Pixel Paint Scrapblog – Scrapbooking Tips and Ideas

One of the most popular types of film-taking is portrait photography. Many people use a point and shoot camera to take still pictures of others, but what differentiates a hobby from professional photography is generally not as much the equipment or training, but the quality of the photographer him or herself.

A good portrait photographer has the ability to not only capture the best of his subject’s face but also to bring out the personality of that individual.

If you would like to learn and excel at portrait photography, then the five points below will help guide you in that direction.

Rapport

Get involved with your subject while preparing for the picture. Engage the person in a friendly conversation so that there is comfort not only with you, but also for a naturalness in front of camera. Success at the “pre-snap” phase will help you to capture the natural expression of your subject and display it on film.

Personality

One of your main objectives should be to bring out the personality of your subject through your pictures. This can more easily be achieved if the person is relaxed. Since capturing personality is best done when an individual is least expecting a shot, be ready for those natural opportunities.

Lighting

Natural lighting is preferred by most photographers; however, an artificial light source can at times be more helpful to acquire the image you truly want to portray on film. Before using artificial light, take care for the amount of light and the angle at which it shines so that it provides an enhancing – rather than distracting – effect on film.

Background

The background color of a picture should compliment the subject’s color. For this purpose, light backgrounds are generally preferable to help with emphasis on the subject. If the background color is not given due consideration, it could distort the attention away from your picture’s primary target – the person.

Plan

You should always make a checklist of all the equipment you need prior to a photo shoot. Besides the necessary equipment, also come prepared with an interesting topic to discuss with your subject for a friendly and relaxed conversation.

Think through the job seriously before actually doing it and whether you currently have the skill set to handle it. If not, solicit the assistance of someone you trust and who has greater experience. Of course, if this is a hobby, then practice away.

Portrait photography can be enjoyed as a hobby or, with skill and knowledge development, adapted over time as a career. Either way, you will have many great opportunities to “stop time” with the push of a button!

Almost all forms of art has a publications aimed at that particular art. Airbrush art is no different. There are a diversity of magazine publications to appeal to airbrush artists out there. Some magazines are in print and with the access of the internet there are airbrush art magazine online as well. Whether you are reading and learning more about airbrushing in a printed magazine or an online magazine you are sure to gain knowledge of the airbrush art industry. Airbrush art can be seen in magazines that are designed to teach techniques geared toward airbrushing in a more broad-spectrum. Airbrush art can also be seen in magazines geared toward airbrushing cars or bikes and such. Making for much more precise content toward a more specific niche.

Airbrush Art Magazines
Airbrush Technique Magazine is a broad spectrum magazine that is geared to teach techniques of airbrush art no matter what you are airbrushing. The publication is subscription based and can be obtain with a one year or a two year subscription. This is a good one if you are just wanting to gain more knowledge on airbrushing techniques whether you airbrush as a hobby or you do it professionally. The wide array of surfaces that Airbrush Technique Magazine covers includes but not limited to t-shirts ,canvas, the body, autos, motorcycles and so much more.

Airbrush Artist Magazine is a broad spectrum online membership based magazine. The online magazine offers articles, tutorials and videos to help you learn more about airbrush art. The magazine offers unlimited access to all of this with your membership to their online magazine. Airbrush Artists Magazine is updated once a month and aims to offer a minimum of two new lessons, tutorials and articles each month.

Art Scene International formerly known as Airbrush Art + Action magazine is a European based airbrush art magazine. The magazine is now being distributed in North America. While it has gained a large digital imaging interest the magazine is still a great asset to any airbrush artist. The magazine has full color images and is full of artist stories and how to articles that will help any airbrush artist. More on Airbrush Art Paints.

The thing with airbrush art is that it can be done for just about anything imaginable. Artists have been airbrushing a variety of surfaces for years now. The images they create are just a vast as the surfaces that they are airbrushing them on. This is why airbrush art fits for just about everyone around.

Classic paintings can be airbrushed onto canvas to give for great wall art. With airbrushing the paint goes on to the canvas more evenly than if it had been hand painted. Also the time frames are shortened when the paintings are airbrushed versus hand painted. Family portraits can be airbrushed over hand painted as well to give for a more realistic painting.

