Illustration Friday – Lost

I had something totally different in my mind's eye for this topic, but after gathering a selection of photos from stock.xchng and playing around with them in Photoshop, what was in my mind's eye refused to materialize.  This is what happened instead.



There's the bottom image: Jungle morning by cendol – "on Gunung Gede, an inactive volcano, close to Bogor in West Java, Indonesia. The steam is coming from a hot water spring."  It's set to Darken blend mode over a white background. Layered over that is Archway by saine – "...from the Marble Mountains, north of Hoi An in Vietman."  It's set to Hard Light blend mode with the edges masked out to transparency.  Over in the right hand corner are some ferns from Wood by alitaylor – "New Zealand rainforest."  I used only a tiny portion of that image set to Linear Dodge blend mode; the rest is masked out, and there is additional shading and a bit of cloning from the other side of the image to darken that area. The child is from Flower Girl by nem youth – "Flower girl walking outside after the wedding." The girl was the only somewhat difficult element, mostly in terms of making her fit the image tonally. She's extracted from a bright, sunny image and after making her a Smart Object, she was adjusted with Shadows/Highlights, also has a slight Gaussian blur and a Paint Daubs filter. There is more shading and some distressing on her dress. So that's it. I think it captures a mysterious, dream-like atmosphere, with the child adding an enigmatic narrative element.

For those of you who haven't come to this page via Illustration Friday, do go have a look at their revamped website.  BIG thumbnails...so much easier to browse the entries.