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Our current #MastoArtHeader is by @brandkopf !
"I'm a hobbyist from Bavaria, doing traditional and digital illustrations. "
If you'd like your art to be featured, it needs to be 1500x500px, and you can toot it to us with the hashtag #MastoArtHeader ^.^ You can include some info about yourself for us to share, or we'll pull it from your profile. 
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•ART will never serve you ads, track you, sell your data, or charge you to use our site. But there are still costs related to running one of the largest artistic communities on Mastodon, and we rely on the generous support of our users to keep the lights on.
If you have the means and inclination, you can support us in two ways:
https://www.patreon.com/mastodonart
https://liberapay.com/Curator/
Otherwise, just keep on inspiring the 
with your amazing art! Thank you!
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Following is a thread of toots about how you can support •ART.
Our instance is fully hosted and managed by @mastohost, who does such a fantastic job keeping us updated and running smoothly!
But it also costs money every month, and we rely on the support of our users to keep going.
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Looking for other creative instances to try out? Take a look at these excellent choices:
General #art:
http://imaginair.es
http://kafuka.me
http://mastodon.art
http://merveilles.town
http://raconteur.ink
http://artalley.social (18+, NSFW)
#Photography:
http://photog.social
#Writing:
http://writing.exchange
http://wandering.shop
#Comics/Narrative art:
http://comics.town
http://comicscamp.club
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I'm going to start a thread of quick #MastoTips for new users. Apologies for any hiccoughs, these toots aren't planned, so they may seem a little haphazard. 
First of all: Welcome to Mastodon! If you're coming from Twitter you'll find some things very similar. Mastodon is a microblogging platform for sharing thoughts, photos, music, video, etc.
Posts on Mastodon are affectionately called "toots". You can laugh, it's OK. We found it funny too when we first joined. 
Today's #CC0 #ArtReference photo! It has a boat, it has a windmill, it has water, it has fun layered buildings - what more do you need :D
Recreate it in your own style, sketch it for practice, or maybe find some inspiration ^.^ And share your creations here!
Enjoy!
(Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/windmill-mill-river-wind-holland-5909414/)
Everything you create contributes to your experience pool, and the greater that pool, the better you'll be. Afraid of finishing something in case you spoil it? Finish anyway. Doesn't matter if you don't like it at the end; you got practice and experience and your next creation will be better. Every mistake is a lesson, every 'failed' piece an exercise in building knowledge and honing skill. Plus, often, the things you don't like will be adored by someone else. We don't all have the same taste <3
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator 
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So, I'm still learning how to social media, especially on here, but I make a bunch of music and I love it if you guys checked out my bandcamp. Maybe tell me how my music could be better. I would also love to converse with other artists on here. :) 😀 Sosasoundstn.bandcamp.com #electronicmusic #music #art #sound #drumandbass
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
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An assortment of styles from 2011-2012 <3
#JordanLynnGribbleArt #Art #MastoArt #CreativeToots #Watercolor #LateNightToots #Abstract #Goddess #Anime #Green
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@Curator Thought I do a little science fiction spin on it
#ArtReference #babylon5
It's Friday, yaaaaay! Good morning all :) Do you have any creative plans for the weekend? What will you be working on?
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
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@Curator It might seem like a given, but if you're trying out #watercolor, use watercolor paper (or something meant to handle water media). Strathmore makes decent quality, affordable student grade watercolor paper imho that should hold up well enough under experimentation. Specifically, you want to get something that is AT LEAST student grade, not something that was meant for kids. Budget allowing, of course, but the paper/surface quality is super important for watercolor. #IntroToWatercolor
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
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Printing progress:
Many hours & a thumb cut later! #mastoart
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
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Hey everyone!
I'm new on here so I thought I'd make an #introduction !
I love sketching and am currently trying out new styles.
Everything fantasy related catches my interest, so expect a lot of that! <:
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@Curator
Every time when I want to precisely move a selected piece on canvas horizontally or vertically without a single pixel of error, I used to just hold the arrow key and wait for 3000 years for the piece to move over. And recently I realized I can actually use ctrl+T to enter transform mode and hold shift while dragging the piece to the ideal spot.
I think this works on both SAI/CSP/PS? I wish i know this auto-align trick earlier so i dont waste so much time waiting 😂
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
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Using blue pencil to sketch out the basic structure before drawing over it with grey pencil.
It allows for very rough sketching without having to erase it. After scanning, you can separate the image into RGB with a photo editing program, and the blue layer yields a clean sketch, ready to ink.
(Basically the non-repro blue approach, except that with the computer, 'just' blue works fine.)
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
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@Curator
Fun times in CSP here we go 😂
So have you ever tried to blend two colors but can't find the swatch that's an exact mix of the two?
Simple! Go to window > intermediate color
In those big squares put the colors you want and boom!
The alternative is approximate color where you can take your coloring swatch and change the brightness + saturation of a color.
Go to Window > approximate color for that one :3c
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
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@Curator What helped me when I really wanted to draw but no line seemed to come out right are "warm up sketches", but nothing too complicated.
Just fill a page/screen with horizontal lines as quick as you can from right to left vise versa, then the same with vertical lines. Trying to get as close to the one before, doesn't have to look like its drawn with a ruler. Then to finish this warm up off, circles. Start with a big one, draw one inside of it, staying as close to the one before.
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
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(PS-centric, I thiink CSP has cool features bypassing this issue)
@Curator When flatting (colouring in linework), to avoid spending ages using lasso/brush I tend to use fill (cmd/alt backspace for fg/bg colour) if my linework has enough closed lines. I think this is generally frowned upon because of the gap that can appear between line and colour. BUT selecting with wand/magic lasso then going to Select > Modify > Expand (or Contract) in the menu circumvents this. I've set these up as Actions.
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
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@Curator for those saving images or video into lossy formats (think JPG, or video encoding) and wondering about the quality loss:
You can visualize the difference between an original image and its encoded version by
- opening them as layers in Gimp or Photoshop
- inverting the upper layer (that's "Linear Invert" in Gimp)
- making the upper layer 50% transparent
If the two layers are 100%, pixel-per-pixel identical, you'd get a solid 50% grey. If there are small differences (like it happens with compression artefacts), you're going to see them as darker or lighter pixels/areas (see pic here).
This makes it easier to visualize/quantify the quality of the encoding/compression process one is using.
Had some lovely farm-fresh fruit in today and the pears still had their leaves on, so I thought they'd make for nice still life #ArtReference images for you to use! (#CC0 also.)
These are all phone photos, and I used a big black A2-size sheet of card that was a cheap buy from the 'school supplies' section of the supermarket to create an infinity curve. I set it up on top of the oven, which is in an area of the house with no direct light, for softer lighting. (Two more in the next toot)
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Here's one from me. Scour your local second hand book shops for unlikely art reference sources. These were all very cheap finds and are great inspiration and reference!
Mastodon•ART 🎨 Curator
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