Why Airbrush Art Fits For Everyone
The interior of your home is also a place for airbrush art. You can go with a nice mural on your wall to give a room in your home an artsy feeling. Or you can scale it down and just airbrush a border at the tops of the walls. Airbrushed borders look more decorative than glued on paper borders on your walls. Thus the interior of your home can be your canvas for your airbrush art. Whether you want bold or subtle the choice is yours when you airbrush. You do not have to be limited with just your walls inside your home. Everything in your home can prove to be an area to show off your creative side. Airbrush art can go on your cabinets, doors, toilet seats and so much more. Remember though that this does not have to be anything bold.

It can just be some simple flowers or ivy trim but the choice is yours. Clothing is open to airbrush art as a way to create unique one of a kind clothing and accessories. Airbrush art can just be wording that you have added to your shirts or other clothing or it can be creative pictures of things that interest you. Either way you are guaranteed to have clothing no one else does if you add your own airbrush art to them. More about Airbrush Art Paints.

The best known of all the Russian souvenirs are the Russian Nesting Dolls or Nesting Dolls. The russian dolls were first created in the late 19th century in Russia by Sergei Maliutin who was inspired by Japanese design. In the Russian language the word for wooden dolls is matryoshka. Every one seems to enjoy Russian nesting dolls. They have become the most popular and best known Russian toy that will become a great collectible item for many years. Nesting dolls are small wooden figures that have a similar egg shape. The dolls design when pulled apart will have a smaller but similar design inside. There will usually be five or more dolls inside, all being smaller than the last. A nesting doll can be designed from anything from particular theme. It can be anything from athletics to folk history.

As 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics Games came to a close. I was watching the beauty of the opening and closing ceremony, I got the idea about how it would be nice to see the many Chinese volunteers be remembered as nesting dolls. The Summer Olympic’s ceremony will be remembered as one of the biggest and best ever. It would be hard to single out only a few of the performers to create the nesting dolls, but the performers I will remember would make a great nesting doll set. The largest doll would be for all of the very talented dancers eloquence. The next should be the drummers for all of their great musical talent. Another one should represent all of the acrobats that seem to make us think that they were able to defy gravity and fly.

If you were going to make a set of nesting dolls for a team sport you can look no further than the highly anticipated men’s basketball redeem team being great representatives of the games. An entire set of dolls could be made for the whole team. With the team having an average height of 6’7’ it would hard to pick which one would be the smaller dolls.

If any one person would be remembered for the 2008 Beijing Olympics it would have to be 8 time gold medal swimmer Michael Phelps. No other athlete won more gold medals at a single Olympics. He also won with class and style. A different nesting doll could represent each of the different gold medal races, each showing the events and times on the back of doll. Another idea could the different designs of the swim suits that he and the swim team wore.

The last group that I would like to see as dolls nesting would be the announcers of the Olympic Games. Good choices would be play by play host like swimming Dan Hicks or track and field host Tom Hammond would make great dolls. Another group would be the studio hosts Cris Collinsworth, Jim Lamply, or Mary Carillo. We would want to remember to make the main studio host Bob Costas the smallest of the nesting dolls. With his 5’7” frame he would easily be the smallest doll.

Tip on Pencil Portrait Drawing – Preparing the Photograph

Once you acquired an acceptably clear subject photograph from your customer, what do you do with it? Well, you prepare that photograph to be used as a reference for your pencil portraits drawing effort. TOf course, as you get better at pencil portrait drawing you may want to adapt the procedure to better suit your own working habits. So, here we go.

First, I scan the photograph into my computer at as high a resolution as I can muster. You can always reduce the resolution if you feel that it will better suit your purpose.

Then, I bring the scanned image into a graphics computer program such as Photoshop and adjust the brightness and the contrast so it brings out the best in the subject. This is also the time to transform your color photograph (if that is what the customer gave you) into a black and white (grayscale) image.

Next, I adjust the size of the image. For that, I focus on the vertical distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin. The best distance to work with is between 9.5 and 10.5 inches which is about life-size.

I crop or expand the image to a size corresponding to my drawing paper. For example, if I am going to draw on a 14 by 17 sheet of paper, my image will be about 10 by 13 inches. At this stage I also pay attention to the composition, i.e., the layout of the final image, the relationship between the subject and its environment, and how much of the subject, other than the head, I will represent. Make sure you do not change the already established size of the head when you manipulate the overall size of the image.

You can draw a grid onto the image. I often use a grid consisting of 1 by 1 inch squares. So for a 10 by 13 inch image you will have 130 squares to work with.

