Archive for the ‘Art Ideas to Steal’ Category
Splashing black and white photos with pops of color can turn any dull image into one with an instantly obvious focal point. It’s a great technique to showcase a message or detail that might not get noticed otherwise. Plus, it’s fun!
Here’s a step-by-step guide for doing a very basic color isolation using Photoshop. We’ll use the girl in the blue as an example to walk you through the process.
STEP #1: In Photoshop, open your image and create a duplicate of it right away. In your Layers Tab, right click on your background layer and select duplicate layer. This is a good way to start off no matter what you’re working on. If you make a mistake, it will allow you to easily revert back to the original for a fresh start. Now, work off the background copy.
STEP #2: Select Adjustment Layer (looks like a yin-yang) and create a Hue/Saturation Layer. It will be added in the Layers Tab above the background copy. This is where you can select which colors you want to get rid of. At the top of the tab, you’ll find the Master Channel. Drop down to the color you want to eliminate. In our case, we drop down to the ‘red channel” and using the saturation slider, bring it all the way down to 0%. It instantly takes out the hues in her skin and nailpolish.
STEP #3: To make the colors really pop, you can use a Vibrance Layer. To do this, add another Adjustment Layer. Increase the slider to get the look you want.
STEP #4: When you’ve reached your desired result, save your image as a JPEG.
C’est fini! Your first colour isolate.
It’s that time in your life. You hug teary-eyed Mom and Dad goodbye and head off to assert your independence. You’re off to COLLEGE! We understand you’ve got a budget to [try to] stick to but, while textbooks are expensive, it doesn’t mean you can’t show those terribly institutional-feeling bleach white concrete walls who’s boss.
Here are some great canvas art ideas, and hey, it’s cheaper than painting a room too! This fab dorm decor is guaranteed to be a hit, almost as sure as the Freshman 15.
Cut the Umbilical Cord… kinda
Bit of a momma’s boy or daddy’s little princess? Your parents literally just drove away and already you’re homesick. Well, snap out of it! You can have them there with you all the time. Take your fav family portrait and proudly display your heritage on the wall. If it’s one of those pics where you’re all dressed the same, that’s extra awesome.
That’s What Friends Are For
Oh, those sweet high school memories. The bleachers where you had your first kiss (Do people still do that?), that prank you pulled on the freshman and, who could forget, PROM!? O-M-G PROM!!! Even though you’re far away, your friends from home never have to be. Put your hilarious high school memories up and it’ll make you smile every time you look at it.
“Live, Laugh, Love”
Everyone has a quote that they love. They’re inspiring, they make you think and they make other people think you think about smart things like inspirational quotes. Impress that cutie from down the hall with deep and meaningful prose plastered on your wall. Way to go stud!
Be a Leader, Not a Follower
You know those poster sales that come through your school only have so many options. How many times are you going to walk into another person’s dorm and see the same print hanging on their wall? Unoriginal much? With stock images readily available for purchase on the internet from sites like iStock Photo (www.istockphoto.com) you have a plethora of wall art options at your disposal. For a small fee you can purchase the rights to a picture of your choice and print away. Bravo. We knew you had it in you.
If All Else Fails, Facebook to the Rescue
Don’t remember the last time you had a photo printed? Mostly they go to good ole Mark Zuckerberg and stay captive in the digital dungeon. But, they don’t have to! With all the cool filters we have available, low-res images can look awesome when printed in a larger format. Throw a pop art effect on one of the tagged photos from Frosh Week with all your new friends. Look who’s popular now! (Psst, it’s you.)
Extra tip: Have everyone in the picture sign your canvas print. A great memory to keep forever.
… and love is all about sick office decals!
The CanvasPop offices are already a beautiful place to be (but we won’t reveal all the details just yet), but it’s just gotten even better. Our great friends at Blik (http://www.whatisblik.com) made some great decals for us, with which our internal design team made beautiful cosmetic updates. Check them out below:
Always some problem with this printer.
Be all that you can be.
Our production manager Dave's got the coolest desk.
Never hire the lowest bidder to paint your walls!
Richard Lam for Getty Images
While browsing the news this morning we came across this very viral photo taken by Richard Lam (Getty) of a couple kissing during the Vancouver riots. There’s a lot of buzz surrounding the image with people drawing links between that and the famous sailor’s kiss photo taken during the 1945 V-J Day celebrations by Alfred Eisenstaedt.
