Active Fine Art Posts
How To: Take evenly lit professional high definition photos
You can take high resolution photos with just about any digital SLR, but whether these high resolution photos turn out impressive depends on setting, lighting, and the compliance of your subjects to pose. While photographing your friends and family in everyday life has these aforementioned conditions already set for you, if you take photos in the studio many factors can be adjusted to your liking.
How To: Create alternative art duct tape paintings
Okay, just to clear things up before you head over to watch the video, duct tape painting does not involve grinding up little pieces of duct tape to make paint.
How To: Draw a complex levels image of a staircase
Spiral staircases are complicated enough to look at, so imagine how much hard work goes into replicating these twirly architectural wonders on paper. Though more difficult than drawing straight, normal staircases which mostly require straight lines, spiral staircases add interest to your drawing.
How To: Draw a realistic complex level image of a walkway
If you can successfully and convincingly draw complex levels on a sheet of paper, then you can draw just about anything. Despite having been around for thousands of years, representative art only approaches reality and reflects it, rather than depicts a believable replica of it.
News: 32 Amazing Murals Depicting Each & Every World Cup Team
In honor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, ESPN commissioned the Wieden+Kennedy ad agency (the same group that did the amazing aquarium Nikes) and the AM I Collective (a group of artists based in Cape Town, South Africa) to create 32 murals, depicting each and every team. Very nice work, beautifully done.
How To: Use the green screen in photography
Sometimes the background you're using in a photograph doesn't quite match up with your subject and you want something different to highlight whatever you're photographing. There's where Photoshop and/or green screens come in.
How To: Capture skateboarding moves in photography
There's nothing more exhilirating on a summer day than going out to Venice Beach and watching a skateboarding competition. Whether the skater kids are doing olies or 360s, skateboarding is impressive to watch but almost impossible to photograph.
How To: Print professional quality photos on your printer
Thanks to modern technology, we don't have to visit our nearest Target or Rite Aid to get our pictures professionally retouched and printed. With many printers offering photo-quality ink and paper companies that offer photo-quality paper, you can use your home printer to create professional-grade photos.
How To: Do flattering makeup for a photograph
If you've ever performed before (really, any sort of performance where you're up on a stage with stage lighting counts), then you know there is a huge discrepancy between makeup you wear everyday and makeup you wear for the stage.
How To: Photograph macro photography with Paul Ward
Want to make your photos look professional, but don't have a digital SLR and don't want to go through tedious and neverending photo tutorials? Then you've hit the right video.
How To: Do macro photography shots for beginners
Macro photography is a type of photography used to create interest by focusing the lense on one thing in a picture, generally something that's located in the foreground. The rest of the image (the midground and background) fades out into a blur.
How To: Use lighting to your advantage in photography
In photography, good lighting can mean the difference between an amateur shot and a professional quality portrait. Whether you're taking photographs outdoors or in, using lighting to your advantage creates an artistic, flattering effect.
How To: Create balanced pictures with photography composition
Thanks to the influx of purse-sized digital cameras and wads of blurry, hastily taken drunken photos posted on Facebook by partying college students, the quality of photography by the masses has gone down the deep end.
How To: Photograph children for optimal cuteness
Your childhood is arguably the stage of development where you look most cute and naturally perfect for photographs, so it makes sense that your parents compiled albums after neverending albums depicting several hundred different angles of your cute little tushy (grimace).
How To: Photograph outdoors with natural light conditions
How does taking photographs outside differ from taking photos inside? Well, unlike indoor photography, which boast easily adjustable artificial lighting and lighting effects, with outdoor photography the light you get is the light you use.
How To: Do a Naz graffiti gangsta and letters with Wizard
If you've ever heard of a little artist named Banksy, you know that street art has the unique power of combining whimsy with sociopolitical commentary, all done with mind-blowing efficiency.
How To: Create a custom Photoshop pencil brush
Did you know you can create your own brushes on Photoshop? You're probably already overwhelmed by the variety of brushes, brush diameters, and other various picture settings that Photoshop offers, but if you're a professional artist or graphic designer it's sometimes necessary to create your own brush for a project.
How To: Draw a realistic three dimensional city
Ever wanted to be the sultan of your own city? Well, unfortunately you won't get quite that by watching this tutorial, but you will get to rule your own city on paper.
How To: Use the timer setting on your Nikon digital SLR
If you're starting to use your digital SLR for the first time, it can be quite confusing to determine what all its functions mean as well as where to find them and how to use them.
How To: Use picture control settings on your Nikon digital SLR
Recently purchased a brand new digital SLR? Learn how to use your camera's functions properly by watching this tutorial on how to use your picture control settings on your Nikon digital SLR.
How To: Use active D-lighting on a digital SLR camera
Having a Nikon digital SLR means you take good pictures, no matter what. With 20/20 clarity and the ability to take awe-inspiring macro shots, a ditital SLR is a powerful tool but also extremely complicated to use.
