If you read my previous journal entry about painting ink you’ll know that from around 80 ink paintings, only 65 actually made it through to the scanning process.
It was a challenge to sift through these, as all 65 images were high quality scans, needing minimal refinement to develop into textures.
Painted Ink Selection Challenge
99.9% of these painted ink pieces were gorgeous. I could have chosen them all for making into final texture collections, but a set of 60+ textures would be a bit too much for a variety of reasons.
So, rather than stifle my creativity with indecision, I set myself the simple target of creating just 2 inks texture sets, with a limit of 15 fine art textures in each set.
A simple goal of choosing just 30 scanned images.
- Hmmm, did I say simple?
- Ok it wasn’t! Each image held artistic promise.
This is the point where my creative self usually gets distracted from the task at hand, of creating textures, and I start creating something else because “this scanned texture is perfect for…”!
So, to keep myself on track, another self imposed restriction is added to the mix, that is to:
- go through each image in strict scanned order and give an instant ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response.
This self imposed selection system is working, for me.
- The painted ink pieces that receive a ‘no’ response are quickly skipped over.
- When a scan receives a pretty quick ‘yes’ response, it is taken into Photoshop for refinement and is finished before going on to the next scanned image.
A Workflow to Achieve Results
Does that seem like an obvious, simple, workflow to you? Maybe, but it really is a creative challenge for me to keep myself on track without it.
If you’ve ever created textures from your own art work or photography, then you’ll know how much time is invested to create each one. Of course it’s enjoyable time, filled with creative fun, thought and lots of care.
However, as my time is my most valuable resource, I do need to make sure I invest my ‘creative time’ wisely and that I stay focused if I want to achieve results, without encroaching on the time I need to devote to client work.
Without restriction, I’d probably spend all day painting textures, taking photographs and/or refining scans in Photoshop!
In this case, over 80 ink paintings reduced to 65 scanned images, reduced to 30 ‘yes’ response pieces for refinements in Photoshop, resulting in two finished ink sets ~ containing 15 unique fine art textures in each, all ready for me to use in my own work.
It may be counter intuitive to the premise of creative freedom, but by following this simple creative workflow helps me achieve end results. It ensures that I do also incorporate ‘living an artistic life’ into my day.
The added bonus is that these lovely textures don’t have to just sit on my own computer, they can be shared with others who don’t have the time to create their own unique textures, but who need textures to improve and enhance their art work or photography.
View the Painted Inks Set-1 & Painted Inks Set-2 in the Shop here.
