Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day

a symbol presenting the memory of 1.5 Million Armenians who were massacred and killed by the Ottoman empire of Turkey

This year on April 24th, we once again remember all the Armenian people who lost their lives during the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. My great-grandmother’s entire family was killed along with 1.5 million Armenian people. My great-grandmother survived concentration camps in the Syrian Desert. She was only 16 years old and the only one from her entire family who survived. She went through hell, but she stayed alive. She survived, she preserved her heritage, she was a proud Armenian woman. Turkey failed to kill her, and they failed to make her forget who she was and who her family and nation were.
She did not speak a lot about what she saw and experienced during the Genocide (she tried to protect her daughter and grandchildren). When she spoke, we saw how strong she was. Even after going through everything she went through, she still was an incredibly kind woman and grandmother who loved her children more than anything. She passed away when I was a child. I remember the day she died and the day of her funeral. So many people came to pay their last respects to this strong woman. As a child, I loved her and respected her because she was my great-grandmother. After the massacre of the Armenian people in Baku, after I went through what my great-grandmother went through, I understand how strong she was to go on with her life after everything.
I don’t know if she had “bad dreams” every night as I am having. I do know every single generation of women in my family went through genocide and massacres by Turkey and Azerbaijan. Every single woman from my great-grandmother to me. Every generation in my family (from both sides) experienced genocide, massacres, deportation, and relocations. We say to each other that we are lucky, we survived, we escaped. We did more than survive. We are Armenian people, and we remember who we are and where we came from. We are people of the Armenian nation. We are alive; we create, we build, and we are preserving our heritage.
Turkey and Azerbaijan tried to kill us; they wanted to erase us from the face of the Earth. They failed. We are still here and going nowhere. The entire world saw what they did and do and will never forgive them for that.
If I could, I would say all the names of the people who lost their lives in Turkey during the Armenian Genocide in 1915. I don’t know all of the names, but I know the name of my great-grandmother, the woman who SURVIVED the Armenian Genocide. Her name is Sonya. I want the world to remember this brave and strong woman, and I want the world to know her name.

My family has only one image of my great-grandmother Sonya and I painted it today

great-grandmother Sonya

We know what Turkey did to us, to Armenian people, because of the many brave people worldwide who saw it and told the world about it. We know it because of the stories of survivors.
Aurora Mardiganian is one of the survivors who told the world the truth about the Armenian Genocide. I re-read her book a few weeks ago, I was reading the book, and I was hoping that maybe she would mention the name of my great-grandmother or her family. I was hoping because Aurora and her family were in concentration camps in the Syrian Desert as my great-grandmother was.
In memory of Aurora, I painted her as a small thank you.

Aurora Mardiganian

As an Armenian woman, as a survivor of Armenian massacres by Azerbaijan people in Baku, I will continue telling my story and the story of my family to anyone willing to listen. I will continue telling what I saw because this could help to prevent the next genocide or massacres.
I don’t want anyone to see what we saw, and I want people to sleep at night without trying to escape in their dreams over and over and over.
When we try to survive, we have no other option but to fight, try to do everything possible to stay alive and keep our loved ones alive. We are in survival mode. To let go of survival mode is the most challenging part, and I am still working on it.

If you want to make a difference and have the ability to do so, please, consider donating to the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative

During the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Empire in 1915, the biggest part of the Armenian male population was killed. The survivors are mostly women. This year for April 24th, I painted the image of the Armenian woman who survived and who brave enough to protect her loved ones, who were brave enough to preserve Armenian culture and nation. The dove in her hands represents all of us, all Armenians around the world.

