Dream }{ Texture Tuesdays

"Once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return." - Leonardo Da Vinci


This week's Texture Tuesday's prompt was dream. I am nothing if not a dreamer. 


And how I miss the beach and dream of it!

• tweaked original image's level and curves
• Kim Klassen's "loveinlayers" on multiply @20%
• Kim Klassen's "dream" on multiply @30%
• added quote (Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali poet)

As you can see, I'm back participating in Texture Tuesdays. I've truly missed it.


This image is not my usual style, but I wanted to try something outside of my comfort zone. I'm not sold on it, but again, I wanted to stretch myself.

Portrait }{ Texture Tuesday

The prompt this week was "people." Could I do a portrait of anyone else?

(maybe the husband but since he's not around lately...)


Sometimes I feel things in black and white, sometimes in color. But she's always beautiful to me.

• original image
• BW background copy on normal @20%
• BW gradient map on overlay @30%
• Copper gradient map on soft light @25%
• Kim Klassen's "Portrait" on lighter color @35%
• Kim Klassen's "warm sun" on multiply @40%
• Added layer mask to "warm sun" and with opacity @50% removed some of the texture over her face

• original image
• BW gradient map on overlay @50%
• Copper gradient map on overlay @20%
• Kim Klassen's "silence" on darker @50%
• Kim Klassen's "stained linen" on multiply @55%
• Added layer mask to "warm sun" and with opacity @50% removed some of the texture over her face

Freedom }{ Texture Tuesday

It's Texture Tuesday again.

It's one of my favorite posts of the week along with WIP wednesdays, tutorial thursdays, free for all fridays, and illustration friday (yah, I know that means every theme I post is one of my favorites - it's just how it goes).

This week's prompt was open for us to choose - just use one of Kim's textures on a photo we like. Freedom of choice.

So with Fourth of July coming up and all, I decided to do a tribute to freedom. I can't think of things freer than animals in the wild. And yes, I know that a marina is not "the wild" exactly... But he's not in a cage, right? Here's to freedom in a modern setting with a textured old look.

• original photo with minor adjustments
• make background copy BW on normal @26%
• sepia tint copy on normal @100%
• gradient map BW on multiply @32%
• solid navy blue layer on exclusion @20%
• Kim Klassen's "mayzee" on linear burn @50%
• Kim Klassen's "just cause" on soft light @50%

How would you represent freedom?

Words }{ Texture Tuesday

This week's Texture Tuesday prompt was "words." Oh boy, oh boy! Of course I had to do something with books. It doesn't matter that photos of books have been overdone to the point of boredom. I never get tired of them.

You see, I love books. In fact, I love the printed word - magazines, books, even newspapers. In my collages (one day I'll share those) I always add some printed words element somewhere. 

These first two photos show a book that fates back to when my grandparents were still engaged. But this copy isn't my grandmothers - I ended up hunting for one of my own when I was a teenager. Still, my grandmother read this story when she was in her late adolescence/early twenties, my mother read it when she was a teenager, and so did I. My mother liked it so much that she named my little sister after the main character in the story. The story itself isn't anything great, too sugary as my mother used to say, but still... At this point I feel like it's part of our history. 

• background with minor adjustments
• Kim Klassen's "Trust" on linear burn @25%
• Kim Klassen's "Sweettart" on color @20%

• original image with minor adjustments
• convert background copy to BW on normal @26%
• add solid white layer and use clipping mask to background copy. With opacity of brush on 65%, add some black on portions of the flowers.
• Kim Klassen's "Portrait" on darker color @30%
• Kim Klassen's "Stained Linen" on darker color @25%
• add layer mask to the this last layer and with brush opacity on 65%, remove some of the texture from the flowers 

Speaking of history, this last photo shows an interesting book. It's a collection of short stories compiled by a 16th century French writer (Pierre Boaistuau) who said they were true accounts of amazing events, and guess what? Romeo and Juliet is in there somewhere... yep, before Shakespeare, but we knew that. His incredible ability is not always in what he wrote, but in how he wrote it. Boaistuau himself did quite a bit of plagiarizing, incurring the wrath of many during his lifetime.

• original with minor adjustments
• Kim Klassen's "Just Cause" on linear burn @ 40%
• Kim Klassen's "Warm Sun" on soft light @50%

Gardening }{ Texture Tuesdays

Partake as doth the bee

Abstemiously.

The Rose is an Estate -

In Sicily.

Emily Dickinson

Gardening was the theme for today's Texture Tuesday's challenge.

small flowers from one of our flower beds

• start with original and minor adjustments
• background copy desaturated -25%  on luminosity @70%
• gaussian blur on background copy
• Kim Klassen's "stained linen" on multiply @26%
• layer mask to erase the texture over the flower
• Kim Klassen's "warm sun" on soft light @80%

N. playing with one of the flowers we picked

• original with minor adjustments
• convert background copy to BW on lighten @30%
• Kim Klassen's "warm sun" on linear burn @26%
• Kim Klassen's "love" on luminosity @26%

These were my attempts at minimalist, simple photos involving our garden.

I'm not an orderly person. If you see my crafting areas, things are a bit... disorganized. Still, there's a side of me that likes everything in order, neat, absolutely logical. When I get around to organizing my closet, about once every month, it has to be done just so - sleeveless shirts, short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts, button down shirts, jackets and cardigans, sweaters, skirts, pants, cocktail dresses, business suits and dresses, and finally a few formal pieces I still have; and within each of these categories, they have to follow a progression of light colors to dark colors; and they all have to face the same way.

Back to gardening. Like me, my garden is messy and orderly all at once. Flowers follow a color based distribution, the spaces between them having been measured, trying to achieve a balance and order in quantity and shades. And yet, there are spots with overgrown grass, weeds that I never get around to pulling out. How do you reconcile all of this?

Lately, my organized side has been winning the battle. I've been in full "simplify" mode, getting rid of clutter, donating old clothes, shoes, toys, packing away things I don't need for a while but that I'll take when we move. 

This has been a long post for a photography based challenge. My apologies. Like my house, I'm trying to get words out, de-cluttering my thoughts. 

ps.: in case you are wondering what's with the quoted poems lately, I've been in the mood for poetry, revisiting a lot of my old favorites.

Fog }{ Texture Tuesday

This week's challenge over at Texture Tuesday involved using this texture called "yesteryear."

Fits my mood.

I've been pensive, thinking of places I've been and memories made (mostly happy). And how it all disappears into a fog in the recesses on our mind.

I wanted to work with that, with the dreamy fog, with memories. I've getting more and more experimental with my texture play, though I also love clear, well defined photos. This is just play time.

a place dear to my heart with lots of memories over many different points in my life

• Adjusted levels, color curves, and sharpness of original. 
• Copied background layer and converted to BW on soft light @100%
• BW gradient map on overlay @80%
• copper gradient map on overlay @25%
• solid navy blue layer on exclusion @ 23%
• Kim Klassen's "yesteryear" on linear burn @20%
• Kim Klassen's "yesteryear" on luminosity @30%

some fun with friends ended up giving me this frozen in the air look

• adjusted levels, color curves, and sharpness of original
• Copied background into a new layer, decreased saturation 25% and added gaussian blur
• Kim Klassen's "yesteryear" on liner dodge @30%
• Kim Klassen's "yesteryear" on soft light @35%

I honestly don't remember what I did for this one. Serves me right for not writing it down, oops.

How about your happy memories? Are they clear or do you get lost in a fog?

Vintage }{ Texture Tuesdays

Vintage is an adjective and noun that we hear often now. Vintage is trendy and chic.

It was also our prompt for this week's Texture Tuesday.

But what does it mean?

I went to the source - the English dictionary - and found this as one of many definitions:

representing the high quality of a past time


They also included this definition for world English:


representative of the best and most typical


Still, what does it mean to me? How do I think of vintage. 


Old. Charming. Traditional. Lasting. Of a bygone era. Not representative of modern technology.


I didn't necessarily want to make it romantic or use only the intimate households items like china, tea cups, etc. So I went outside and got really experimental with my texture play. Things turned gritty.

• Original photo with minor adjustments to levels
• Background copy, desaturated, on normal @ 50% with rough pastels applied
• Kim Klassen's Trust on multiply @ 38%
• My own TTV texture on overlay @ 32%
• Navy blue solid layer on exclusion @35%

Going back inside, there's sturdy, old and lasting furniture.

• Original with minor adjustments
• Kim Klassen's Trust on overlay @ 35%
• Kim Klassen's Pour Vous on linear light @26%

I love this new KK texture, Pour Vous. The picture didn't do it justice. I can't wait to keep trying it out.

Creating a mood }{ Texture Tuesdays

Do you know one of the reasons I love playing with textures? Because a photo can end up with so many different looks or moods, just with a change of layer mode, opacity, or combination of textures.

Today's Texture Tuesdays challenge was wide open. I chose this recent picture of a flower and tried to create a soft, ethereal feeling.

Adjustments:

• levels, color curves, and unsharp mask
• layer 1: Kim Klassen's "beautiful" on lighter color @ 25%
• layer 2: Kim Klassen's "sweettart" on hue @ 30%
• layer 3: gradient fill on screen @ 20%

Here's the original for comparison:

I also wanted to try adding a grungier look with the textures, but flowers weren't working for me. So I dug up this photo from last year. It's just the side of a old service tractor I found at a park, but I liked the character of the old metal.

What types of looks do you like on your pictures - retro, vintage romantic, polaroid, grunge, soft, hazy?

My daughter, my inspiration

I think I'm going to make Sundays days devoted to my little girl. I always end up so inspired by her on weekends. Probably because I spend almost 100% of my time with her on those days. Oh, who am I kidding, every day she's the first thing on my mind - she's truly been my inspiration for life since I first saw those little heart flickers on the ultrasound screen.

(Digital frame from Paislee Press. Check out her wonderful creations!)

Oh, and just to clarify my last post, that's a painting/collage (more painting than collage, but I did add some pattern paper, and other things to it) that I did for N. My plan is to make three more of those - one for each season. That one was summer.

What's your inspiration?

Playing with photography

Here's a confession. I may be addicted to photoshop.

One of my favorite things to do is going over some older pictures and playing with them in post-processing - trying adding sepia, exclusion blue, and gradient layers on the picture to get a moody or somber feel. As with any of my experiments, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Here's what I do:

1) Do all the initial work in camera raw (white balance, exposure, contrast, and whatever else I think it needs)

2) Always working in different layers, I adjust the levels and color curves.

3) I usually start with gradient map layers and add at least two. Then I tweak the style (overlay and soft light are two favorites, but I always try multiples to see what works for me)

4) Depending on what mood I'm looking for I'll add an exclusion blue or sepia layers on top for a soft, older feel.

Here are some examples of what I mean.

For these two pictures of downtown Boston, I added two gradient layers - one BW and one copper - then adjusted their opacity and style. And then I added an exclusion blue layer on top. The only difference between the top and the bottom is that for the top I used BW gradient layer in hard light, and for the bottom I used screen. And just for comparison, here's one without the exclusion blue layer and the original respectively.

And more example, because... like I said... photoshop owns me.

the original

Two gradient maps and exclusion blue layer (she looked a little orange so...)

Different shade of exclusion blue

With an added vignette

"Ma'am, step away from the photoshop, now, before anyone else gets hurt."