urgency to escape the daily grind, was my father's recent death. We all grieve in different ways, but I found myself spending more and more time in reflection of his life and mine and how I was starting the same path that took him to his untimely end. This is not something I allow to happen to my life as well.

My dad was a very traditional Romanian, coming from a poor family. He saw that there was opportunity for freedom and new chances in America and so he fought to escape from Communist Romania, enduring harassment and having to go through a hunger strike to do so. His own brother was shot and killed trying to cross the boarder out and brought to my father's home so he could identify the body.

I imagine, that he too went through a similar epiphany at some point. That enough was enough and he needed to make a change or die trying. Every day, I am thankful that he did or I may not have grown up with the opportunities that I did.

These are all aspects of the past that my father did not like talking about. Whatever happened between then and the time that I came to know him, something had changed in him and he had a new set of priorities. Hard, practical work and saving money were his primary virtues and in his mind there was no way that one could make a living making art. This clash of ideologies was the topic of many of our heated arguments.

But as I watched him closely, I observed that the money he had was never enough and he was never really happy. He would always be looking for another way to make money with many of these plans ending in drastic failures that cost him a hefty sum of money in the long run. It was almost as if he was trying to fill a void left by a passion that died long ago. And now, looking back, I think I finally understand what he was going through.

It is just so easy to get addicted to financial security. The pressure to buy things and to have a "real" job are always present and I found myself falling into the same trap. Thankfully for me though, my passion was not dead. It was always there tugging and nagging at me to create more, if only I had any energy after being mentally drained from the stress of my job.

And so here I am, at the crossroads, about to part ways with my job and source of endless frustration. I am both excited and a little nervous about the future that is to come, but I know this is simply what I have to do if I am to keep my passion ( and ultimately, myself) alive. I hope to document this process and encourage anyone who is also sitting on the fence and waiting on their dreams to take action before unfortunate tragedy steals them away from you.

Gradient Mapping

The Start of Something New

Art, All Day Every Day