Illustration Friday - Burst

My mind was bursting with ideas for this one. I finally settled on trying to illustrate something bursting from a book, a vividly written one, certainly.  The book itself with its burst page proved relatively simple.  I photographed a book, then stabbed a sheet of paper to create the burst effect and photographed that and overlaid it digitally on the book page, all with a bit of masking and blend modes.  I found the photos of the lorakeet and the leopard as well as the ferns on Stock.XCHNG .  The background came from Lost and Taken. There's also one of my photos of a crepe myrtle in bloom on top of that, at a very low opacity, just to add a bit more texture and color. It was interesting and I got it done with only minutes to spare.  Enough said.