Tis the Season

 

 

 

They won't always be perfect on the first try. This is the third version. The corner where the texture sits is too bright. I couldn't adjust enough layers of texture to cover it without messing up the exposure on the rest of the photo. That's what happens when you don't know how to take decent photos boys and girls.

 

Otherwise... it mostly works. The text is in two segments and layered in the overlay mode. This allows the texture behind it to truly come through the lettering instead of fading it. To me this looks more like a transparency than any thing else which makes me happy. I just didn't lighten the raven enough.

 

I did get in there and touch up the eye and the beak with the draw function. Whoo hoo! And the spectral raven flying through the overhead makes for a nice touch with the idea of things not letting you sleep from the quote. It is part Poe, part Blues Traveler.

 

I think it works... mostly.

Undershaw

I certainly hope that this is legible. And that if you click on it you will get a bigger picture. I've spent the day writing and creating an unauthorized promotional post to help save Undershaw, the home of Arthur Conan Doyle for what might be argued to be the most important decade in his Holmesian career.

Parts of this piece should look familiar. Other than lifting the image of the house from the website, I used two of my own photos for filters and applied a couple of picmonkey filters. I don't know what good will come of it. Submitted to the Undershaw Preservation Trust to use as it will, I might see it somewhere else on the web. If not oh well....

It was fun and made for an interesting entry in the art everyday goal for this month.

Fruit & Jar

 

 

Seriously. There is nothing like editing software to fix all of your mistakes. Okay.... maybe not ALL. But the glaring mistake of the apple in the original is completely wiped out and this thing has more character in it now than it has otherwise.

 

 

See?

 



Easter Eggs

Again: lots of layers. And here is the thing that you want to keep in mind while using picmonkey. When you apply several layers at once, you will want to use merge function after the second or third layer. LOVE THESE LAYERS: you will NOT be able to go back and edit them once they have been merged..

I applied several textures and erased everything over the green bowl each time. Then I merged. I added more layers and this time erased the bowl and the pale background at the top so that I could keep it looking like real marble. Then merged. Next applied the texture that is the cracked marble, keeping it only over the three center eggs. Added a pink splotchy texture that looked like a scraped polaroid film )sorry, I can not remember the name of this one). Merged. Then a layer of cosmic dust. Merge. Then I did another marble layer, leaving it right over where I put it before. I can not explain why this added more depth to the cracks in the big egg... but it is truly happiness to see it look authentically cracked AND mottled.

The tricolored overlays? Pick an overlay, decide the size, duplicate it several times. Place an overlay, make it your bright color (highlight) then lay another one over it, chose a mid-tone, erase the mid-tone layer where you want to see highlights, lay the darkest layer over the top and erase from the dark layer everything else. This will reveal previous layers and give the effect of being reasonably well planned to be realistic. I think it was most successful on the egg to the right.

The Asylum Turret

Autumnal Air hints at Influences at Work

 

 

 

Monochromatic, pomegranate theme, the original watercolor is repeated with the pomegranate floral stamp down the left. Again a lot of layers and some fancy effects. Blend. Blend. Blend. That is lesson number two to take away from the whole thing. This is the first thing in a while that got more than a couple of likes on facebook. I will be using it for my profile pic for a while.