How To: Convert an old electric kiln into a propane gas kiln
You may love your old electric kiln like a child, but it's time to get in touch with the times and update that sucker! Watch this ceramics tutorial by potter Simon Leach to learn how to turn your old electric kiln into a snazzy new propane gas kiln.
How To: Do long exposure photography of rivers
Have you ever been camping, sitting by a peaceful brook or stream, and wanted to capture the beauty of that delicate flowing mass of water? For most photographers, capturing a river or stream is not hard, but the river often comes out stagnant, frozen in place rather than alive and vital as it is in real life.
How To: Improve clay throwing with five basic throwing tools
Sculpting a fine piece of pottery, whether it's a gorgeously curvy vase for your peonies or a wide, copious plate you'll use for parties, takes numerous hours of practice and fine tuning your method.
How To: Soak and slake down dried clay with Simon Leach
When your clay is too tough and not malleable beneath your fingertips, you've got trouble. Pottery, after all, requires smoothe and flexible clay that can be molded into any shape you desire.
How To: Draw two baby gangsta chicks with Wizard
When we say gangsta chicks, we don't mean two streetsmart whores with baggy pants and chola eyebrows. Rather, this drawing tutorial presents a literal - and very humurous - interpretation of "gangsta chicks."
How To: Draw an edgy tattoo heart by Wizard
Tattoo hearts show you're tough and street smart but are secretly a cuddly teddy bear. Toughen this eternal symbol of love by watching this drawing tutorial on sketching a tattoo heart originally drawn by Ice T (Reckless). With thickly loaded spikes and a smaller heart formed by these spikes below the main heart, this is one guarded spring of affection.
How To: Create a geek chic duct tape layered wallet
Duct tape isn't only handy for taping your rear view mirror back when your drunken cousin knocks it off in a fit of intoxicated rage. In fact, duct tape is a excellent and cheap material for crafting.
How To: Do Photoshop painting basics for beginners
This series is the basic training you need to get up and running with Photoshop, so that you can be a better digital painter. Knowing how to use all the tools and options that pertain to digital painting, photomanipulation, and photo editing will save you lots of time, so it's worth learning the basics first.
How To: Draw the Chavo del Ocho kid character
Who is Chavo del Ocho? Well, Chavo del Ocho was a hit Mexican sitcom that gained popularity in Mexico as well as Brazil, Spain, and the United States in the 1970s. Chavo del Ocho was also a character in this show, an orphan who is kind but also gullible.
How To: Draw a building and stairwell with complex levels
Tired of hatching out the same boring triangles and squares? Want to bring your treasured shapes out of Flatland and into the third dimension? Then this tutorial is the answer to all your (drawing) problems.
How To: Draw realistic complex levels
Complex levels are a lot less, well, complex than they sound when you pay attention to this helpful drawing tutorial. The definition of complex levels is basically creating a three dimensional quality to your work with multiple planes and sometimes ground levels.
How To: Throw a large charger plate with Simon Leach
God knows we have enough mass produced plates and dinnerware sets out there, some high quality and others like the McDonald's version of plates - cheap costing and cheap looking.
How To: Draw a menacing, bleeding skull tattoo
Prep for your dream career in tattoo artistry by watching this easy video which shows you how to draw a skull tattoo. Broken down into four parts, you'll keep equal concentration on the skull's head spikes, evil cranial contortion, unexpected eyes, and severe undereye circles.
News: The World's Slowest Porsche
Sounds like an odd bragging right, but hold your horses, artist Hannes Langeder's handmade Porsche is pretty damn interesting.
How To: Make a sailor-style bikini bathing suit
See how to make your very own nautical-themed bikini bathing suit with this fashion designer's guide. Though you might find the process daunting if you've never made a bathing suit before, it's easier than you'd think. So easy, in fact, that this video tutorial can present a complete overview of the process in just over five minutes' time. For detailed instructions, and to get started making your own sailor girl bikini, take a look.
News: This $50K Sculpture is Made of What?
53-year-old artist Scottish artist David Mach uses tens of thousands of matchsticks to create sculptures of animals, as well as religious and political icons. He first creates a plastic or fiberglass mold, and then inserts the matchsticks, one at a time. His work sells anywhere from $30,000 to $52,000... unless he sets the piece on fire, of course.
News: Massive Cocoons Trap Humans Like Flies in a Web
INSANE what you can do with a truckload of packing tape. Viennese/Croatian design collective For Use/Numen uses the common junk drawer office supply to create massive, self-supportive cocoons that visitors can climb inside and explore.
How To: Teach your kids how to use their first digital camera
When your kids start discovering technology, it can be a fantastic learning experience. Check out this tutorial, hosted by a third grader, to help your kiddies get used to handling a digital camera. This video is filled with a ton of tips and lots of advice, tailored just for children.
How To: Make a glass blue tubing enclamo pipe
Watch this lampworking video series to learn how to make a glass blue tubing enclamo pipe. This style of pipe is nice because of the way it lays down - it doesn't look like a typical pipe.