Stories Collected While Living in France

French la Vie

Painting France

Paintingofthesouthoffr

Photo shop and I are becoming friends.  Or I should say, Photo shop let’s me pretend I can paint!

Photo:  A street in the town of Arles, France.

Paintingsouthoffrancema

Photo:  A chalk and paint art piece that I found at the flea market.  Actually I found it in between the pages of an old book I bought there.  Happy surprise!  I wonder if Photo shop can do that on its own?

Flowerpotpainting

Photo:  A window in Arles full of flower pots.  Tweaked by playing around with Photo shop.

The joy of discovering something new! Photo shop and I are going to be best friends who spend many late nights together.  I guess this old dog can learn a new trick or two!

Now if only I could learn to paint.

What are you discovering new about yourself?

Comments

54 responses to “Painting France”

  1. elsa

    i bet a million bucks or euros (worth more now) that you could paint. i would *love* to see you do it. last year i announced to my sweet husband that i was inspired to paint so he went out and surprised me with enough supplies to ge me started. i have been sad that i only tried to create something twice in the last year. between moving, german language class and my babies there has not been a “good” time. i say, you pick it up today or tomorrow, and i will do the same.
    btw, i’m turning 35 tomorrow, i’m feeling pretty good!

    Reply
  2. marita

    we’ll be paiting alright corey! sitting next to a meadow of perfumed lavander with strow hats and baguettes like vincent used to do in the fields around arles…

    Reply
  3. Britt-Arnhild

    Congratulations with your new friend.Looks like this will be a happy friendship.
    What I have discovered about myself lately is the love I have for writing, and that I actually can do something about it. I have made a list in my diary of things I will accomplish this last year before I turn 50 in April, (and of course I will continue this walk into and beyond the golden age )
    Pen and paper follow me everywhere now.

    Reply
  4. Kit

    Have fun with Photoshop – I’d love to learn to paint too, but right now I’m discovering that I’m a writer and am finally starting to freelance at it. I might have got my first paid job starting next week!

    Reply
  5. tommiea

    I have discovered I am much more resiliant that I thought…

    Reply
  6. Mountain Dweller

    I hope that your friendship with Paintshop blossoms. I am sure that the results will be vibrant!

    Reply
  7. karen

    photoshop isn’t the answer. it’s just a toy.
    first draw…then pick up a brush…

    Reply
  8. cd&m

    Arles is twinned with our home town Wisbech.

    Reply
  9. Kristy

    I think everyone can paint we just don’t always like out own style!

    Reply
  10. Kristy

    Obviously I meant our not out!

    Reply
  11. rochambeau

    Love your new tricks!
    Guess what? I was given the gift of Photoshop recently, so I’m getting ready to be on the learning curve too! What an amazing toy Photoshop!

    Reply
  12. Shannon

    I’ve worked with Photoshop while working as a graphic artist. It can create amazing art.
    Those were beautiful pics!!
    And what a neat little surprise you found in the book!

    Reply
  13. Maggie

    Corey, the more you play with photoshop the more you will love it. I took a course at the college and knew the first day it was for me. I am discovering new things about myself all of the time. Lately I took up scrapbooking but use it more for gift items such a journals, baby books or art tags. In two weeks I start an art class at the college…..I am going to learn how to watercolor. This is something I have been wanting to do for ages and now I am making it happen. Learning is a never ending process and the key to staying interested in new things.

    Reply
  14. Beverly

    I LOVE! Photoshop!
    The house doesn’t even have to be picked up anymore for me to shoot a picture…and David’s acne problems? Not a problem anymore! I just circle the offending things in my pictures and erase them!
    HA~
    (Actually not photoshop but an MSN photo program…but I’m sure very similar.)

    Reply
  15. Connie

    You have such talent. I love all your projects.
    Hope you are doing well. Take good care of
    yourself.
    Hugs,
    Connie

    Reply
  16. delphine

    I went to Renoir’s Landscape exhibition last weekend…and dear Corey please start painting whenever you want.
    delphine

    Reply
  17. phyllis

    Good for you! How exciting. I learned some other program that is supposed to be easier but I don’t think I have the tricks you will have.
    I am enjoying learning spanish from neighbors!

