Texture Tuesday - April 23

Spring has definitely arrived in Southern California.  I have only six rose bushes but they are sporting beautiful new dresses.  This is my first large bouquet and there are still as many on the 

bushes.  When I bought the bushes, I had several requirements.  They must be able to handle living at the beach which is overcast and a little cool in spring months.  They must have beautiful form (I prefer the pointed buds).  They must have fragrance and they must open beautifully.  There are some roses that are so pretty as buds but they open and blow out.   A long list of requirements I know, but I only had room for six.

For Texture  Tuesday, Kim gave us pretty much free license to play......just needed to use at least one of her textures.

I used two layers of her "Cameron" from her paper collection.  First layer was at soft light 100% and next layer was at darker color 100%.  This was the result

I also edited in Lightroom (lightened the highlights and shadows) before I added textures and text in PSE.

Have a great week and don't forget to visit Kim's linky party.

New Sky

One of our lessons this week in Beyond Layers 2 is replacing a dull sky with something more exciting.  This image, though I love the landscape, is not a good photograph.  

I took this shot last year.  It was spring time in the back bay, wildflowers were in bloom.  The light just wasn't right and the exposure was terrible.  Never thought I'd use it but this week was my opportunity to see what I could do with it.

I found this image I took in Arizona.  It had a lovely sky full of billowy clouds.  What to do with that street light though.  Fortunately the sky in the original photo was just a narrow band, so I didn't need to use the entire sky from the "sky" photo.

With Kim's instructions I took this sky and put it together with the other image using a layer mask.

Voila!

Still not the perfect photo but much improved.  I can see

how this technique can be really useful.

Now I can go through my stash and see what other photos I can redeem.

Texture Tuesday April 15

I can't believe a week has gone by.....and it's Texture Tuesday once again.  Kim asked that we "center around the word 'celebrate'" 

and what came to my mind is my oldest grand's

high school graduation.  She is just completing her first year of college and is so excited because she has been formally accepted into the nursing program at Point Loma Nazarine College.  Both of these events are something for us to celebrate!  
I played around with this image in PSE using the mosaic filter.  I love this effect.

I also love this font "Strangelove Next Mixed" that Kim turned us on to. You can find it on Myfonts.com.  See more "celebrates" on Texture Tuesday here...

Texture Tuesday - 2-For eDition

Kim has asked us to use two of her textures for today's Texture Tuesday.....Spring is springing up all over.  My ginko tree is sprouting new leaves as is the liquidambar in the front yard.  The sycamore tree is the true harbinger of spring as 

far as trees go.  It is the first to lose its leaves in fall and the first to sprout new leaves in the spring.  When I see that happening 

I know the weather is going to warm up.  Our 

temperatures here at the beach have been consistently in the mid to high '60s for the past few weeks.  Even the lows are low '60s.  Yay.......and the sun is shining....double yay!

I found these lovely ranuculus at the grocery store and could not pass them by.

I took this shot "from above" trying to incorporate some of our lessons from Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers 2.

I used one layer of "Subtlely Yours" and three layers of "1808" to get the soft dreamy look I like.  Click below to see more "2-fors".

More Collages

Have you ever enjoyed your results so much that you just keep tinkering?  That's where I am at the moment.  I played with a couple more of my paintings and images.

I simply used a few filters with my self portrait here.   I then put two of my paintings over another image I got from Morguefile.com.  That result is below.  I also tweaked it in Topaz Adjust "neutralize" which desaturated the color somewhat.

Hope you are all having a great week-end.

   

Photo Art Friday April 5

I almost did not make it this week.  Our assignment for Photo Art Friday this week was "collage".   This is so fun because I love collaging my paintings over images.  Today the images are myself......I'm really on a roll with the self portraits.

I have two different versions and two different time frames of "self"....the first when I was a toddler.

and this next one is the same image I used on PAF before but under one of my paintings.

I can't wait to see what everyone else did.  So I'm hopping over to Bonnie's blog to have a look!