Don’t worry, using a grid is an age old tradition and does not constitute “chearting.”. However, you should also keep on practicing without grids and draw directly from the real world where the sizes and proportions usually differ from the corresponding ones on your drawing paper. Later, when you get much better, you may want to increase the size of the squares and eventually dispense with them altogether. But, for now, we will rely on grids.

Finally, it is time to print out the manipulated image in black and white (grayscale). You are now ready to start drawing your pencil portrait. Note, that after you scanned in the original photograph you do not need it anymore. Put it away carefully so you can give it back to your customer in its pristine condition. Do not loose or misplace the original photograph.

Above all, do not burn it! With this, you are now ready to create your first pencil portrait masterpiece.

Learn more about painting art lesson.

Tip on Pencil Portrait Drawing – Supplies

Whether or not your pencil portraits turn out to be a masterpiece depends to a large extend on the type and quality of your drawing tools. This is, of course, true for any craft. In this article, I will present an overview of the tools the professional pencil artist uses when drawing a pencil portrait.

What do you need to draw pencil portraits? The bare minimum is a pencil and a piece of paper. Drawing is to the arts what boxing is to sports. The fewer tools you have the more skilled you need to be to stand out. Therefore, as a pencil artist, it is particularly important that you use the right tools of the right quality.

Below, I present just about every piece of drawing equipment you will ever need. Study the list and then pick and choose depending on your style and ambitions:

Pencils. Drawing pencils come in degrees of softness and hardness: 9H, 8H, …, 2H, H, F, HB, B, 2B, 3B, …, 8B, 9B

where 9H is the hardest and 9B is the softest. The F pencil is the odd duck in the line. It yields fairly fine and soft lines and is often used to draw hair. The HB pencil separates the hard H pencils from the softer B pencils.

To start, you may want to try the 2H (hard), HB, 2B, 4B, and 6B (soft) pencils. Later, with some experience, you can always reevaluate your choice.

Paper. Try differently textured papers. For portraits, I prefer a 2-ply Bristol, acid-free, heavyweight, smooth surface. But your choice should be dictated by your own style or just by whether or not you enjoy a particular paper surface.

Drawing Board. A 1/4 inch tempered Masonite or Plexiglas board of at least 16 x 20 inches will do.

Clips or Masking Tape. You use these to fix the paper on your drawing board.

Maulstick. This stick is used to steady your hand and to avoid smudging of your work.

Broom. A desk broom is used to occasionally brush debris off your work. This also avoids smudges and save time because you have to erase less.

Sheet of Bond Paper. You put this sheet under your drawing hand, again to avoid smudging.

Pencil Sharpener. You will need a sturdy small one for the road and an industrial strength electric one for your studio.

Workable Fixative. This is a spray used to fix the finished portrait.

Erasers. You need two types: 1. A vinyl one and; 2. a kneaded one. A vinyl eraser is the usual hard rectangular kind. A kneaded eraser is the gray kind that acts like putty.

Ruler. A regular 12 inch metal ruler will do.

Blending Tortillons. These are spiral-wound cones of paper used to blend a darker region into a lighter one.

Paper Tissue. You use tissue paper as another blending tool.

That’s about it. As you practice (yes, practice), you should try out some of the above tools and see if they fit with your mode of drawing. Be flexible but try to work towards a final style of pencil portrait drawing that feels comfortable to you and involves a subset of the above mentioned tools used in a practiced and almost unconscious manner.

You can also get extra tips here – read painting art lesson.

As the parent of a young child, you have the daunting task of keeping them entertained. It’s important that young children are exposed to more stimulation than what a stuffed animal or the television has to offer (yes, even if you are playing back the Baby Einstein DVDs).

So, what can you do? Well, why not give your little one some hands on satisfaction by trying out these craft ideas for young children!

1) Finger Painting Fun. Even the youngest child can paint with their fingers! Just prepare for the mess by placing some newspaper in the area that they will be painting, or make sure that they are painting on a floor that’s easily cleaned (ie- a wood or tile floor). OR, better yet, if you have access to those big rolls of paper, roll it out and let them go to town!

2) Macaroni art. Again, a simple craft idea, though I would advise against macaroni art for a toddler since they might be more inclined to eat the macaroni than make something pretty out of it. But regardless, using macaroni to construct a macaroni necklace or a decorative picture of glued macaroni could be tons of fun for a preschool/kindergarten age child! All you need is macaroni and glue or macaroni and string depending on the craft you are choosing to do.

