Gary Bouton's Xara Stuff

[Gare]

This was part of a UI design, whose programmer gave up on it. Supposed to be an mp3 jukebox; this was the minimized state.



The render wasn't nearly as complex as the design. I took a look at all my favorite program UIs back when a piece of art was the goal and not this Spartan stuff, like Painter 5 and lower. I also took a look at Layne Karkruff's UI illustrations, owner of Blue Sky Heart Graphics (who refuses to understand that web pages need text as text in 2015!). Mind-blowing hyper-realistic stuff many of us could learn from.

My Best,

Gary

[buckobeck]

You've been busy. All outstanding images.

[wizard509]

Every time I view this I see something different and awesome. Blue sky heaqrt graphics has some really nice images so I boodmarked it.

[Ron Duke]

Gare,
You have a great imagination to go along with your ability to create great art!

[Gare]

Thanks, Ron!

Okay, a book I wrote back in 1996 went out of print a while back, which means the rights to the art revert back to me. I actually had the nerve to design the cover of an Adobe Photoshop book entirely in Xara. "Pinhead Art" (New Yorker illustrator Saul Steinberg did a lot to drive it into the public eye), primitive yet expressive drawings of people with small heads, was a movement that began digitally on the Mac.

Enough qualifications!

[Gare]

Here's some evidence to prove that "photorealism" is easiest to fake when your subject is hard geometry, and you remove color from your composition.

This took very little time, and was a part of an illustration...um, illustrating the principle of mirror angles in reflections.



It ain't the best design for a perfume bottle, but it was easier to imagine one than to get my hindquarters sued off by an actual product rendering.

So there, Chanel! Nyah! Mine is Number 6!

-g

[Gare]

I don't think I will live long enough to try to again attempt something as ambitious as my Cubist piece "DuChamp's Main Squeeze", below. To draw this, I first modeled the girl. After printing a large copy of it, I put it in front of the window in our front door when sunlight was shining through. The window is both frosted and patterned glass, which broke up the printed image. I photographed the view. I'd always wondered what it woulds look like to draw something as abstract as our view—after a while, friends and family begin to look like rectangles and triangles!

I brought the photo into Xara, and then got to drawing the figure from reference, and occasionally copying part of the photo. Mind you, this was not an automated process! Sure, I could have traced off the whole thing, but there were a lot of areas that just didn't look right and called for inventing the awkward-looking area.



My Best,

Gary

[iamtheblues]

Hi Gare, would it please you to know that there is an app for that. (I admire your patience and tenacity by the way.)
Bob.

[Gare]

Hi Gare, would it please you to know that there is an app for that. (I admire your patience and tenacity by the way.)
Bob.

Hi Bob,

Well, since I've "been there, done that", I'm not likely to do any more experimental art with this filter or without...but it really does look nice, thanks for the tip.

How about I run my original render through it and compare my version versus the automated way?

My Best,

Gary

[Gare]

Okay, I'm not going to try to top something that was a year in the making, but rather continue the roll of, "My 5 year old daughter can do better Surrealism drawings than this Crap"...artwork.

Q; What do you call a flounder?

A: A fish that was designed by Picasso.