PAF: entrance

I haven't participated in Photo Art Friday in months and months.  I love working on digital art but it all just takes so much time.  And now since I haven't done it in so long I've forgotten many of the techniques that I'd figured out and liked.  But, I want to edge back in now and then so I don't totally forget everything.

Bonnie at Pixel Dust Studio hosts a Friday (open Thurs nites for links) roundup where you can share your photo art efforts.  She offers a weekly theme if you want, but you're encouraged to share whatever you've been working on.  This week's theme:  Entrances/Exits.  My submission:  Enter Spring with a quote by AA Milne.

My photo of a snowy daffodil is blended with Bonnie's Blank Page texture.  It might be a bit premature to hint at spring, but I'm employing a little wishful thinking.....  :)

PAF

I haven't participated in a long time, but Fridays are Photo Art Friday over at Bonnie's Pixel Dust Photo Art and to start the new year she suggested using our 'word-of-the-year' as a starting point. Since I actually chose one of those and drew it, I decided to use it in creating a bit of digital art.

I started by using the cutout from my lettering project and added layer upon layer - bits from my photos and collages and from some scrapbooking elements.....all thrown together, tweaked and manipulated til I came up with this.....don't think it's the best digital thing I've ever done, but I'm a little out of practice - it'll get better!

As I worked on this, the digital manipulation ideas and tools starting returning and I remember how much I enjoy experimenting with it - but oh my goodness, there's just not enough time in the day to do everything I love to do.  How to choose?  I guess I'll just work on what I feel like doing at the moment and other stuff can wait, right?  Collaging and mail art and mixed media exploration will still be there .......

paf: horizon

Bonnie at Pixel Dust Photo Art is once again hosting Photo Art Friday and this week's prompt is horizon.  I decided to use one of my watercolor paintings and see what I could come up with.  I tried a couple of different paintings with horizons and settled on this....

I like how my merging of the other photo layers gave this painting some texture in the water and sand and made it look a little stormier instead of the calm, glassy feeling of the original.  It's a composite of the following photos of mine:

original painting

icy glass (above) used at overlay blending mode 50%

snowy footprints used at hard light 37%

detail of a mixed media piece which I erased most of except the white stripe and bird used at multiply 61%

Thanks again Bonnie for providing a place to experiment with digital art and often take it way outside my usual boundaries.

photo art friday

Yes, it's only Thursday, but Bonnie (Pixel Dust Photo Art) opens her links early, and I've got a couple things, so there you go.  She was going to take a hiatus from PAF through the summer, but thankfully has changed her mind!  I love the range of creativity that shows up from her participants.

This week I wasn't terribly inspired with "new" ideas, so just worked in my semi-comfort zone.....

First, a simple version of tulips with a rainy overlay and Bonnie's texture Grunge Surprise (didn't note the blending & opacities, sorry).

Then I got fancy (or weird) and layered in some more photos, did some erasing, added another texture, discarded lots of options and settled on this....

Original photos:

Textures:

Drippy by Vintage Findings, flickr

Grunge Surprise by Bonnie at Pixel Dust Photo Art

FABrique by Bonnie.

Digital geniuses hang out at Bonnie's so be sure to check out the talented digi-art.

paf: use a quote

Okay, you KNOW I love a good quote!  So combining photos and quotes in this challenge for Bonnie's Photo Art Friday - the hard part was stopping!

I used the same quote illustrated in a few different ways.  Hope you'll enjoy my vision.

"The question is not what you look at, but what you see."  Henry David Thoreau

This SOOC shot is brown hillside reflected in water and the gentle wake of our boat.  Sometimes "what you see" is just taking the time to really notice the details around you.  (No, I really didn't use the wave or any other PSE filter, though it looks like I did)

This image from San Juan Capistrano illustrates how "what you look at" might be many things - the texture of an old building, the play of light, the reflection of a tree in the glass, or the addition of some subtle texture (Bonnie's Vellum texture at multiply 80%).

Finally, "what you see" might be something that evolves, created from several photos combined to make a new image, full of meaning or maybe whimsy.

I combined the following three photos, turned the building, reduced opacity on the San Juan Capistrano bells and did a little judicious erasing.

Sunset from Alki Beach, Seattle.

A Las Vegas hotel.

Fountain and bells at San Juan Capistrano.

Be sure to check out other artistic offerings over at Photo Art Friday.

PAF: macro

This week Bonnie at PixelDustPhotoArt challenged us to make 'art' with a macro photo.  Oh boy!  I love macro....of course most of mine are floral but I do have some others, so I did one of each :)

My artistic interpretation:

I combined the 2 photos below as well as Bonnie's Holy Grunge free texture to give that canvasy texture to the background.  The pod on the left is overlay at 100% and erased where it overlapped the poppy bloom.  The pod on the right is at vivid light, 53% - I like the golden glow around it - also some erasing around it.