What an interesting contrast - what do you think?
V-J Day in Times Square by Alfred Eisenstaedt
There’s something special about graffiti street art. Some see it as an eye sore, a form of vandalism, a crime. But some street art is so interesting and artistic it belongs in an art gallery. Some of the best graffiti art I have ever seen outside of New York is in Venice, California. One weekend I decided to hunt the neighborhood for some interesting “street art” – it wasn’t hard to find these works of art around almost every corner; in alleyways and doorways in the streets of Venice. For any connoisseur of high quality street art Venice is a true paradise.
Maybe you’re looking to buy graffiti art on canvas. Why not shoot your own? It’s fun and easy and you’ll get a great sense of satisfaction doing it yourself.
Using an inexpensive “point and shoot” (Canon PowerShot) I shot away at the various graffiti art pieces I found.
Here are some tips for finding graffiti art and turning photos of street art into pieces suitable for wall art:
The right location: find the best areas where quality graffiti art can be found. I’m not talking about “tags” and vandalized walls- I mean real street art. My favorite cities are in New York, Miami, Los Angles and Toronto. If you want to see a neat site that can help you search different areas checkout StreetArtLocator.com- the collection is a little light but it’s fun to use.
Composition: I like to shoot graffiti art in context- as opposed to shooting it close up. I like it when you can tell that it is graffiti street art on a wall. To make things even more interesting I also like to have the photo a little off-center. There really is no wrong way to shoot graffiti…it’s up to you.
Inspiration: Here’s an amazing gallery of graffiti art to get your creative juices flowing. One of our CanvasPop clients recently had these amazing graffiti pictures turned into canvas: (see below.)
So get out there, explore, have fun and shoot some amazing street art. When you’re done share it with us or upload it and turn it into a canvas art print at CanvasPop.
Graffiti Canvas Art, Triptych made by one of our clients. Photo credit Duane Brown, Toronto, Canada
Is this a miniature model of New York City? Nope. It's a regular photo transformed using Photoshop and a simple effect called 'Tilt-shift'.
The effect is called ‘Tilt-shift’ we think it would make an awesome effect to use for your canvas to photo prints. It’s surprisingly simple and really fun to do. All you need is Photoshop, and a picture that is shot from above (like from an office window looking down to street level works well). Usually it helps to have cars and people in the shot too. If you like the end result send it in to us to have it made into a cool photo to canvas print. Another idea might be to create a series of images from various places you’ve been and hang them side by side.
Just follow these easy steps:
1. Find an image you like with an elevated view point and a reasonable wide wide angle of view
2. Follow this great little step-by-step tutorial here (credit tiltshiftphotography.net)
3. When you’re done, upload and print your picture on canvas
We’d love to see what you can do with this. Be sure to send us pictures that you have worked with and show off you work. We might feature you on a future blog post. Have any ideas you want to share with us? Let us know by adding your comments below.
Luc Levesque founder of TravelPod holding his “logo on canvas” made up of 3000 mosaic photos.
Our friends at Travelpod (an Expedia company) needed some unique canvas photo art for their offices- so they came to CanvasPop for the solution.
TravelPod was the first site to enable its members to create online travel blogs which revolutionized the way people travel and share their adventures with the world. TravelPod.com remains, as always, a “for the travel community” service. Naturally they wanted to create some art that reflected what they are all about. TravelPod hosts thousands of pictures submitted by their community of bloggers. They took a random sampling of over 3000 images from their library and created a cool logo on canvas from them made up entirely from a mosaic of these images. From a distance it hard to tell that the “logo” is made up of nearly 3000 unique photos that act like pixels. They proudly display their logo mosaic in their lobby. Talk about a conversation piece!
Beautiful travel-themed canvas photos adorn the walls of TravelPod's office.
Next, they hand selected some original and beautiful vacation shots that look like they belong in National Geographic and we blew them up to 36″ x 54″ for their walls. Not only do the images tell a great story, they also reflect the TravelPod brand beautifully. As an added benefit these canvas prints actually help to reduce (even eliminate) echoes in their new open concept office digs.
What do your office walls say? Do you have a unique art concept you would like to put up in your office? Here’s an idea: collect pictures from your employees or fellow workers, create a cool logo on canvas, take pictures of your products- and turn them into art! Have fun with your company’s visual brand. Art makes any office space “more fun” at a relatively low cost.
