"better to be unnoticed"
"keep your voice down"
"smile and act nice"
"stick to small talk"
"just keep your mouth shut"
"Kathrin Jean Gallaher I told you to be quiet!"
--
"Penny for your thoughts"
"what are you thinking about?"
oh nothing
"really nothing? you must be thinking something"
do you want from the beginning or where I'm at now?
"how 'bout from were you're at now"
But really, what for, my own edification? While there certainly is value to that, I still wonder, what shall I do with all of this stuff I’m making? I make pictures, to get the pictures out of my head, it has been cathartic. I need to do it. I push myself to do it even when I don’t feel like making something. I onsker a publisere en bok. Jeg har vurdert selvtillit publisering, men egentlig kan jeg ikke har rad til det, kan jeg ikke engang har rad til a gjore en enkelt skrive ut enda mindre en stund bok. Jeg kan absolutt se for tilskudd til lansering i en begrenset kjore, but ideally I’d like to pick up representation so the effort goes out beyond me. How?
"uh, hey I gotta go"
yeah, I'm sure you do.
--
--

It's an interesting line we're asked to walk - be strong and confident, and be pretty and quiet at the same time, to be pretty but not beautiful. Real people aren't beautiful, beautiful people aren't real.

I am pretty good at nodding and smiling. I'm good with stump speeches. I'm a great public speaker. And I can make an entrance! Regular conversation is probably a bit loopy. Perhaps people think it's cute with my cartoon voice. Otherwise I'm a broody silent type with steely eyes that see right through BS.

While I may not talk much, I do think that what I have to say is worth hearing, or I wouldn't be talking at all. If you wanna know what point I'm trying to make, hang on, I'll get there, and it will be wonderfully rewarding for the time. I'm funny, smart, whatever. Story telling is a family trait.

As a kid, when asked, I'd tell what I was thinking, and then get in trouble, even sent to my room for what was on my mind - which I'm sure was the deepest black mess a kid could have without putting kittens through the laundry. It's a wonder I'm normal really.

Press the letter "L" for the Lightbox view

This is a photo I took almost 2 years ago of Jeremiah and a youing girl named Hope that really wanted to be part of his life. I've been playing for years with Actions that don't work and tutorials that are blah, trying to do decent cartoons. This one came out pretty good and I'll tell you how I did it.
Start with a bright colorful photo. This is all done with Artistic Filters. Start by going to Filters, Artistic and the Poster Edges. Start by setting the Thickness to 8, the Intensity to 8, and the Posterization to 5. If this doesn't look right adjust them a bit. A lot depends on the brightness and color of your photo, and the size. I used 72 Dots per inch on this one.
After this I went to Sponge, then to Smudge stick. Try these and just play with the numbers until it looks right to you. If it doesn't, after poster edges try Dry Brushes, Cut Out, or Fresco. One of these is exactly what you are looking for. If you don't like what an effect is giving you just cancel it and try another one.
It's hard to come up with a hard and fast tutorial for this effect, there are so many variables. I guarantee you though if you try this, you can make it work for you.