Monday, July 31, 2023

The Women

Who are these women? I admit to feeling a slight reluctance in appropriating these images, although they are offered free to use on sites such as Pixabay and Pexels, or in the case of the third image, as an asset included in one of the Photoshop Artistry courses I'm taking. There is something slightly odd about staring at and working on a picture of someone who is looking back at you when you have no idea of who they are or why the photo was taken. But I have to say that doing these let me flex Photoshop skills that pictures of flowers and landscapes haven't much called for. 

The Beauty   

In this first image, The Beauty, the woman is indeed a beauty and I did nothing on her face but lighten the color of her lips, and I used the mixer brush to better shape her braid. Her earring was changed by stamping a bit of a lace brush over a base color. I used a Hue/Saturation layer to change and lighten the color of the yoke of her garment. Then I created a pattern with leaf brushes for the rest of the garment; and to make the folds, I painted in shadows and highlights on a neutral grey (dodge and burn) layer. The pattern around her head was done with several of Kyle Webster's foliage brushes on different layers in different blend modes. I finished with Topaz Impression for a more painterly look and added a Photoshop filter texture. 

 MythosIn Mythos, after cropping the picture below her bust and extending the background above her head and to the right, I both cloned and painted in additional hair on top of her head and to the right. Her eyes were enlarged using the Liquify filter. A bra strap showing on her shoulder was cloned out. The tip of the one piece of her necklace that was under the garment was replaced and additional light put on the necklace. I cut out some ivy for her crown and toned it to match the composition. In the background are some barely discernible trees from a winter forest photo. I added the warm colors above originally to relate to her dress which was burgundy, but ultimately I decided to change it to green. There are two painterly textures on the entire piece.

Attraction I probably did the most work on the model in Attraction. First of all, not wanting the tattoo she had all down her back, I found a great Piximperfect video about how to remove tattoos. I also used frequency separation to retouch her skin, especially smoothing out her face, subtly colored her lips and brightened her eyes. Highlights were added to hair with touches of rose-tinted white set to overlay. The background consists of two texture layers from Tangie Baxter, and some French Kiss script. The sheer tulle under her hand is from Foxeysquirrel. Finally I added three butterflies extracted from Pixabay photos.

Friday, June 30, 2023

Flower Power

 The Dallas Area Fiber Artists annual exhibition begins tomorrow, July 1. This is the first time I have participated; Marbled Rose and Popcorn Hydrangea are my entries. 


 

Toward the end of April, I chose two flower photos which I had taken long ago. In Photoshop I altered colors of the leaves and backgrounds and found that the conté crayon filter produced some interesting effects. Overall I applied a find edges filter and enhanced that with some outlining by hand. To the rose photo in the background, I also added a medieval-style design.

Then I sent them off to Spoonflower to be printed on a fat quarter of cotton/linen canvas. (In case you haven't discovered Spoonflower, be sure to have a look. In addition to having your own design printed, you can choose from a delightful plethora of designs from others and have them printed on a selection of different fabrics or even on ready-made items, such as pillow covers and curtains.) In one week Spoonflower sent back the printed fabric, and it looked terrific!

That was really only the beginning. My initial plan with to hand embroider all the outlines on the leaves and the flowers, emphasize the centers with French knots and sprinkle some beads about. After hours of work on the hydrangea image, I realized that it would take me way too much time to embroider all the outlines, so I became selective. And when I did the rose, I decided to limit the embroidered outlines to the flower itself. It's actually a bit difficult to see all the embroidery as much of it blends in with the printed image.

I listened to the entire audiobook of Barbara Kingsolver's Pulitzer Prize-winning Demon Copperhead and got a good start on Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt during my embroidery sessions. As I said to Mr. C, I don't think there is going to be an embroidered flower picture series. But all in all, I'm pleased with these two.

Mr. C made the frames, and I happened to have just the perfect color of metallic green paint.

Today I took them to CC Young, a beautiful senior living community where DAFA holds their meetings, and where the exhibition is being shown. It was gratifying to already receive compliments on my work while everything was being set up. And I enjoyed chatting with other members about their (very diverse) pieces as they brought them in. Can't wait to see the entire show when I go back for the next DAFA meeting in another week.

Monday, May 29, 2023

Beyond the village

Beyond the village

 Unlike with film rolls of the past, where you didn't want to waste your 24 or 36 shots, digitally you can click away (and delete) with abandon. But sometimes you keep a less-than-stellar image because, well, it was a lovely place and you'll probably never be there again. As I did with my view overlooking the town of Château-Censoir where we had stopped on our boat trip down the Canal du Nivernais in France. 

To transform it into the backdrop for this composition, I used Camera Raw in Photoshop, Topaz Impressions and the Paint daubs filter in Photoshop, plus a texture applied to the sky. All this to tone, add contrast and some vignetting, plus give it a more painterly look.

