What makes an artist an artist?

I dabbled at drawing as a young child. Coloring and painting were fun endeavors from time to time although my efforts were short-lived and unimpressive. I sewed my own creations and even made little stuffed animals that I had my brothers help me sell. I did some paper crafts that were bookmarks. Glued things together now and then. Molded clay into unrecognizable shapes by anyone other than me. I remember being quite hurt that my father thought my horse sculpture was a cow even after I made it twice and worked extra hard at it the second time.

Once I even gathered sand rocks, crushed them to powder, and mixed it with water to make naturally pigmented "paints." They were quite dull and I lost interest. Another time, we collected and smashed purple Polk berries to make a red paint that ended up only dyeing our fingertips.

I've crocheted afghans and I've made quilts by machine. At one time I sewed beautiful western shirts complete with snaps. And I sewed my own wedding dress for my first wedding. (Yes, I have had more than one wedding but that's ok) In more recent times, I attempted jewelry making. So many creative pursuits I have tried.

For all of my efforts, at no time have I ever considered myself an artist. To be honest, I don't really know what constitutes being an artist. I just never felt like the word applied to me.

To have balance in my life though, I need a creative outlet and the one thing that has carried me through many a dark time is photo manipulation. I love photography although it is yet again a creative medium that I am just mediocre with at best. Still, I give it a go and have fun with it. But some of my greatest fun is taking my photos and digitally enhancing them or doing what is called photo manipulation. Because software is used to alter the photos in creative ways, I found it hard to call what I do "art." But today, I saw an article that stated:

Put simply, photo manipulation is changing photos to create an illusion. Widely accepted as an art form, photo manipulation requires skill as well as an active imagination. Using Photoshop and other photo editing tools, digital artists have recently taken it to mind-blowing levels, creating everything from surreal and dark environments to strange and otherworldly animals.

https://mymodernmet.com/10-incredible-photo/

Even if it wasn't classified as art, I love manipulating photos. It has a strange therapeutic and soothing effect on me as I experiment with various effects, filters, add things on or take things out.

Some of the software programs I use to make my creations are:

• Photoshop - thankfully it comes in a very affordable monthly subscription. When I first got Photoshop years ago, you had to buy it outright and it was quite pricey.
• PhotoPea - this is a browser-based program nearly identical to Photoshop. It is very handy because I don't have to load anything on my computer and can access it from anywhere. Did I mention it is free?...
• GoArt.Fotor - this is also a browser-based program that is basically a bank of 50 filter presets you can run your photos through. I am ever amazed with the outcome of what these filters do to a photo. This one does require a paid subscription.
• Krita - this is a free download. Though it is similar to Photoshop in many ways, it had a very impressive capability to color fill sketched outlines. Check out this video and you will see why I was so impressed with this software.

My creative partner, Sol Ess (his artistic name), used Krita to create our Cardoodle deck of oracle cards that we collaborated together on. Here are samples of the cards that he made.

Like me, Sol found it difficult to consider his doodles as art. It was just something he did with pen and paper to pass the time. But taking his simple sketches and popping them into Krita, he generated artwork for a 54 card deck. I especially enjoyed that he "cardoodled" me, my husband and himself. When he showed me the Happiness-Contentment card, I knew immediately it was my husband due to all the cats and the fact that they are my husband's zen. And the Witch was easily me. Well done! And YES, Sol, you are an artist and your doodling IS art.

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Below on the left is the original version of my cover photo, which was manipulated as shown on the right. The photo on the right was then manipulated again to generate numerous variations, one of which is my featured story cover.

So far my art has been simple and one-dimensional, but I have aspirations to do more complex creations. Wish me luck on my creative journey.