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Compassion for the artless . . .
lobster
Veteran
Some of you may recognize this as Rin Tin Tin, the new dog family member of @Vastmind. I took her photo (from another thread) and parsed it through 'Snapshot' and 'Brushstroke' apps. Instant art.
I know we have artists and crafters of all manner here, so do share. For example @federica is a culinary artist, sounds a grand term for Cook but I feel the term applies . . .
Please share. Think of it as compassion for the artless . . .
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I've been told my homemade gift baskets are works of art....
....I also knit.
I'm trying to start a tiny personal venture up, called 'neckknitnax' (try saying that if you've had a tipple!) making decorative ornate neck scarves-cum-necklaces....
Sadly, my laptop has packed up, so posting a photo may be difficult, because this is an applemac and behaves in a completely different way to anything I've ever used, so I don't have a clue how to post a photo, and neithe would I, on a borrowed laptop...
(Sorry about the O/T request, @lobster, but please see my question in newbuddhist.com'....)
I used to be in the building trade and liked building pine kitchens, I put one in my current house. They look nice and are also very cheap, using tongue and groove floor-boarding for the work tops, and ready-made pine doors ( I have made them but it's time consuming ). Very strong construction when glued and screwed, and you can add bits later on if you want to, or adapt them. With my current one I finished it off with decking stain which gives a tough waterproof seal on the timber. Total cost around £300 in materials, the one here took me about a week to do. Nice!
Sorry, I haven't got the gear to put up pics at the moment.
I come from a long line of artists; my Japanese grandfather was like Mr Meeagee (from the Karate Kid) and he was well recognised in his chosen art of Noh mask carving. I've a few of them and they look spectacular. My British side of the family were pencil drawing artists. A few of them were seamen and they'd sketch the exotic places they were at, long before cameras became small, portable, cheap, and available to the great unwashed.
DIY is probably the closest thing I come to 'art'. I quite enjoy tiling; the mess of the preparation contrasting with the finished result. For some weird reason I like soldering stuff too. There's nothing quite as satisfying as a well soldered joint!
Wonderful practical craft skills guys.
Imagine being able to build a kitchen, or knit a DIY Flying Speghetti Monster. I like those gift sets m m m . . . gives me prezzie inspiration.
Gonna have to hone my craft skills . . .
DIY is probably the closest thing I come to 'art'. I quite enjoy tiling; the mess of the preparation contrasting with the finished result. For some weird reason I like soldering stuff too. There's nothing quite as satisfying as a well soldered joint!>
Tiling is quite an art, I always struggle with the wet sponge stage of grouting!
Soldering is quite an art too, I generally use too much flux and end up with a mess.
For plumbing I always use pre-soldered joints or compression fittings.
I can chase cables into a gully I chiselled into a wall, and I'm a mean dab-hand at tiling, too.
The feat I am most proud of (bear in mind I am vertically challenged!) was wallpapering a stairwell, where the longest paper-drop was 27'.... You couldn't see the seams, I was dead chuffed...!
I take it everyone knows the trick of horizontal lining-paper....?
You mean turn the room on it's side and hang it vertically?
Yeah....no.
S-L-I-G-H-T-L-Y less labour-intensive.....
I love hearing all these stories -- When I was about 20, when I had unimaginable amount of energy, I moved into this tiny cottage and wanted to paint the living room and bedroom. I got permission and picked out the colors: I got what I thought would be a pale yellow for the bedroom and pale leaf green for the living room. The old but solid little cottage had dark wood trim a few inches down from the ceiling and after painting, the contrast really looked great.
The yellow turned out to be more lemony and intense than I'd planned, but the pale leaf green (actual color name on the cans) was perfect -- I swear it looked like sunshine was coming through the walls and wondered if the paint or the walls or even I was magical some how to make that effect. It really is funny the things you remember in life decades (did I say that?) later.
Having the culinary skill of a ravenous cructacean, my 'recipes' are honed to minimum YAB to maximum YUM.
Lobster Bread
salt to taste, water, oil, wholewheat plain flour
roughly mix a dry rather than wet dough
oil hands, ball dough, flatten and shallow fry
. . . meanwhile
fry onions, add tin of tuna (baked beans for veggies), chopped tomatoes and basil, salt to flavour
YAB-YUM done
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yab-Yum
we haz pictures
nice work!
^^^
Thanks @Jeffrey
I like to create web pages, so combining dharma, gardening and HTML I hope is skilful . . .
http://web.archive.org/web/20031025042128/http://pages.britishlibrary.net/lobster/buddha/garden.htm
Gifts for a newborn in Singapore. Knitting can be very meditative :-)
Really cute! How long did it take you?
I LOVE Knitting!! They are so sweet!!
Will try and give an example of a painting I did for a dear friend whose heart chakra was in the process of turning from green to pink (sunset pink, he said):
Hope it's worked!
¿que?
Well eh . . . back to art filtering . . .
How do you do that???!!! 3 paintings from one. Like
Good to know there's something you are not expert on - even if it's the chakras
And even if you know how to do an upside down ? ... 
