It’s Black History Month, and I would like to start this month with a portrait of the woman I admire the most.
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery. From her childhood, she was beaten by the various slave owners. She suffered a traumatic head wound that affected her life. She had pain, dizziness all her life. Despite all of this, she escaped to Philadelphia and RETURNED to rescue her family! After that, Tubman returned many times more to rescue others. She was traveling at night and had her strategy. Tubman never lost a passenger.
During the Civil War, she worked for the Union Army. Tubman started as a cook and nurse, and later on as an armed scout and spy. Harriet Tubman became the first woman to lead an armed expedition during the war. She guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 enslaved people.
Tubman is the woman who was a fighter, the woman who did not keep her head down as she was told and forced to do. She was fighting for human rights, for equality, for freedom. It was dangerous and painful, BUT she did it! She said, “I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.”
Harriet Tubman is my hero. She stood for the right things, and she believed in them. In so many situations, it’s not easy to do. Even when it is not easy, even when we are not sure how we can do this, we MUST try. As Tubman said, “I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.” It doesn’t matter how tired we are, and it doesn’t matter how many times people showed us the place they think we need to stay at; we MUST fight for human rights, for woman rights, for equality for everyone! Never say “I can’t”, because you are strong and you CAN. Harriet Tubman did show us that we can do it all!!!
P.S. I hope that one day we will notcelebrate Black History for only one month. I hope we will celebrate it every day. I know we can do it. Harriet Tubman said, “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
I painted a portrait of Harriet Tubman in Adobe Illustrator on iPad
How to get started with digital painting in Adobe Photoshop
DATE: 02/04/2021 TIME: 5:00 PM ET
Do you want to start painting in Photoshop, but you’re not sure where to start? If your answer is yes, this webinar is for you. You will learn how to start your painting in Photoshop and how to customize your brushes and workspace. If you are a photographer and want to create your next masterpiece based on a photograph, I will show you how to do it. By the end of the webinar, you will be able to download a library with different backgrounds that you can use in your painting in Photoshop.
Part 1: Description: In this session, you will learn how to customize your workspace and brushes for your custom needs. Customizing your tools and workspace helps you to be more creative and making your painting process more enjoyable.
Part 2: Description: We all have different painting experience, style, inspiration, and vision. In this session, I will show you a few different ways to start your painting.
Part 3: Description: Colors play a huge role in painting. I would say that colors are the most powerful and important tool in any art. Sometimes when we just start our painting journey, blending colors could be challenging. In this session of the class, I will show a few ways of blending colors. You can choose the one you like the most.
Part 4: Description: I believe that we were born with an artistic soul inside of us. Most of us all want to paint. Creation is the primary language of the universe. I hear it all the time “I want to paint so much, but I can’t.” “I never painted before so I think I can’t paint in Photoshop.”In this session, I will show you how you can create your own masterpiece even if you’ve never painted before.
Part 5: Description: I believe that the most important aspect in any painting is to be creative and enjoy what you do. In the 21st century, we can combine both: the artistic and technical sides of our painting in Photoshop. The best part is that if we do it in a smart way we can pay more attention to the artistic side because the technology will do the rest. In this part of our class, I will show you how to do it.
We all want to have the freedom to create anywhere. Now with Adobe Illustrator on iPad and Adobe Fresco on iPad we can create art from anywhere at anytime. During this class you will learn how to get started in Adobe Fresco and Adobe Illustrator on iPad. By the end of our class I will provide you with a library of backgrounds that you can use in your next project.
Adobe Fresco on iPad
Part 1: Description: In this part, you will learn how to create a new document from scratch or how to use ready-to-go templates and how you can customize them.
Part 2: Description: Brushes play one of the biggest roles in a painting workflow. In this part I will show you the different brushes available for use in Fresco and how you can customize them to make each brush more unique.
Part 3: Description: Colors play a very important role in storytelling when creating art. In this part of our webinar, I will show you how you can use colors in Fresco, how to create new colors, how to use the same color across all Adobe applications.
Part 4: Description: The most common question people ask me is “how can I blend colors in digital painting?” In this part of our webinar, I will show you a few techniques for blending colors in Fresco
Part 5: Description: Live brushes in Fresco are incredibly awesome and fun to work with. I will show you how to use them, how to customize them and combine them together to create your next masterpiece.