My News, Uncategorized

A letter to all women

Navigating in the real world is difficult for everyone, but for women, it’s more difficult in many ways.
People around me always tried to tell me what I should and should not do. It doesn’t matter what I did; I always heard that I did something wrong because “I am too young,” or “I am too old,” ‘I don’t smile enough,” or “I smile a lot.”
As a little girl, I learned how to ignore bullies. As a teenager, I learned something new. I realized that if you are a woman, you should work three times harder than a man (doing the same job!) This is not because you are less talented than a man is. Some people and society decided and assigned a “specific place” for women to be in.
I always worked three times harder than men. It’s was a priority for me to be better, to know as much as possible about my work or anything else I am doing. It was and still is important to me. As a freelancer, I know that I could not get a project just because I am a woman. Yes, it’s that simple. It’s always someone who has an opinion about what women should and should not do. It’s always someone who thinks that a “woman’s place is in the kitchen,” or a woman is not strong enough, or someone who disagrees with a woman’s outfit “it’s too short” or “it’s too long”. It’s always “something” or not enough.
I spent a lot of time in my life trying to change something about me to look “more professional and be acceptable in the man dominated world.” I thought if I change my hairstyle or dress style, wear makeup, not wear makeup, or change anything else it will help me. I tried to find “that one thing” that will help people to understand that I am as smart and hard-working a professional as any man in my profession.
I did not find “that one thing” for a long time. It took some time to understand that I don’t care about what society decided for me. I am not spending my time anymore to find “that one thing.” I know who I am, and I don’t need to prove it to anyone. If you ask me if everything is better now and sexism disappeared from my life? My answer is no. I still need to prove every single day that I am who I am. Sexism still exists. Some people with a twisted understanding will always try to show a woman her place. But, news flash: no woman will accept it, keep silent, or cry anymore. It’s the 21st century, and it is long overdue for the world to understand and accept that a woman is a full member of society, that women belong in the office, business, meeting, project, or any decision-making place.
I decided to share this today with you, women and girls, because I want each of you to understand earlier than later that YOU ARE a full member of society. I want you to realize that you are intelligent, beautiful, strong, and can build any business you wish. You don’t have to waste YOUR time to find “that one thing.” You have “that one thing,” and it’s YOU.

Adobe Mobile, Digital Art, Event, For you, My News, Uncategorized

International women’s day

Happy International Women’s Day, ladies! I wish all of you to be happy, strong, and love yourself. I love this day, and I was celebrating this day for as long as I can remember. Whether it was with greeting cards (made by myself or bought from the store), perfume, and flowers, a lot of flowers always were in the house on this day. My favorite flowers were yellow tulips. I still love them. Also, this day was associated with early spring.
Today I want to share this day with you. I have news I want to share.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, I painted Frida Kahlo. Frida represents everything that I adore and respect in women. She combined a fantastic talent and beautiful artistic soul with incredible strength. She was a brilliant painter. Frida painted what she felt. She never thought about how to “fit into society,” not in her art and not based on what society believes how a woman should look. “Feet, what do I want them for if I have wings to fly.” She was a feminist, so am I. 

I painted Frida many times. But I painted today’s portrait of Frida differently. I painted it in black and white (just like a picture of her that I saw). Look into her eyes, and you will see the beauty and the strength of her soul. 

Painted in Adobe Fresco on Apple iPad Pro using Apple pencil. 

Frida Kahlo

My other news for today, and I so proud and happy about it:
Every year I mentor two girls for one year. During the year, I will build their knowledge in digital imaging. This program is free. The only requirements are:
1: a willing to learn
2: be from immigrant or minority community
3: be from a low-income family
4: have internet access
I am doing this by myself, and I don’t have any support, so I can’t provide my students with the internet, iPad, or anything else. I hope one day I will be able to help with these requirements as well.
P.S. If any of my readers want to help with anything, please let me know.

Now drum roll, please! I want to introduce my first student for this year – Tiffany Ferguson! She is 9 years old and a very talented girl. She loves working with Adobe Fresco, Adobe Photoshop, and traditional painting. We had our first two classes, and to be honest I am impressed with her progress and willingness to learn! I will be posting our progress every month.

Image by Renee L. Ferguson

Thank you Renee L. Ferguson for the behind the scenes images she took during our classes.