I know quite a lot about the chakras, was active on a kundalini forum for many years. My main advice was 'kill the snake' . . . however that is another story.
Glad you like what I did with with your image. Used an app called 'Brushstrokes'. No skill involved . . .
So, why the ¿que? ?
Not yet discovered apps ... Guess will have to stick to paint and water
Thanks @SpinyNorman! I'm a newbie knitter so these took me probably about 3 weeks...one sock turned out way bigger than the other but the recipient infant tactfully didn't comment :-)
m m m . . . how can I put this as kindly, politely and pinkly as possible . . .
. . . I can not do it . . . maybe another time . . .
Beautiful knitting colours at @Nele
http://the-lucid-movement.tumblr.com/post/77057715129/from-green-to-gold-opening-the-heart-chakra
if you are interested! I am interested in your thoughts - but did feel after my sister died that my heart chakra changed colour dramatically, being infused by sparkles of gold from her life as she visited me to say farewell. :shrug: (doesn't seem to be an icon for this any more!)
Try "eh"
or "neutral" 
'j' and 'q' seem to have no emoticons....
A 'computer craft' skill is creating YouTube vids
Here is one I did earlier based around the Medicine Buddha
I'm exploring photoshop and double exposure . This one is called New York Sunset
Thanks @bravehawk - like it very much.
Here is one I would call 'Sunblind' but it is a fence, so I'm going to call it 'Stolen Buddha' which is a good name for just about any lite breakthrough. . .
@SarahT I love your painting! And @lobster those are some pretty awesome variations!
Here's some things I made years ago:
fuzzy guy
buzzing flower
dancing tree
orb
colored pencils
So...Painting Parties have become the new fad here for adult B-day parties....The local studio here is Pinot's Palette...Went to one last week-end and had a BALL!!!! Sippin on wine and painting....This was the first time I have painted since grade school...it's oil, and no paint by numbers....there is a teacher in the front and you just follow along....I was soooo into it and felt like it was meditative...I was super proud of how good it came out....
-- http://www.pinotspalette.com/
Whoah, that is a beauty, @vastmind.
thanks @thegoldeneternity hope you still recognise your work in my jams on your original . . .
Wow, some really good stuff here. Why aren't you all famous?!
@lobster I Love It!
Those filters are remarkable. It really makes it look as if it were painted like that.
Filters are a great boon for the short cut to art . . .
Guys today walked from tate in Pimlico to tate modern. Two great art galleries.
Came across a masterpiece. It is a mirror. I have seen it all now . . .
I do like abstract art, for example here is a very conventional piece I also took a pic of . . .
I believe they are just seats . . . The Henry Moore is pretty good but you can not sit on it.
I was informed that my flashing (behave: with camera) was not allowed but they were very kind and casual and it is good to know . . .
Here is one I took before my flash was de-lighted . . . so to speak
Henry Moore's housekeeper, in the middle of her chores, turned to the Journalist who was there to interview the great man, and looking out at his expansive garden containing several of his sculptures, remarked,
"Poor Mr Moore. 'E works 'ard, day in, day out, carvin' chisellin' grindin' away at all those stones, and what does 'e end up wiv? Only 'oles!"
True story.
Who says I'm not?
@lobster...yes...Im all about abstract...
Abstraction is all about the holes.
Emptiness is form and form is emptiness.
For example this structure from the Tate I photographed yesterday is by a practically unknown artist and inspired by the Bangles song 'Walk like an Egyptian'.
oops nearly forgot to provide image, that might have been too subtle . . . and empty . . .
Oil painting of my wife and son I have been working on
Tonal study I am doing right now of Leonardo's "Lady with Ermine"
Graphite and white charcoal sketch
Sketch of Albert Camus I plan to transfer to a canvas for painting
Awesome work there -- Albert looks a bit like James Dean.
Drawing, painting, photographing and writing have been my arts. And my branch of science (biology) has a strong connection to the every branch of arts.
My fantasy stories, including a novel, and photographs have been published in many books (pm if you want to know more).
He does. Here is the photo I went from
The drawing was never meant to be a finished work
@Theswingisyellow look forward to the finished canvas. Just using computer filters I riffed on your sketch and blended and colourised ...
The painting of your wife and son already looking good ... Wow.
Albert Camus... I studied his literature in French, at school. Amazing author.
@Theswingisyellow, love your work; I see that you seem to specialise in reproducing existing work. And there's nothing wrong with that, not a criticism, quite the contrary. You're highly skilled and very observant, and your examples are evidence of the gift you have. Do you also create original work?
@federica the painting of my wife and son I would consider original work, I wish I could more creative with my I tend to think somewhat concretely with what I draw and paint. Currently I am studying old master works in the style of Atelier schools. I love peoples faces and love being able to reproduce them. Oil painting flesh tones is fairly daunting but very rewarding. We're all just shades of orange! I would like to expand my area to more still life, but my focus has primarily been people and faces. I want to keep pushing the envelope. Thanks to all for the compliments, art is something I truly treasure