I've been thinking a lot about where I go with art and creativity going into the future.  A lot of thought continues to rest with the Fugitives on the Forgotten Highway project which, by definition, is a collaborative effort.  I'll be collaborating directly with a small group of creatives, but also hopefully with the larger region of creatives (or at least those that support the arts and creativity).

I've also been thinking about a return to the world of painting as a medium to supplement or complement my photography. I mean, these days, photographers are a dime a dozen.  I ask myself, "How can I be different?"

Anyways, with both of these thoughts in the back of my mind, I happened upon a website called PBNify, which brought me WAY back to my childhood. Back then, there were lots of "paint by number" kits.  Some might say paint by numbers is cheating.  Why not go and create your own?  But, the act of actually putting paintbrush to canvas has a lot of benefit.  One does not just pick up a brush and paint a masterpiece, it comes with a lot of work and a lot of practice.  Call this part of the training.  Learning how paint hangs on a brush.  Learn how much you have to apply to the canvas.  Learn how different colors seem to need different approaches.  See those two numbers right next to each other that have nearly identical colors?  Here's where you learn about light and shadow.  If you don't really look, do you really see?

This morning I shot a photo of a water lily in the backyard with my phone.  I thought it looked sort of paint like. Maybe this might be a fun photo to PBNify and see what the results look like. So, here's the original:

Original Waterlily image

I dropped this original file into the website www.pbnify.com, which then instructs the user to click several points to set a palette of colors.  I ended up selecting 20 colors as seen here:

PBNPalette

I then let the website do its magic and it showed me what the filled in painting would look like.  Of course, you lose a lot of detail in a painting like this, but I definitely like the feel of this:

PBN WaterLily

And finally, here is the actual "paint by number" outline.

PBN Outline

I'm thinking, "pretty cool".   You should probably watch for more of this in the future as we push forward with the Fugitives project and perhaps some other community things I have been tossing around in my mind.

Until next time!

PJ