Photography, Uncategorized

Adding the same look to multiple images

Hello everyone. It’s Monday, so today is the day for my new blog post.
Today I want to share with you a tip that will help you in your photography workflow. You asked me, and I heard you!
Very often, we want to apply the same feeling, atmosphere to multiple images. Today I will show you one of my favorite tricks in Photoshop.
I have opened my image I would like to work with

Window > Adjustments

Click on “Create a New Color Lookup adjustment layer”

You can choose any LUT from drop down menu. My favorite is “Fall Colors. look”

After you click on it, Photoshop will add it as a separate layer with a layer mask applied already, which makes everything much easier.

I changed the blend mode for this layer to “Screen.”

My image is ready!

Now you can apply the same steps to any other image(s) you would like to have the same look. This is how easy you can apply the same atmosphere to as many images as you wish.

Introduction to digital painting on mobile with Adobe Fresco and Adobe Illustrator on iPad
Date: 02/17/2021
Time: 7 PM ET

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My news of the week, Uncategorized

Harriet Tubman

It’s Black History Month, and I would like to start this month with a portrait of the woman I admire the most. 

Harriet Tubman was born into slavery. From her childhood, she was beaten by the various slave owners. She suffered a traumatic head wound that affected her life. She had pain, dizziness all her life. Despite all of this, she escaped to Philadelphia and RETURNED to rescue her family! After that, Tubman returned many times more to rescue others. She was traveling at night and had her strategy. Tubman never lost a passenger. 

During the Civil War, she worked for the Union Army. Tubman started as a cook and nurse, and later on as an armed scout and spy. Harriet Tubman became the first woman to lead an armed expedition during the war. She guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 enslaved people. 

Tubman is the woman who was a fighter, the woman who did not keep her head down as she was told and forced to do. She was fighting for human rights, for equality, for freedom. It was dangerous and painful, BUT she did it! She said, “I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.”

Harriet Tubman is my hero. She stood for the right things, and she believed in them. In so many situations, it’s not easy to do. Even when it is not easy, even when we are not sure how we can do this, we MUST try. As Tubman said, “I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.” It doesn’t matter how tired we are, and it doesn’t matter how many times people showed us the place they think we need to stay at; we MUST fight for human rights, for woman rights, for equality for everyone! Never say “I can’t”, because you are strong and you CAN. Harriet Tubman did show us that we can do it all!!! 

P.S. I hope that one day we will not celebrate Black History for only one month. I hope we will celebrate it every day. I know we can do it. Harriet Tubman said, “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

I painted a portrait of Harriet Tubman in Adobe Illustrator on iPad

My Upcoming Events

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Digital Art, Mobile, Uncategorized, Upcoming Events

You are invited to my upcoming events

My upcoming events

How to get started with digital painting in Adobe Photoshop

DATE: 02/04/2021
TIME: 5:00 PM ET

Do you want to start painting in Photoshop, but you’re not sure where to start? If your answer is yes, this webinar is for you. You will learn how to start your painting in Photoshop and how to customize your brushes and workspace. If you are a photographer and want to create your next masterpiece based on a photograph, I will show you how to do it. By the end of the webinar, you will be able to download a library with different backgrounds that you can use in your painting in Photoshop.

Part 1:
Description:
In this session, you will learn how to customize your workspace and brushes for your custom needs. Customizing your tools and workspace helps you to be more creative and making your painting process more enjoyable.

Part 2:
Description:
We all have different painting experience, style, inspiration, and vision. In this session, I will show you a few different ways to start your painting.

Part 3:
Description:
Colors play a huge role in painting. I would say that colors are the most powerful and important tool in any art. Sometimes when we just start our painting journey, blending colors could be challenging. In this session of the class, I will show a few ways of blending colors. You can choose the one you like the most.

