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Showing posts from July, 2008

Messing around with curves

Bear Lake Trail, before Sometimes it’s well worth reaching back into your own archives and revisiting something. I went to hike the Rockies with my family when I was in high school. I love this particular shot taken from Bear Lake Trail, and I’ve used it for several different pieces over the years. So, how about surreal? Bear Lake Trail, after There are only a few steps used in making a surreal landscape like this in Photoshop , but that doesn’t mean that it’s fast and easy! I spent more time on this piece than on many that have far more steps. Take you time and play around…it’ll be worth it! 1. Open your original image in Photoshop and size it as desired. 2. Make a copy layer of your image to fool with. 3. Go to Image –> Adjustments –> Invert 4. Add a curves adjustment layer and go to town! 5. Adjust lightness, saturation, and contrast to suit. 6. Use the Multiply blending mode for your adjustment layer. 7. Crop a portion of the landscape that pleases you. Copyrig

Painting your summer sandals

The Owl and the Pussycat I shared this pair of painted sandals before, but I thought I should show you a second pair and maybe suggest that it might be a nice project for a quick pair of summer wearable art. I don’t like buying new shoes. In fact, I tend to wear the same pair of sandals all year, even in the snow. When they get worn out, I do buy a new pair (the exact same style…aren’t I exciting?), but I can’t stand to just throw out the old pair. So I usually paint them. Acrylic paints , a black fine-tipped marker , and clean sandals are all you need! 1. Choose your colors of acrylic paint: a main background color and a couple of accent colors. 2. Using a sponge or foam brush , paint all the leather surfaces of the straps with your main color. Mine was Cobalt turquoise . Let the paint dry. 3. Lightly sponge on your accent colors. I’ve always found that I get a better look if I return to my main color last, and lightly sponge it on as if it were also an accent color. M

Waxed paper transfer collage

Here’s the image that I started with for this piece: It wasn’t high resolution or anything: just a pretty picture. I used Golden’s Digital Ground White , and stroked it onto a piece of waxed paper, adding a few layers until the piece was covered where I planned to print. The image printed out quite well, and stayed a bit wet for awhile. I didn’t worry about that, though, since I planned to do a transfer. The transfer was made onto plain white copy paper, using the instructions for a basic paper image transfer . Once the transfer was completed and dry, this is how I assembled the collage: 1. Paint a wrapped canvas frame. I used dark teal green acrylic. 2. Apply a wash of gesso, thinned with water. 3. Add layers of cheesecloth, using matte medium to adhere them. 4. Slice up the image transfer and use matte medium to adhere it to the canvas. Use a layer of waxed paper and a heavy book to make it dry flat. 5. Add a bit of black to your gesso to create a medium gray tone, and wash the piece