3) Tee-shirt Designing. For this project you will need a plain white or colored t-shirt and some fabric paint. Lay the shirt on a hard surface that has been covered with newspaper. A good way to make painting easier for your child is to slide a piece of cardboard inside the shirt since it keeps the fabric from shifting. Then just give your children the paints and let them go wild designing a cool shirt. Once the paint is dry they can wear their masterpieces and show them off everywhere they go!

I hope you enjoy these simple fun ideas for keeping your little one entertained!

Experts agree that art has a positive impact and toddlers. Children who are exposed to arts such as music and painting develop pattern processing, analysis skills, and creativity substantially faster than those who are not exposed to arts. An easy way for your child to be familiar with art in a fun and active way is to introduce your child to painting with a childrens easels. Painting is a fun activity you and your child can share. Besides a paint brush, paint, and a piece of paper or canvas, a children’s easel will have your child wanting to paint.

An easel is a wooden stand used to support canvases or other mediums upright and sturdy. When painting on an easel, your child can easily enjoy painting comfortably. You and your child can sit side by side, with easels in front of you and you can help guide your child’s creativity and bond with your child simultaneously. Children’s easels are much like full sized artist easel except they are smaller and more appropriately sized for children. Many children’s easels do not use canvases. Instead they may often times use chalk boards or magnetic dry erase surfaces. Children can express and grow their creativity using paint, markers, or chalk.

Making Candles is a great hobby. It’s fun, and fairly easy to learn. Supplies are not super-expensive, and are easily available. The best thing is that the variety you can create is infinite. There is no limit to what your imagination, and different candle making techniques, can do.

There are a variety of different supplies and ingredients you can choose from. There is your traditional candle wax, made of paraffin usually, which you can do so many things with. If you want to get away from that, consider making soy candles or gel candles, all of which have their own unique characteristics.

With colors, scents, shapes, sizes, number and kind of wicks, containers, and more, you can learn how to make any kind of candle you can dream of.

Candles make a great gift, and can be sold at excellent profit margins. That is because the perceived value of a candle far exceeds the cost of making one.

The real cost is in some initial supplies, then in ongoing replenishment to supplies. When I started, I bought about $300 worth of stuff: double boiler, multiple molds, some small tins, wicks, big blocks of three different waxes, scents, colors, some tools for holding wicks, thermometer, chemicals to make the wax do cool stuff, uh, I don’t remember what else.

With what I have, I can make probably 40 or 50 candles. Not a lot of huge ones, but some. Really, it’s so much fun creating new candles and learning new techniques.

When we plan our scrapbooking, often times we think of albums  that focus on holidays, weddings, births and special events in our lives that we want to preserve. These are days that bring smiles to our faces and laughter to our hearts. As normal  as this may be to decide on  such occasions for our scrapbooking projects, sometimes we miss out on an experience to use our creative outlet to express our thoughts and feelings about those challenging moments in our lives that are uncontrollable.

When we stop and think about the pain we have suffered, whether through the loss of a loved one or any other traumatic event, these are all part of what shapes us into the people we have become.  So often we choose to hide our pain instead of embracing them to search for the hidden treasures that are often overlooked.

Shortly after the birth of my second baby, I was diagnosed with severe post-partum depression.  My difficult marriage that was riddled with chaos was coming to an end. The circumstances that led me to the place of complete hopelessness were overwhelming at best.  As part of my recovery, I began to write down my thoughts and feelings about each event that happened.  What began as an venture to sort through the pain, evolved into a complete visual display of raw emotion and the spiritual journey that accompanied my experiences.  Although not your typical scrapbook album, it is one that played a vital role for me in finding peace and healing.

Composing it all together with photographs, carefully selected patterned paper and just the right stamping and embellishments gave each painful memory a sense of validation. It was like putting a mirror up to my wounded heart and saying, ‘Yes, that is what I felt. Right or wrong, good or bad. These emotions are mine.’ To be able to openly express myself this way and to have a visual memorial has made it easier to let go of the pain, forgive and move toward healing.

My scrapbook album, titled ‘A Journey Through Life’s Challenges’ does not sit on my coffee table out on display. Instead, it rests on the shelf in my office, waiting for moments, sometimes through tears, when I need a reminder of where I’ve been to truly appreciate where I am today.