Part 6: Description: How to start a painting and finish it using only one brush. How to use different brushes in one art piece. In this part of our webinar, I will show how to use different brushes, how to take advantage of different brushes in any painting.
Adobe Illustrator on iPad
Part 1: Description: In this part of our webinar, you will learn how to create a new document from scratch or use ready-to-go templates. You will get familiar with the beauty of illustrator on iPad, UI, and art tools.
Part 2: Description: I will show how to use the Pen Tool (you will never believe how easy and how much fun you can have to working with the Pen tool)
Part 3: Description: Colors are important. In this part of our webinar, I will show how to use colors in illustrator on iPad and how to use different types of gradients
Part 4: Description: Yes, we can blend colors in vector art and I will show you how.
Part 5: Description: How to create art in a smart way. In this part of our webinar, I will show you how.
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If you are planning to purchase this stand, you can use my code “pavlov” to save 20%
In today’s blog, I will share with you a few tips for working with Photoshop
Tip 1: When working on my compositing or design projects having the ability to arrange my layers is very important. I would say that the ability to arrange my layers is the key to the right composition.
To move Layers Up or Down: Select Layer(s) > hold Command(Mac) / Ctrl(Win) and use right and left bracket keys “ [ or ] “. You cant move up or down the background layer before you will unlock it)
Move up
Move down
Tip2: The ability to select any layer without a single mouse click is one of the best Adobe Photoshop features.
To select any Layer: Press > Option + ] or [ (Mac) or Alt + ] or [ (Win)
Tip3: To switch to default Foreground/Background (Black and White) colors in Photoshop simply press “D” on your keyboard (as long as you’re not in the Type Tool). Tip: Pressing “x” on the keyboard will toggle them back and forth.
Goodbye 2020 and welcome 2021. Happy New Year, everyone. I wish you a lot of happiness, stay healthy, stay creative.
This is my first blog post in 2021. During this year, I have planned to share with you a lot of new posts, tutorials, news. But I need your help. I want to ask you to share with me what you would like to see from me in 2021. What topic(s) you are most interested in. For me, it’s important to have a two-way conversation with you. If you have a few minutes to spare, please, help me to understand what you would like to see from me, answering a few questions from the form below. Thank you in advance!
Hello everyone. Welcome to another Monday blog post day. Today I want to wish each of you Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! 2020 wasn’t the easiest year. This year was difficult for everyone. The entire world has been impacted by COVID-19. People lost their loved ones, people lost their jobs, families don’t know how they will put bread on the table. In 2020 we saw a lot of injustice. People with other than white skin tones were treated unacceptably wrong. With all these injustices, infections, cries, the hunger for many people we saw in 2020, we also saw something else. We saw that people with ALL skin tones, genders, religions were on the streets supporting Black Lives Matter. We saw so many people donating money, food to local food shelters. We saw our heroes in white uniform fitting for every single life of COVID patience. Our teachers, our heroes teaching our children via ZOOM. We saw how people come together in 2020 to support each other. This is what COVID could not take from us. This is what makes us human.
In this Holiday Season, I want to say thank YOU to my readers, my followers, my friends, and my family for being with me, for supporting me, for pushing me to dream, to be better, and simply to be who I am.
I want to wish you happiness and good health. I wish for you to be with the people you love and who love you. I wish for you to dream because if we can dream, we can create.
Hello everyone. Great to see you all here! Today is the day for many of you who asked me how you can convert your image into a painting if you are not a painter and don’t want to spend a lot of time painting. Topaz Studio is what you need. In just under 5 minutes, you can convert your photo into art. Let me show how. Open an image that you want to convert into a painting.
Click on Filter > Topaz Studio 2
Photoshop will launch Topaz Studio
Click on Add Look
Topaz will display a library with many different styles of painting looks (From Leonardo da Vinci to Pastel) that you can add to your image. I love many of them and I know you will as well.
Click on any look you want to add to your image. My favorite look is Cezzane so I will click on this look. After you specify the look you want, Topaz will display a slider that you can use to apply less or more of the painting effect to the image.
When we happy with a painting effect, we can click on Apply to apply this effect to the image.Now you can apply your personal touches to the painting to make it more personal and unique.
Click on “Impression.” Here you can change stroke, the number of strokes, and brush size.
