Like the rest of ds106, I participated in the Fat Cats Make Better Art Assignment.  However, to be fair, I did start this assignment last Tuesday when fellow ds106 pioneer Annie posted it. And to be fair I never touched any photo editing software before, ever. And to be fair, just telling someone to alter layers is not actually helpful (darn you Photoshop tutorials from hell!).

Thanks to Alan, and his GIMPing Layers tutorial I was able to figure out a few of the techniques I had been struggling with, like copying and pasting the cat straight onto the original art work. It was so easy and yet soooo difficult.

The Process:

I did cheat and uploaded the image to Picnik first. I needed to resize the image smaller so it would not look like Cat Godzilla napping on some girl’s poor back. Next, I added the ‘Dots and Dots’ filter in order to make the cat look more like an oil painting and less like a digital photo (which it is). I am sure Gimp has these tools too, but I already sent days playing with the program and I just needed to admit defeat.

On Gimp, I used the magical lasso to cut out just the cat’s head, front paws, and a portion of its back. Next, I click on Select -> INvert -> and then Cut. Then like magic the background and the rest of cat disappeared!

Since I already manipulated the image of the cat in Picnik I only needed to move him into the perfect spot. Then Bam! Fat cat takes a nap on art.

Overall, this is not one of the more successful conceptualization of this assignment. Some example of really cool fat cat art can be found here, here and here. And I cheated too. However, completing this assignment marks my triumph over a long struggle with Gimp. So there.