obsession number blue

so i really feel like playing poker again. ash and i went to greg and nikki's last night and watched some reality tv. i was happy to hear that they wanted to play again.

i havn't done any of my homework so far. saturday night i discovered this website (youareart.co.uk). they take your picture and they turn it into a piece of "art." they have a couple of variations from traditional oil portraits to warholian screen prints. my favorite style is the vectorized portraits.

i stumbled upon it while i was trying to figure out how to make my own paint by number. id had the idea to run a picture through macromedia flash and then clean it up adobe illustrator. i had this elaborate idea where i used the magic wand tool to select each color and apply a number pattern to it. then i was going to print it out on four sheets of iron on transfer paper and iron it on a 16x20 canvas.
i finally decided that the numbers were unnecessary and i could just print it in grayscale and paint over it.

the biggest problem was getting the picture to be simple like the examples at youareart. After trying endless vectorizing programs (flash, expression, silhouette) i still could not get the effect i was looking for. everything came out too jagged and lacked the broad, but controlled, curves at youareart. then i realized that illustrator had a "simplify" option and that helped a lot. i had to to copy a few areas to keep the detail in the hair and eyes, etc.

it still seems to lack their finesse, however.
after i got the vectors printed out i tried to iron it on to a primed canvas. next time ill use unprimed because i think the transfers will more easily attach.
at that point it basically becomes a paint-by-number.

now would be an appropriate time to start the discussion on "what is art?"

so i discovered this challenge on saturday night and spent the remainder of the evening trying to figure it out. i had a hard time going to sleep because i was thinking about it. i spent most of sunday working on it. it drives me crazy. i get started on a project and i cant stop. it becomes an obsession. in four days i wont care about it either way, but as soon as i get started i have a tendency to let things consume me. i should probably work on that.