Part 4:
Description:
I believe that we were born with an artistic soul inside of us. Most of us all want to paint. Creation is the primary language of the universe. I hear it all the time “I want to paint so much, but I can’t.” “I never painted before so I think I can’t paint in Photoshop.”In this session, I will show you how you can create your own masterpiece even if you’ve never painted before.

Part 5:
Description:
I believe that the most important aspect in any painting is to be creative and enjoy what you do. In the 21st century, we can combine both: the artistic and technical sides of our painting in Photoshop. The best part is that if we do it in a smart way we can pay more attention to the artistic side because the technology will do the rest. In this part of our class, I will show you how to do it.

Buy Tickets

Introduction to digital painting on mobile

DATE: 02/10/2021
TIME: 7:00 PM ET

We all want to have the freedom to create anywhere. Now with Adobe Illustrator on iPad and Adobe Fresco on iPad we can create art from anywhere at anytime. During this class you will learn how to get started in Adobe Fresco and Adobe Illustrator on iPad. By the end of our class I will provide you with a library of backgrounds that you can use in your next project. 

Adobe Fresco on iPad

Part 1:
Description:
In this part, you will learn how to create a new document from scratch or how to use ready-to-go templates and how you can customize them.

Part 2:
Description:
Brushes play one of the biggest roles in a painting workflow. In this part I will show you the different brushes available for use in Fresco and how you can customize them to make each brush more unique.

Part 3: 
Description:
Colors play a very important role in storytelling when creating art. In this part of our webinar, I will show you how you can use colors in Fresco, how to create new colors, how to use the same color across all Adobe applications.

Part 4: 
Description:
The most common question people ask me is “how can I blend colors in digital painting?” In this part of our webinar, I will show you a few techniques for blending colors in Fresco

Part 5: 
Description:
Live brushes in Fresco are incredibly awesome and fun to work with. I will show you how to use them, how to customize them and combine them together to create your next masterpiece.

Part 6:
Description:
How to start a painting and finish it using only one brush. How to use different brushes in one art piece. In this part of our webinar, I will show how to use different brushes, how to take advantage of different brushes in any painting.


Adobe Illustrator on iPad

Part 1: 
Description:
In this part of our webinar, you will learn how to create a new document from scratch or use ready-to-go templates. You will get familiar with the beauty of illustrator on iPad, UI, and art tools.

Part 2: 
Description:
I will show how to use the Pen Tool (you will never believe how easy and how much fun you can have to working with the Pen tool)

Part 3: 
Description:
Colors are important. In this part of our webinar, I will show how to use colors in illustrator on iPad and how to use different types of gradients

Part 4: 
Description:
Yes, we can blend colors in vector art and I will show you how.

Part 5: 
Description:
How to create art in a smart way. In this part of our webinar, I will show you how.

Buy Tickets

Accessories I love and use every day

  • HD8RV29 Pro Stand facilitates overhead stable live streaming from your phone on a counter, table, podium, desk, or other flat surface
  • TAB131 Tablet Clamp Mount attaches to the shaft/pole portion of the Pro Stand and can be used to log in to live video apps on a secondary device to see comments or to see the view of the phone that’s positioned overhead

If you are planning to purchase this stand, you can use my code “pavlov” to save 20%

   

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My News, Uncategorized

It’s a new Year -2021

Goodbye 2020 and welcome 2021. Happy New Year, everyone. I wish you a lot of happiness, stay healthy, stay creative.

This is my first blog post in 2021. During this year, I have planned to share with you a lot of new posts, tutorials, news. But I need your help. I want to ask you to share with me what you would like to see from me in 2021. What topic(s) you are most interested in.
For me, it’s important to have a two-way conversation with you.
If you have a few minutes to spare, please, help me to understand what you would like to see from me, answering a few questions from the form below. Thank you in advance!

Join me for my live stream on Wednesday, January 6 at 11AM ET


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My News, Uncategorized

Thank you!

