digitizing art – Stephanie Richey Art

Today I thought I would share with you several of my favorite YouTube channels and why I love them. The list is varied, because I have a lot of different interests, but each one has inspired me in some way, and each one has taught me something different.

Fitness:

I love to exercise, and in the past, I have used the Beach Body videos and app. But last winter the budget wouldn’t support that as an option anymore, so I had to try something new. I turned to YouTube and wow, there was a ton of options there, and they’re all free! My favorite one is called Juice and Toya. They have a huge variety of workouts, from 10 minutes to 45 minutes, videos with weights for strengthening, cardio videos, stretching, core, everything I need. I like how they have their videos set up and they’re easy to follow along with.

Art:

As you may be aware, I love to paint. I know I don’t know everything there is to know about watercolors, so I love to learn about art and follow along with other artists. I follow several artists on YouTube, but my favorite is Emily Olsen Art. I also subscribe to her website for a small fee because she has way more content, tips, helps and tutorials there than she does on YouTube. But her YouTube channel has a ton of information and simple paintings as well. I learn so much from her and enjoy both the YouTube channel and her website.

Digitizing:

I digitize all my own art. This is the process of taking the original, taking a picture of or scanning it, loading it on a computer and then color matching it with the original so it can be utilized in a variety of ways, the most common being prints. The basics of digitizing weren’t hard to understand, and for a lot of my paintings I didn’t initially need help. But as I have learned more, seen others do more, and desired to try some of these new things, I needed help. I like the Photoshop Training Center for this purpose. I learn best by watching someone else do it, and following along, and this has been immensely helpful when I get stuck. One thing I did learn while looking for a channel was to make sure they’re using the same photoshop program I’m using. Some things are similar across the board, and some things vary from program to program.

Gardening:

This one I haven’t done as much research in, and I only have one channel that I am subscribed to. However, I do watch various channels on occasion, of gardeners up here in Alaska. This one however is my favorite, and she is down in Arkansas I believe. It’s called The Seasonal Homestead. I really like the way she does her videos, the fact that she is just open and out there and shares the good and the frustrating and bad. It’s real, not just the best parts. I also like that it’s their whole family. My kids and husband are not interested in being in my videos for the most part (except the yard cleanup one), but on The Seasonal Homestead they all get involved and it’s fun to watch.

Dogs:

I love dogs. Even before we got our puppy, I enjoyed watching dog training videos. I love seeing how quickly a dog can respond to the right kind of training and how much happier they are when they are well trained. The owners are much happier as well! My favorite Dog training channel is Will Atherton Canine Training. I love his approach to dog training much more than a lot of the channels I have found, and since my daughter has had her puppy, this channel has helped us immensely.

Lastly, I have to give a shout out to my nephew Ryder. He has created a fun YouTube channel called MrRyderDie. He posts videos quite regularly, and he is so fun to watch. He is just getting started but is having fun with all of his content, and I enjoy watching what he comes up with each day. He enjoys gaming so there are a number of those kinds of videos. He also enjoys sharing a variety of aspects of life and the things he is doing on his YouTube channel, so there’s a variety of content to watch.

These are some of my favorites on YouTube, I subscribe to quite a few more, but these seem to be the ones that I go back to over and over again.

I didn’t get a whole lot of response back about adding an additional day to my blog focused mainly on my art, so today I am going to start. This past week I watched a tutorial from Emily Olsen Art about painting Icicles. I really don’t like painting winter scenes in the winter, don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s because I’m ready for summer, or I’m always freezing in the winter. But this tutorial intrigued me, so I decided to watch her video and see what I thought. I loved the technique, so I went in search of icicle reference photos. I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, but I knew I wanted a brighter background than what she had painted. I found several sunset type backgrounds that I liked and decided to kind of combine, as well as use my imagination. When I was finished, I showed my daughter who is currently serving a mission in New Mexico. She loved the painting and thought it was the marshy swamp outside our living room window. I decided that was the best compliment of all, although I thought I had come up with the idea on my own, I guess what I look at daily stayed in my mind just waiting for a painting like this to express itself.

During Covid I decided to learn how to digitize my own photos. My husband had purchased a really nice camera that I decided to try and use. It worked great. There is quite the learning curve to digitize art as compared to photographs because there aren’t presets for digitizing art, and the colors really do make a huge difference to get it to match the original piece of art. But, through a lot of experimentation I am learning how to do a better and better job. Plus, it saves me a lot of money. That was the expensive part of getting my art printed.

I also have a fantastic new printer as well, that prints archival prints. The ink is not an inkjet type ink, but a pigmented ink. If taken care of, a print from a pigmented ink printer will last 300 years or more, which I am learning is the standard for high quality art prints. I love this printer. It has to be used regularly so the heads don’t get plugged, but so far, I haven’t had an issue with that! Today I printed the prints for my icicles. I am amazed at how good the quality is, but also amazed at how much the paper affects the clarity of the final print. I am learning why people like a high gloss finish on photos, as the pictures pop off the page on the gloss paper and have a duller look to them on the matte finish art papers.

The lighting in my basement is very yellow, so these aren’t the best pictures, it’s also from my phone, which doesn’t have the best camera. But even in these pictures you can see the difference. The picture on the left was printed on a matte finish cardstock weight paper. The picture on the right was printed on a glossy photo paper. While both pictures look nice, I like the crispness of the one on the right better than the one on the left.

Well, that’s what I have been working on this week. I would love to know what you are doing to be creative in your world through a picture comment or email.