    Reply
  18. My Melange

    Love the pics, Corey!! If you start painting, you sure are in a great place to start. Scenery all around you….

    Reply
  19. AnnieElf

    This post is so timely. I’ve been thinking about photoshop for a while. I guess I better move it to the front burner. I do have an MSN program that works well. At a minimum, I must more deeply explore that program and then photoshop myself to the next step. As for what I’m learning that is new – my poetry class! I’m discovering that I can actually put order to a defined idea and do it within a specific structure. In fact, using the structure make it “funner”. How’s that for a made up word? LOL

    Reply
  20. Ulla

    Isn’t Photoshop fun??? Love your new pieces, It totally opened up a new world for me, in creating new images from old! Now you just need a fab printer so you can sell them!

    Reply
  21. beachy

    You take such amazing photos… now you can do all sorts of fancy & beautiful things with them!

    Reply
  22. Jeanne

    For a Life to be rich and rewarding,
    it must be constantly infused
    with new scents, new ideas,
    new colours…
    Blessings my lovely friend
    You are fabulous!

    Reply
  23. Amy

    We currently have PaintShopPro, but I have been jonesing for PhotoShop for a while now… I know you will become addicted to it! 😀

    Reply
  24. Rosemary

    Corey,
    I think you have become a photoshop pro.
    The pictures are great! How wonderful to find a hidden surprise inside of an old book.
    I have discovered that I have a knack for making things out of paper. Never knew I could do that.
    Have a great weekend!
    Rosemary

    Reply
  25. parisbreakfasts

    Uh Oh :O
    LOOK OUT!
    Here comes Corey – Painter!!!

    Reply
  26. Sally

    What fun to find that hidden treasure in your book Corey!
    I love Photo Shop – I haven’t a clue how to use it but I get such a kick out of playing with the filters. Fun fun fun! 🙂
    Enjoy!

    Reply
  27. fleur

    Well, I’m a painter, and I think that if Photoshop allows anyone to be creative, it’s (as they say in the U.S. now) “all good”.

    Reply
  28. Colette

    Get a brush, some paint, and see what happens!!
    The painting looks like Matisse meets Van Gogh. Wonderful.
    xoxo

    Reply
  29. Jill

    That top photo is absolutely wonderful! Did you tweak it in PhotoShop or is that “real life”? It’s how I envision the old villages in the south of France to look like.

    Reply
  30. Sandy

    Isn’t Photoshop FUN, FUN, FUN!

    Reply
  31. Pamela

    Corey, I have to comment on this: my daughters gave me photo shop for mothers day and I didnt have time to sit down and try to learn it until summer…it is so amazing! For me, it is all about the photograph…perfecting, enchancing the photograph. But I am going to have to try this paint thing….I have ALWAYS wanted to be able to paint! And let me tell you, the late nights are inevitable as it is so addicting! The transition back to the school schedule is about to kill me! How fun to learn all this, right?

    Reply
  32. Sandy B

    Corey,
    I love your life perspective and I’ve never taken the time to leave a comment even though I visit you everyday. I too am at a place in life where I am learning new things and trying my wings. Thank you for being a bright spot in my day. By the way, your fantastic and interesting photos need no alteration unless it is for learning or artisitc purposes. I’m sure I’ll love them either way!

    Reply
  33. simple me

    hello lovely lady!
    your site is delicately painted and your words rich as always.
    I’ve been playing with photoshop for the past month and I’m loving it…great fun.
    hope you are having a wonderful weekend.
    love
    *p

    Reply
  34. Nora

    Now your images will be even more glorious!

    Reply
  35. Chantal

    I recently started playing with Photoshop too. It’s so much fun, isn’t it?!

    Reply
  36. Hasmin

    Cool what a little Photoshop can do! I have yet to learn. 🙂

    Reply
  37. Miz Booshay

    I would purchase the top print! It’s really beautiful!
    Hooray for you and photoshop :o)
    I am learning more about my camera every day.

    Reply
  38. Star

    You’ve made a wonderful start. But beware; it will pull you in and you won’t want to quit to do the necessary things in your day 😉
    Can’t wait to see more of your experiments!

    Reply
  39. Lea

    I love it Corey!!!! These photos just look super and what fun! What a great friend to have, photoshop!!!
    I’m learning how to solder jewelery and to do wire work, and how to trust my own sense of play and creativity… it is wonderful!

