Week 5 Beyond Layers

Week 5 is all about finding light.  I have almost no natural light in my house.  The downside to this is it's really dark for 

art and photography purposes.  The upside is that the house stays cool in the summer months.

As Kim suggested, I found a sliding glass door  that I would not normally use for a photo shoot.  At 9:30 AM there was too much 

sun, and I got harsh shadows.  I waited for the sun to go to the other side of the house and I was pleased with the results.  I will post some of those pics tomorrow.  

Today I played with adding light with PSE to an 

existing photo.  I followed Kim's tutorial 

for making and adding a gradient to bring in a soft light here.  I added two layers and reversed one layer so the gradient spread a bit more across the image.

On this one I added a couple layers of Kim's Cora texture

which I desaturated a bit. 

I wanted to use the Sybil texture but my original photo below was too gray. 

I might go back and remove the gray color cast to this image and try "adding light" with the two methods.  

Okay......I did go back and remove color cast.  This time per Kim's tutorial, I used  two layers of Sybil.....one on soft light and one on color burn....then removed some of the texture on the flowers and vase. 

I like this one best because the gray table is muted as well.

Since our assignment for this week's Texture Tuesday is to use one of Kim's Downton I textures (such as Sybil) I will link to TT as well.

 

Inside Out

For Km's Beyond Layers class this week the theme is bringing the inside out.  

I decided to take my mani/pedi supplies outside.

I worked on this layout in Lightroom and then attempted to 

make a similar layout in PSE 11.  Lightroom makes

it so much easier!!!  I'm still fussing with the 

PSE layout.  

Have a beautiful day!

Dreamy Vintage Layout

Didn't get to Photo Art Friday or Texture Tuesday this week.  Too much going on.  I'm posting a layout I did in Lightroom.  

Woohoo!!!!

I edited these photos for a class I'm taking from Susan Tuttle. We 

have been editing in the Pixlr online editing program.  She gave us some different recipes using the effects to get these dreamy looking images.

I had to think hard to remember how Xanthe taught us to do the 

circle in our "Behind the Scenes" class. 

  I really should have made notes. 

That's it for today.  I'll see what I can cook up for tomorrow!

Happy Valentine's Day

Today is St. Valentine's Day, the traditional day of love and

romance.  Lots of couples and/or friends will be having

a celebratory dinner out, some will receive flowers and/or candy....Mike and I usually spend a quiet evening at home with a glass of wine and dinner.  We exchange cards.  He gave me a beautiful moth orchid.

I hope your Valentine's Day is special.

Last Friday Continued

I haven't had time to do another layout yet, but I did continue on with Bonnie's theme for PAF last week.  I like overlapping images and drawings together to make something abstract.  This 

was my work flow.  In between layers I played with different modes and filters.  The final step was a gradient.

I used the gradient on the image below combined with exclusion blend.

Bath Layout

Homework for Kim's Beyond Layers 2.  I made this layout in Lightroom.  I'm still so puzzled by this software that I get very frustrated working in it.  Just haven't found the time to watch many videos on it.  

I did manage to put this together with some photos from my archives.  Tomorrow I'm working on doing a layout in Photoshop.  I'll determine after whether Lightroom or Photoshop is easier for me at this point in my knowledge/learning curve.  

See you tomorrow with another layout.

Photo Art Friday Feb. 8th & 9th

Bonnie's suggestion this week was to make an abstract piece of art

using an image or images together with her textures.....so using her "Dropped Petals" as a background I used a drawing of mine.  I call her Little Miss Barrymore because that's who she reminds me of.  I superimposed her against the background texture and then added some other textures of Bonnie's.  On this image I played 

with different blends and  used some whimsical brushes.

Don't know what I did different with this one.  I did add

the text.  Font is "Girls are Weird".

On this one I used Bonnie's "Delightfully Shocking" texture and 

Topaz Adjust filter.

Can't remember what all I did with this one below.....

Senility is setting in.......

I used one of my faves....Bonnie's "Chinks of Light" on the version below.  It looks somewhat celestial, don't you think?  I think it might be my favorite.

Linking to:

Until next week......

Tulipe

Lovely pink tulips from Trader Joe's......I do my weekly marketing on Fridays and they always have a fresh supply of flowers.  I have a hard time

resisting the urge to walk out with ten different arrangements.

I picked the tulips since they are one of my faves.

I processed this one way for Texture Tuesday using two layers of Kim's

texture - 2701, the first on overlay at 100% and the 

second on darken at 100%.  The theme this week was "pop of color".  I think these tulips are a beautiful pop of color, making me wish spring would come really soon, like maybe tomorrow???

I also processed the image using Shadowhouse' 

Tone 5 texture on vivid light at 71% and added a frame. I think the second image is my favorite.....maybe because of the tones.  

See you over at Kim's linky party.