Next, I found a great fox image by JackerKun in Pexels. Jesús Ramirez has an excellent video on how to cut out fur from busy backgrounds on the Photoshop Training Channel. I also used this technique on the two chipmunks (also from Pexels, by Skyler Ewing), although they are so tiny the work on their fur is not apparent. While the fox is looking up somewhat in the original photo, I used Photoshop's Puppet Warp to turn his head and thus his gaze more skyward, and I toned him to blend into his surroundings

The photo of the hawk by Petr Ganaj in Pexels was so sharp that I slightly blurred all but the head to give it a more realistic look in terms of the composition. I also added three birds on the skyline with a bird brush. The last touch after the chipmunks was some detailed bits of shrubbery around them.

As usual, it took me way too long to do. But getting each step, each element just right is so absorbing that time flies by. And I feel so fortunate to get to spend my time doing something that I love.

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Crafting a portrait - Lady in lace

Lady in lace

 While I hope that this appears to be a painted portrait, it was actually crafted in Photoshop. Since people/faces have rarely been a subject of my digital efforts, it required quite a bit of learning and experimentation and careful attention to detail.

 

I began with this model shot by faestock from Deviant Art. She already has quite lovely skin, but I refined it even more by using several skin retouching techniques from a video by digital artist and photographer Caroline Julia Moore in one of the Photoshop Artistry courses that I have been taking. I extended the background above her head by cloning and also into the areas where I masked out her hair below her ears.

 


Next, I “dressed” her in this Irish lace collar from the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum. There are many, many images of all types of garments from different eras which can be copied and used under the Met's Open Access policy. I first extracted the lace from the background and then shaped it to the neck and shoulders of my figure using the Liquify filter.

 The hair proved to be one of the biggest challenges. After watching a YouTube video on how to paint braids in Photoshop, I searched for images of braided hair to copy and was rewarded by a photo of an actual braid in Pexels. I extracted parts of the braid, then shaped them using the Puppet Warp tool. A lot of color toning and overpainting was needed to make them look as if they actually were part of her hair. I found this simple YouTube video on painting hair to be very helpful.

Her pearl earrings and the pearls in her hair were easily painted with just the circular marquee tool and a soft round brush.

The background consists of several textures plus my photos of the vine with the violet flowers (wish I knew what they were!), all in different blend modes. The figure was masked out of all of these because I didn't want any textures on her. There was also toning on the figure and additional shading on both the right side of the background and on the lace.

The final step was to use Topaz Impressions to achieve that painterly look.

I spent a tremendous amount of time on it, I added to my digital skills, and I'm pleased with the result. Time to begin on the next one!

 

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

In Appreciation

While other activities I once participated in, such as the Skillman Players theater group, are now but memories, the Foreign Authors Bookgroup continues to be an ongoing, much-appreciated part of my life. And I think that most of the other members feel much the same, which I find both gratifying and surprising, because we are such a disparate group of women in many respects, brought together by our love of reading about world around us. I have enjoyed and learned, and more than that, I have gained new insights into my own character and viewpoints from our monthly discussions.

So when an assignment in a digital art course I am taking was to create an original work of photo artistry based on the theme of admiration for a dear friend, I modified it slightly as appreciation for all my friends in the bookgroup. As the assignment suggested, I did have it printed and have just sent a copy to each person in the group. 

We have already begun our 2023 reading slate with a short but moving Irish novel, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan.  Next up is a French novel which I nominated, The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier which won the Prix Goncourt in 2020.  So, come the first Tuesday in February, I will find out the reactions of the group both to my "appreciation" card and to the unusual novel that I selected.  

Here is our complete schedule for the year.  


Saturday, December 31, 2022

Old City Park

 

Sullivan House

In 1876 it was Dallas's new and first City Park, gracing The Cedars, a fashionable neighborhood of Victorian homes. The 1885 Sullivan House above, decked out for the holidays, once stood nearby. Along with a variety of other historic buildings from the Dallas/North Texas area, it was moved to the park, which for a period of time was called Dallas Heritage Village. Now it's Old City Park again, with free regular admission, and a pleasant place simply to have a stroll on its wooded acres. Below on the left is the 1888 Renner School with a backdrop of downtown Dallas skyscrapers.

Old and new Among the wildflowers

 

Monday, October 31, 2022

Silk samples top

One dollar bought a little hanger with five or six fabric samples. They had come from a seller of Japanese textiles who was retiring and were being offered at a meeting of the Dallas Area Fiber Artists. Most were gorgeous silks, of which I managed to acquire enough in related purples to piece together this top.

The pattern is adapted from Vogue 8497 by Marcy Tilton. And I didn't have a sample to spare! After deciding on the arrangement of the samples, I sewed them together with tiny one-eighth inch seams to create a whole piece of fabric from which I cut out the pattern. Then I lined the top with off-white silk crepe de chine from Dharma Trading Company.

All the different projects which DAFA members had made from the samples were displayed in a contest at the last meeting. Alas, I did not win a prize, but having this top to wear is reward enough.