    Reply
  40. b

    I love my Photoshop Elements and even posted on a book I bought that was such a help. I to like to pretend I can paint.

    Reply
  41. Gillian

    I smell a side business…greeting cards, from France?
    xo
    Blue

    Reply
  42. patoucoeur

    oh!!! what a wonderfull photo!!!!!Sorry, but i’m french and i not speak english very well, so my futur comment was in french.
    bisous
    patou

    Reply
  43. cruststation

    You never cease to amaze with your talents, Photoshop now? looking forward to seeing more of your artwork 🙂 I love how you discovered the painting in a book, definitely a wonderful surprise.

    Reply
  44. Jenny Rebecca

    Corey – an extremely belated and heartfelt thank you for the beautiful little ring you sent to Parker! I’m extraordinarily behind on my thank you notes and was hoping to send you something handwritten before an email thank you but at the rate I’m going that will be quite awhile… The ring actually arrived before we even left the hospital! Joe had stopped off to get the mail and brought it back to me for a fun opening in our room. I’m going to save the envelope to scrapbook too. :0)
    In other news – I have a picture of what I think is the exact same window in Arles!!! I took this on our honeymoon in 2005: http://www.pbase.com/fanglord2/image/45128516
    Was it the back of a house/building bordering on a small parking lot or something? With the water to your back as you’re facing the window?
    _____________________________
    Yes! It is the same window two years later!!

    Reply
  45. Shelley Noble

    Hooray! Corey I’m Kvelling with joy that you’ve delved into Photoshop, Hooray!
    If you like, I could send you some PS recipes that will surprise you with how like natural media (painting, drawing, chalks, etc.) they appear. I can’t draw but there are canny combinations of “channel ops” I’m learning that give results *as if*.
    Then——they can be printed out, transferred onto fabrics, wood, whathaveyou, layered and actually painted, glazed in beeswax, the whole sha’bang. I KNOW you will love doing this.
    ——————————
    Yes yes yes please do!!

    Reply
  46. susanna

    Photoshop IS fun, isn’t it? I use it pretty well every day and there is still soooo much to learn.
    That painting tucked away in the old book is a great find, too. A special treat from 1955!
    What new things am I learning? I’m currently “embellishing” an old handbag for a magazine project. I don’t usually work in 3-D so this is a new (and challenging) activity for me. I also signed up for a silkscreening course at a local college. That should be alot of fun! I can’t wait to see what I can make. AND I signed up with another blogger I recently met who lives just down the road from me. Cool, huh?

    Reply
  47. Di Overton

    You can get treatment for addiction to Photoshop.

    Reply
  48. eb

    oh yes – photo shop is so fun – LOTS to learn and play with…
    images, imaging, imagining…
    I am learning to fly – trusting… too
    xox – eb.

    Reply
  49. annie lockhart

    photoshop rocks…there’s an online course that i’m taking right now…it’s free! lovin’ it! love your “painting”

    Reply
  50. tiffini elektra x

    You will be a natural – that is for sure with your eye and aesthetic! Can not wait to see what you come up with!

    Reply
  51. Alison Whittington

    mmmmmmmmmm…. Photoshop….. my FAVORITE thing on my computer.
    These look beautiful.
    As for paintings, you just have to pick up a paintbrush… and paint. If you don’t like what you’ve painted, paint another one. And if you don’t like that, paint another. Just keep painting. That’s all. I think you’d be a marvelous painter.

    Reply
  52. Liebling

    Your blog is incredible! you have caught the “spirit” of Paris with an incredible maneer 🙂 I live in Paris for 20+ years now, and this city still amaze me and the pleasure of walking streets never fade, but i have to admit that many of this little things wich you show here, became with time “normal”. So when i go on travel, only there, i remember how all of this miss in the picture.
    Amazing job!
    ps: sorry for my poor english, mais je parle bien mieux en français =)
    Liebling

    Reply
  53. Anke

    Isn’t it amazing how fotos can look if you alter them with a program? I love to play around too with my digital tools. So enjoy!!!!

    Reply
  54. AscenderRisesAbove

    your photos are the best; yes – grab that camera on the way out the door! but wait; you have two arms – stick that external drive under the other arm!

    Reply

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