Hello everyone. Welcome to another Monday blog post day. Today I want to wish each of you Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
2020 wasn’t the easiest year. This year was difficult for everyone. The entire world has been impacted by COVID-19. People lost their loved ones, people lost their jobs, families don’t know how they will put bread on the table.
In 2020 we saw a lot of injustice. People with other than white skin tones were treated unacceptably wrong.
With all these injustices, infections, cries, the hunger for many people we saw in 2020, we also saw something else. We saw that people with ALL skin tones, genders, religions were on the streets supporting Black Lives Matter. We saw so many people donating money, food to local food shelters. We saw our heroes in white uniform fitting for every single life of COVID patience. Our teachers, our heroes teaching our children via ZOOM. We saw how people come together in 2020 to support each other. This is what COVID could not take from us. This is what makes us human.

In this Holiday Season, I want to say thank YOU to my readers, my followers, my friends, and my family for being with me, for supporting me, for pushing me to dream, to be better, and simply to be who I am.

I want to wish you happiness and good health. I wish for you to be with the people you love and who love you. I wish for you to dream because if we can dream, we can create.

With love,
Victoria


Adobe Photoshop, Digital Art, Uncategorized

THE Painting effect you were waiting for

Hello everyone. Great to see you all here!
Today is the day for many of you who asked me how you can convert your image into a painting if you are not a painter and don’t want to spend a lot of time painting.
Topaz Studio is what you need. In just under 5 minutes, you can convert your photo into art. Let me show how.
Open an image that you want to convert into a painting.

Click on Filter > Topaz Studio 2

Photoshop will launch Topaz Studio

Click on Add Look

Topaz will display a library with many different styles of painting looks (From Leonardo da Vinci to Pastel) that you can add to your image. I love many of them and I know you will as well.

Click on any look you want to add to your image. My favorite look is Cezzane so I will click on this look. After you specify the look you want, Topaz will display a slider that you can use to apply less or more of the painting effect to the image.

When we happy with a painting effect, we can click on Apply to apply this effect to the image.Now you can apply your personal touches to the painting to make it more personal and unique.

Click on “Impression.” Here you can change stroke, the number of strokes, and brush size.

From the Color and Lighting workspaces you can adjust colors and lighting in your image. I don’t use these features a lot because if I use Topaz as a plug-in in Photoshop, I prefer to adjust everything in my image before I launch Topaz.

Texture is my one of favorite features. Using the Textue workspace you can add texture to your image and the best part is that using Texture Strength you can adjust how much texture effect you want to apply.

After you are happy with everything you are ready to click on Accept and your image will return to Photoshop with an applied painting effect.
This is how easy it is to convert a photo into a painting in just under five minutes.

Most of us feel better when we create. Some of us have painting experience, some of us don’t. Having no experience shouldn’t keep you from creating. I believe that all of us can create. Creation is our natural language and Topaz Studio makes our voices heard. If you wanted to paint, but never did before, today is the day. Start your art today with Topaz Studio.

Pocket Tripod Pro

For you, Giveaway, My News, Uncategorized

‘Tis the Season

It was a time in my life when my daughter and I were without food. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work. I wasn’t able to find a job anywhere. I was looking for a job all day and every day. We were able to buy a jar of pickles on sale for 85¢, and a loaf of bread also on sale for $1,07. We sliced pickles very thin to put it on top of a slice of bread. We ate it three times a day. We were happy to afford it and eat every day and to be honest, I love pickles.


It’s the Holiday season again, but this year it’s different than it used to be. The entire world is having to deal with COVID-19 this year. Every single person is affected by it in one or another way.
So many people are without work, heat, or food. So many people could not put any food on the table. So many children are hungry.
Together, we can help. We can help some families to put a slice of pickles on top of a slice of bread.
I have created a few coloring pages for this Holiday Season. You can download them for free and use them in your traditional or digital painting. If you feel that you can spare some money to help the hungry people in Georgia, please donate anything to the Atlanta Foodbank you can (even $1 will be gladly appreciated).


Thank you so much, and Happy Holidays Season!

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