Copyright: All artwork/content protected under ©2007-2011 Lynne Ciacco

All content herein copyright © Lynne Ciacco


Friday, July 4, 2014

Cat's cradle

I have been barnstorming on my other blog, Glimpses, but I have saved the cream of the cropped for my art blog here.


This is a very romanticized version of a double barn I photographed not far from where I live.  Thanks to some free "brushes" I found online, I added the birds to the sky and the cat in the field of tall grasses in Photoshop.  If you'd like to see the more prosaic versions of this intriguingly sagging barn, pop on over to Glimpses for a variety of views.

Thanks for stopping by! 


30 comments:

  1. Really like the the addition of the cat and birds. very fitting.
    It is sad tho, isn't it to see these large old functional structures going down. It took so much skill, effort, time and money to build them and now we can't even afford to maintain them.

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    1. Picturesque and sad. Fading old beauties that led hard and useful lives left to be deconstructed by time and neglect. And all too often, by the inescapable poverty of those who came to inherit them.

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  2. Oh my, I go to Glimpses and it says to come here, and when I come here it says to go to Glimpses, thus creating what is known in computer programming as an infinite loop.... I can see how my evening and night will be spent, going back and forth between barns... But what happened here, the first thing I thought was this image must have been made at the moment a nuclear explosion illuminated countryside for miles around... It is positively glowing !

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    1. Owen, I hope you never read the back of a shampoo bottle... ("lather, rinse, repeat.")...

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    2. A nuclear explosion?!! Not quite the effect I was going for (or, rather, accidentally stumbled upon). I was thinking more along the lines of that glow that sometimes happens just around sunset when an area of the sky is dark with grey clouds but the last lingering rays of the sun hit a house or barn or trees and light them up as if they were about to be beamed up to an alien spacecraft! Well, maybe not that bit about the aliens.

      Nice to have your comic relief around these parts again, Owen.
      ;-)

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  3. Lynne, this is very nice work. I love old barns, and, like Gwen, wish they weren't all falling down. Nice additions, with the birds and cat; you're becoming quite the photoshopper!

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    1. Glad you like it, Sharmon! There is a real beauty to falling-down barns, sad though it is to see them decaying and being lost.

      I love experimenting and learning new tricks in Photoshop. I just wish I could remember them from one happy accident of editing to the next! And another thing to love about PS: there's no glue to try to wash from my fingers or paint brushes to clean at the end of the day.

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  4. the presence of those little creatures, the birds, but especially the cat in the grass, blows me completely away...
    incredible atmosphere, i am thinking of a gothic sunset :-)

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    1. The little creatures bring life to the scene, don't they! Even though they are "pretend" they make it seem so much more real. I like the idea of a Gothic sunset...perhaps with lustful teenage vampires making out behind the barn?
      ;-)

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  5. i was over at "glimpses", and i love photos of old barns (old cars, old everything...), but i think this artsy one is my favorite. love the colors and the mood you created with them, and of course the cat is the icing on the cake!!!
    (and i know about this "i don´t remember how i made it" in photoshop... sometimes i write some hints down and in the end i can´t repeat them anyway, no more understanding what i meant...)

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    1. Glad you like this, Johanna. Nice to know, too, that we share the same love old things--so intriguing to photograph and work with. It`s really amusing to hear another artist confess to not understanding her well-meaning notes on capturing the process. I guess all we can do is go with the flow.

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  6. Nice work (and cream ;))

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  7. Started with a great photo and boy oh boy did you make it spectacular ... love the addition of cat and birds! The whole color scheme speaks moody old neglected barn somewhere?!

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    1. ``Spectacular`is a very fine word to hear applied to one`s art! Thanks for that. Your comment also gives me hope that my processing may have captured the essence of `moody old neglected`barns everywhere.

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  8. "Barnstorming" – that's a good one! Great job on adding the cat. That touch really makes it for me.

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    1. I knew pretty much right from the start that the scene required some sort of living creature(s) within it. I`m happy that it came out somehow believable, in spite of the heightened effects. I was serendipitous to find that particular cat brush. I`m glad you like the result.

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  9. this is beautiful. It could be in a book of sorts. :)

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    1. Thank you so much! I really appreciate that.
      :)

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  10. The colors look like as a thunderstorm is approaching. Brilliant! You've done great job!

    Love it!
    Gaby <3

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  11. Anonymous8/30/2014

    Where is Lynne??? I'm a little concerned.

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  12. Always fabulous... coloring up the broad side of a barn...

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  13. Me encantó conocer tu blog.
    Te dejo abrazos :)

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