A little too flowery?

What better model than a flower? Full of colour and life, not at all camera shy--and offering all sorts of exciting possibilities for creative editing.

c.2014. L.Ciacco. Iris Pastelli. Digital Art from original photo

Flowers have long been popular subjects for painters, including myself. But in this instance, I have turned a photograph into what I hope looks like a chalk pastel drawing. I love working with pastels, though they do get terribly messy (at least in my hands). Working digitally, bending and blending the pixels with the smudge tool in Photoshop, I can get a very similar effect to chalk pastels without all the dust. This was a brand new discovery for me--very excited about it!

Here's a collage of four of the versions/experiments I made along the way, just trying different filters and textures in Photoshop.

This highly abstracted version still has an element of painterliness to it, hinting at a highly textured, mixed-media canvas.

Pure abstraction! Created with applying the Wave filter in Photoshop (applied blindly, I might add.  "Whack it on there and see what happens!" is the technique used).

This is the photo that I used to make all the above images. It was already cropped and had several filters applied to it, including plastic wrap (helps keep the flowers fresh).

And this is the photo where it all began, taken with my Asus tablet using the 'Little Photo camera' and the 'HDR-FX' apps.

Go ahead and ask me if I'm having fun yet!

Joining up with Nature's Footstep abstract meme today.  Pop over there to treat yourself to other participants' digital art.

Meditation

Looking at this image gives me the same sort of feeling as gazing at a mandala: a feeling of concentration, being centred and focused.  There seems to be an intense, small face right at the apex of the bouquet, gazing intently back at me, exuding energy. Below the face, the heart-centred body, directing the energy both upwards and downwards, grounding and liberating. At least, that's what I see. And you?

This piece was made from a photo of a vase of lilacs, taken with my Asus tablet, treated to a mirror image effect with the PicsArt app, imported into my laptop computer and worked on in Photoshop.  Making it was a meditation in itself.

Process. 

Centredness. 

Exploration. 

Discovery.

(or in other words, obsessing and having too much fun!)

Flower Reduction

Playing with various effects and apps with my tablet eventually produced this version of a photo I took of a tulip in our yard. 

Do you think it could pass as a pastel drawing?

I think perhaps the colours are a tad too acidic for it to look like anything other than digitally made art.

But that's okay...isn't it?

Maxim, Medieval, Mothers

A triple whammy for you today!  First, here's the maxim of the week...

Although pleased with himself for being able to get into the difficult yoga pose, Graham begins to fear that he may not be able to get out of it.

Maxim:

Another such victory and we are undone.

***

I've been working full-time for the past couple of weeks and under such circumstances, time and energy seem to shift dramatically and shrink radically.  Consequently, I didn't manage to post an installation in my Medieval Collage Series this week.



©2013 L.Ciacco, Unicorn Rider, Collaged calendar scraps & commercial papers, on vintage book page, 8 x 5 inches

I hope this will make up for my lapse.

***

And last, but not least, here's a little pot of posies

to honour and celebrate Mothers' Day

Flower Power

In visiting some of my favourite blogs, I noticed that Kim Klassen's photo prompt this week is "flower power."  To get my mind off the continuing dismal weather here, I thought I'd toss a little bouquet out there for you all to catch.

This is my watercolour/Asian version. No paints were used to produce this effect; just some Photoshopping
making good use of the "Difference" mode which more or less inverts colours.

This version uses Kim's texture "Daisy" as an overlay

 ( the layer I converted to "difference mode"

in the "watercolour" rendition).

I also made use of the clone stamp to fill in the area at the top with more light, 

using some of the shiny areas from the bottom

(sort of like a skin graft).

And this is the photo I began with

(notice the dark area at the top 

that I cloned out in the previous image).  

It was a lovely bouquet I  received,
a few years ago now, 

arriving under protective cellophane, 

giving that sparkling sort of magic effect.

Any sign of blossoms in your neck of the woods as yet?

This is as close as I've come, so far.