Cheese city

I have been mixing two digital media. Last week I was able to use a Bamboo Fun tablet. The tablet is the perfect tool to fix pictures but it is also one of the best tools to paint digital drawings. There are several software programs that will work with the tablet. Some are more sophisticated and professional than others; but if you just want to have fun and spend sometime doing relaxing creating a fantasy world, any drawing software will work. For the paintings below ArtRage was used.



This painting was done by Isabella and I. We were discussing if the moon was really made out of cheese. She told me that there are space mice that take big chunks of cheese every night while we sleep. She also told me that in some nights she has seen them. We, then decided to draw a picture of a city with the cheese moon. We called our city "cheese city"; the city line looks kind of crooked because, we believed the cheese was one of those strong smelly french cheeses that we love so much. By the way, we weren't able to paint the space mice because Isabella didn't want to tell how they look. I believe she wants to keep them totally secret, so they can eat their cheese in peace. Anyway, I would let you know a secret, every night when she's sleeping I look out my window to see if I can get to see and join them to have some of that delicious treat.

The orchids is a drawing done on a gift given to my wife in her birthday by our good friends Mariana, Mini and Oscar while here during their visit. Surprisingly, the orchid is doing pretty well in spite of the heater and the lack of fresh air.

Drawing, painting and watercoloring

One of the advantages of the digital age is that the computer recreates the real World. The computer is a machine that emulates other machines and activities that we as humans have developed through our years of being.




Few years back, the darkroom was necessary to process our photographs; nowadays, the computer replaces the darkroom and all the processing is done digital. The same can be said about painting.

The image above was done using ArtRage and Photoshop; the idea was to emulate watercoloring. It is a very simple landscape that can be done in few minutes without having to worry about coloring our clothing. Can the digital experience replace the actual experience of drawing and painting in a real canvas? Probably not; however, still represents a proposition of mental health, if one can spend few minutes a day adventuring in the real world of virtual creation. Enjoy and salud!

La era digital / The digital age

Cuantas cosas podemos crear hoy en dia en nuestros hogares, que en el pasado solo eran posibles con equipos muy costosos en manos profesionales. En este blog hemos presentado algunas fotos las cuales han sido montadas en la computadora utilizando editores de imagenes.

Hace poco tiempo atras era necesario tener un cuarto oscuro equipado con ampliadora, otros equipos y quimicos para revelar y imprimir fotografias. Otro ejemplo de lo que se puede hacer en el presente es crear presentaciones con fotos. La presentacion fue hecha por Susana con fotos que tomamos este fin de semana en Dollywood. El proceso es el siguiente: tomar fotos en locacion, en formato Raw, editarlas con photoshop CS3, montarlas con IMovie y exportarlas en formato de video. La calidad del video es pobre porque se uso el formato mas liviano para que cargara relativamente rapido.



Nowadays is very easy to create your own multimedia products. We have shown in this blog how to manipulate photographs to obtain the wanted compositions; in this case, Susana has created a video using still shot last week at Dollywood. The whole process can be done at home without using professional equipment. In the past, one needed a darkroom for still photography and an editor to edit the video. Today everything is done with a computer and image editor software. In this case the pictures were worked with photoshop and then put together with I-Movie.

The making of a christmas card

We were looking to create our Christmas Card like we do every year. However, in this opportunity we didn't have a picture with the two kids together. I decided two use two different pictures. One was taken at Dollywood late November; the other was taken early this month at the Knoxville Zoo.

Picture taken at Dollywood:



Picture taken at the Knoxville Zoo:




Final rendering using photoshoped:

The Knoxville Zoo

One of our favorite places in Knoxville is the zoo. My daughter and I like to go very often to take pictures, ride the camels and drink snoopies. Some of our favorite animals are:

We wonder about the giraffe and how it is fed at the zoo. Its long neck is made to reach the top leaves of the trees at the African savanna; however at the zoo, food is placed on the ground. The giraffe must go trough great pains to reach for the grass. In any case, it appears to be very healthy and the oranges and browns are shiny and photographed well.



La graciosa zuricata. Animalito muy despierto que vigila en forma permanente a su alrededor. Tiene una mirada inteligente y pareciera estar muy pendiente de todo. Me gustaria tener una de mascota. Es muy graciosa y veloz.



Two rhinos loving each other. I wonder if love between rhinos can be gentle. Well after observing these two rhinos; I am now convinced that rhinos are caring and gentle giants at the mercy of our de-civilization.




and of course the Siberian Tiger: