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Monday, June 28, 2010

Today's Photo and Another Face

I have a wonderful, but busy day planned with my daughter and her two little girls. We are going to drive to my sister's house to visit, play in her pool, and have a picnic. She is two hours away, so the drive there will undoubtedly have a few "are we there yet" kind of quetions, but the two hours home will probably be very quiet. You know how tired swimming and playing outside makes you.

I have a couple of pix of the yard to share today. I couldn't decide which one was the right one, so I decided to show two:


I do have rather a water fowl friendly yard.I sure wish my friend the blue heron would pay a visit. I haven't seen him much this year at all. Most summers he drops in daily. Maybe my frogs aren't as tasty as usual???



I love how this flower is worshiping the morning sun!

I have finished my second girl and am pretty disappointed in her. I thought I would be so much more free with the color this time, but it looks like I chickened out again. I think she looks alright for a girl picture, but she definitely doesn't look like a "technicolor" girl.



I am doing something a bit different for my third girl. I scanned the picture into Photoshop and then used "indexed color" and "spectrum" to get the following:



Doesn't she look great! This rendition makes it much easier for me to see the darks and lights. I love how this looks!

I printed out the black and white version of this big enough to just fit on the canvas I am working on next and then used Saral paper to transfer the boundaries. Is it just  me or is Saral paper really messy???

Here is my drawing on my third canvas:



I am going to have her "disappear" into the left side of the canvas just like the original picture that I got out of a magazine, and am hoping to not be so afraid of color on this one. I'll show my progress as I go. So far, I am totally loving this class.

And speaking of classes, don't forget that Jessica Sprague's free class, "Computer Tricks for Cards" begins today.  I will be looking forward to checking that out when I return from our adventure today.

I'd better go; it is almost 8 am and I have to eat breakfast, shower, pack a cooler and pick up my girls and get started on our day with Aunt Anne.

xoxo

12 comments:

  1. That's a great idea to scan a pic into photoshop and then change the colors! Can't wait to see how it turns out!

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  2. How wonderful it must be to wake up to your "foul friendly" yard every day. Your mallard looks so peaceful just sitting beside the water! And I love how you photoshopped your portrait -- she looks very exotic.

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  3. very creative! I have a bird friendly yard and so we've had a Merlin watching the bird feeders to try and catch a meal. All the different ways to handle your girls is great to see! Glad you are reaching and trying out new techniques. Keep it up!

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  4. I'm afraid I'll be afraid of the color too! I don't want to mess up my grandson's face. Maybe I should start with another face that doesn't matter. I already forgot to prime my canvas the way she did.

    Have fun at your sister's! Since we'll be close to 104 degrees today I think I'll turn on the air and stay inside.


    Your flower pic is great. I can't get my birds in great focus either. I'm trying to take them with the focus at 26x zoom and it's usually without a tripod because the birds aren't going to stand still for me! Still it's fun to catch the birds doing their stuff except the other day when I realized the "stuff" was four crows eating up my apples and breaking branches off my poor tiny apple tree!

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  5. I have a couple of animal pics on my blog. They are both better than I normally get. The bunny was pretty close but still I used my zoom. I had a post to steady me. You can see them here if you are interested.

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  6. I luv them.....especialy canvas 3...the lady...incredible...awesome! I'm impressed..
    thanks so much for sharing
    hugs
    arlene

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  7. Yeah it's amazing what photoshop can do and help in getting lines we want as reference. =) The next post is definitely a highly anticipated one!

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  8. The scanned picture is a lovely reference with the blue and yellow. Have you thought about using coloured paper and just drawing the lighter coloured areas, it would be easier than putting in all the background colour. You're so lucky to have such lovely things to see in your garden!

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  9. The design transfer process is great! What a useful idea. Thanks.

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  10. Love the drawing on the canvas. And what a great idea to be freer in color! I ought to try that myself. Look forward to seeing how it goes. The flower photo is excellent!

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  11. I cannot wait to see this one finished! Excellent idea to play with the colors and I love that it helped you find some 'lost' lines. This is going to be excellent, I just know it!

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