It's Been Awhile...

I can't believe how long it's been since I sat down and worked in Photoshop with my pictures.  This is something I promised myself I would do more often than I have been.  I think the spring flowers have inspired me.

Anyway, from the pictures I took over the past couple of days I created these pieces of artwork...

I love this chair and the tulips against the stucco of the wall.  This one was to make it a more vibrant, tinted photo.

I like this version, I think, better than the photograph one.

I have to admit this one is a favorite of mine.

As is this one.  I love the way the dark and light turned out.

So a great morning spent at the computer.

Faces

I normally do not like to take pictures with people in them.  Not my favorite thing and I think part of it is because I don't like to have my picture taken.  In an effort to learn more about Photoshop and how to 'play' with my pictures, I am trying to do a tutorial a day so see what I can come up with.

The first one I decided to do was transforming a face onto a gnarly tree tutorial .  I like the whole "Green Man" lore, so I thought I would start there.  However, I wanted to use my own pictures and I didn't have a picture of a tree I liked, so I used a rock wall I had taken a picture of and placed a picture of myself on it.



Ok, it's there.  I think my glasses detract from the effect however.  So I decided to practice on another one, but this time use one of the girls.  However, with using flowers I need to redo the color selected for the color and it isn't working right.  It will be a practice for another day to try this again.  

In the meantime, this is me imitating Mount Rushmore.

Grunge Sunset

I love the look of some of the layered photos coming out.  I go between the HDR pictures and pictures which remind me more of something that could have been art journaled.  So using this Photoshoproadmap tutorial, I used my pictures and some pictures of sidewalk rocks that I used for my grunge textures and came up with this....

This is a picture of the sunset last week at Wake Tech.  The grunge layers came from pictures of rock slabs on a sidewalk at work I had taken. 

Digital Mandalas

I love kaleidoscopes and mandalas.  Aren't kaledioscopes actually moving mandalas?  Anyway, I have long admired those who do digital mandalas, such as Sue O'Kieffe at Sacred Circle Mandalas.  I also have had this tutorial  by Earth Mandalas bookmarked for ages now.

Now that I have a little more time on my hands, I decided to give it a try.  (Also a better understanding of Photoshop and how to manipulate pictures helps.)  And here are a few of my mandalas I created today....

This is from the bud of a sunflower.

A dogwood blossom.

Tiger at the National Science Museum in Washington

Sunflower

 

Wisteria

I feel like I am choosing between children when I think about which one I like the most.  I like them all.      So more mandalas to come I am sure.