From the Color and Lighting workspaces you can adjust colors and lighting in your image. I don’t use these features a lot because if I use Topaz as a plug-in in Photoshop, I prefer to adjust everything in my image before I launch Topaz.
Texture is my one of favorite features. Using the Textue workspace you can add texture to your image and the best part is that using Texture Strength you can adjust how much texture effect you want to apply.
After you are happy with everything you are ready to click on Accept and your image will return to Photoshop with an applied painting effect. This is how easy it is to convert a photo into a painting in just under five minutes.
Most of us feel better when we create. Some of us have painting experience, some of us don’t. Having no experience shouldn’t keep you from creating. I believe that all of us can create. Creation is our natural language and Topaz Studio makes our voices heard. If you wanted to paint, but never did before, today is the day. Start your art today with Topaz Studio.
It was a time in my life when my daughter and I were without food. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work. I wasn’t able to find a job anywhere. I was looking for a job all day and every day. We were able to buy a jar of pickles on sale for 85¢, and a loaf of bread also on sale for $1,07. We sliced pickles very thin to put it on top of a slice of bread. We ate it three times a day. We were happy to afford it and eat every day and to be honest, I love pickles.
It’s the Holiday season again, but this year it’s different than it used to be. The entire world is having to deal with COVID-19 this year. Every single person is affected by it in one or another way. So many people are without work, heat, or food. So many people could not put any food on the table. So many children are hungry. Together, we can help. We can help some families to put a slice of pickles on top of a slice of bread. I have created a few coloring pages for this Holiday Season. You can download them for free and use them in your traditional or digital painting. If you feel that you can spare some money to help the hungry people in Georgia, please donate anything to the Atlanta Foodbank you can (even $1 will be gladly appreciated).
With each year our phones become a bigger and bigger part of our mobile workflow. I would like to point out that when I say “mobile workflow” I don’t mean only the professional part of our lives. Our mobile devices are tools that are always under our fingertips. Using our phones record or take behind-the-scenes pictures, photographing the subject, creating our memories on vacation, birthdays, or wedding parties, the smile of our pets, or first steps of our children. So why not make all of this much easier, quicker?
Photography or Video Pocket Tripod Pro, at first glance you will think that it’s impossible this small (pocket) tripod will give you the stability to take a clean shot. I thought the exact same thing, BUT when I tried it, I was amazed and now I am using it all the time, everywhere.
This Pocket Tripod is great in landscape or vertical orientation. It has 180° of tilt in both orientations. Everything you need to adjust the tripod is included in the package. This package includes 7 common sizes for most common cases and phone sizes and also includes a coupon for any size not included. This tripod works with all phones iPhone or Android.
This lightweight, pocket-size tripod is all that you need to keep your phone steady, and best of all it folds down to the size of a credit card so that you can have it with you in your wallet/purse at all times.
I love my new Geometrical Pocket Tripod Pro and I definitely recommend it to anyone who is using their phone’s camera to create memories of everyday life or for professional life. By the way, you can use my linkto order this beauty 🙂
Digital Art and Design If you know me, you know that digital art is the biggest part of my creative life. I use desktop and mobile devices for my digital art. In my mobile digital art workflow, I use Adobe Fresco a lot and I was so happy when Adobe introduced Fresco for iPhone. Now I literally can paint at any time from anywhere because my iPhone is ALWAYS with me! Of course, I immediately started looking for a stylist I could use with Fresco on my iPhone. After some research, I found one. Active Stylus Digital Pen. It has a clean look (which I appreciate a lot), easy to set up, and the battery lasts for a long time. When I said “easy to set up” I meant that you don’t have to do anything. Just charge it, turn it on and you are ready to go! This is how easy it is. The full charge is enough for 8 hours working, 30 days standby. The full charge time takes 40 minutes. Digital Pen works with iOS and Android touch screen phones and tablets.
I like this stylist. It’s more comfortable than my finger (for sure). The simplicity of the stylist brings one extra good point to it. This is not an Apple pencil so it doesn’t have the built-in support for pressure sensitivity. The pen doesn’t work with Windows phones or tablets.
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Hello everyone, I took a few days off and after the Thanksgiving break, Now I’m coming back to work but with a different schedule. Many of you have asked me to share with you my live streaming day and time, my new video tutorial release days, etc. Below is my full schedule. Hope to see you all there!
Monday: A new blog post. Place: here (pavlovphotography.com/blog)