My second effort:

For this image I used the original closeup of a bench, layered the ball image on top at difference 100%. Then I copied the bench and stacked it on top of those using pin light at 100% - I slightly erased the ball layer in the white stripes to enhance them more and came up with this abstract look....

Original shots:

Be sure to visit Bonnie and check out all the amazing links - macro photography at its best!

paf: path or road

I haven't had the time to play along with Bonnie's Photo Art Friday themes the last couple weeks, but found myself missing the fun of manipulating my photos and stretching my computer wings so to speak.  So I made time to play at least for a few minutes.  This week's theme is path/road so I'm using this photo I took in Vermont last year.

Original:

The result using Bonnie's Chinks of Light at soft light 65%.  I takes away some of the richness of color but gives it a sunny, brighter look - the squares in 'chinks' are totally lost in the busy photo.

Added another layer: Bonnie's Backlight (overlay 55%) which brightens it even more and makes it have a sun kissed look.

Copied the original image, changed it to black and white then reduced opacity to leave just a hint of color; added one last layer:  Shadowhouse Older Than Dirt, overlay at 100%.

The path seems a little more sinister to me now.....  This was fun - haven't played with my textures in a while - sure wish there were more hours in a day!

PAF: something hidden

Bonnie at Pixel Dust Photo Art issued a real creative challenge this week for PAF (photo art Friday) - your image should have "something hidden", something not readily apparent when you look at it.  Hmmmm.  Even with her examples, it was a challenge and took plenty of trial and error on my part.  Here's what I imagined:

Titled it:  Journey

I tried to have increasingly subtle layers of visibility, hinting at what's underneath......  I added the circles at various opacities to mimic the one on the map which is circling Kokomo, IN, my husband's home town.

SPOILER ALERT:  The following image shows all the layers I used in my composite, so look at it first and see if you can discern the "something hidden in plain sight" before looking at the next image.  Let me know in the comments if you guessed right.





Original images used:

So, here's my work order:

 In PSE7 map is first layer, duplicated at hard light 55%, next is the circles, then the water at multiply 90%, the rainbow at vivid light 65% (and dark trees erased), duck at normal, and finally trees at hard light 87%.  Hope you like the results.  Visit other photographers and see what they've hidden by visiting Bonnie's site.

paf: abstract

Since finding Bonnie's site Pixel Dust Photo Art, I've become SO much more daring and experimental in my digital art efforts.  This week was to try something abstract or any type of photo art.  I LOVE playing at abstract!  A couple weeks ago Bonnie showed some results she got by using the wave filter in PSE so I tried it out on a couple different images.  I found that if the image is TOO simple, the waves aren't that interesting.  If the image is too busy, the waves are a jumbled mess.  And, there are so many ways of adjusting the depth, frequency, etc of the wave that it was a bit overwhelming.  So I clicked the randomize button and got this fabulous result.

Here are the 2 images of mine I used, no textures, just the PSE filter.  Adding the water overlay added the brighter stripes of color which I thought improved the interest of colors.  I just LOVE the striations of color.  In fact, I'm inspired to paint.....don't you think are some great painting inspirations in this?  I'll post my efforts on this soon!

This second effort, I took one of my sunflower photos and added Bonnie's texture heavenly at overlay 100%  for the texture and depth of color and abstract splotches at hard light 37% which I then erased over the seeds but kept those scratches on the petals.

original image:

Hmmm... seeing them side by side like this, I'm not sure the textures improved the photo that much - but they did make for a fun, whimsical change.....

Looking forward to seeing what others do!

PAF: beauty from ugly

Interesting challenge from Bonnie over at Pixel Dust Photo Art this week - take something ugly or that you don't like and see if you can improve it by making it digitally artistic.  Hmmm.....sounds like fun, right?  Well it is, but it's so darn addicting and it's hard to know which ugly photo to choose and when does it become "art".  Here's where I stopped....

Here are the elements I used.

My "ugly" is the image of the wing - it's the plastic wing from a Budweiser eagle that my hubby has hanging in the garage.  I keep trying to find a convenient and clear way to showing what I've done and I kind of like this little snapshot idea - what do you think?  Is it helpful or interesting?  Anyway, I combined 3 photos and Bonnie's Artist texture - you can see the word "artist" on the left side of the wing.  I thought if the words were there, that would make me one! Ha.  I used linear light on the ice at 100% and vivid light on the Christmas lights at 55%; overlay on the texture.  I used layer masks (love those!) on both the lights & ice images.

Then I tried another more......elegant.... treatment of the wing and came up with this:

The base photo here is some fall trees in Montreal, the wing and a texture from Nancy Donaldson and another one (the words) from Skeletal Mess (find him on flickr).

I can't wait to see what others have come up with - are you as addicted to the whole PSE thing as I am?