Category: Painterly

Day 37 – Yellow Woods

YellowWood2

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost
I managed a walk in Lithia Park this morning before the rain set in. I have to say the colors were amazing and the reflections in the lower duck pond took my breath away. I went with a painterly treatment and texture effect on this one and it immediately put me in mind of one of my all time favorite poems… probably because it was introduced to me by one of my favorite teachers, ’round about 4th or 5th grade.

Day 36 – Books and Bakery

BooksandBakeryw

There is no Frigate Like a Book

There is no Frigate like a Book 
To take us Lands away 
Nor any Coursers like a Page 
Of prancing Poetry – 
This Traverse may the poorest take 
Without oppress of Toll – 
How frugal is the Chariot 
That bears the Human Soul –
– Emily Dickinson
I was feeling more painterly today and came across this image taken in Vermont. It had a lot of power lines in the original so I gave it the full Photoshop treatment. And what better combination than books and a bakery, and a poem by Emily Dickinson.

Day 17 – Lobster Boats

Lobster_Boats_Cezannew

from The Old Lobsterman

He makes for the floats that mark the spots, 
And rises and falls on the sweeping swells, 
Ships oars, and pulls his lobster-pots, 
And tumbles the tangled claws and shells 
In the leaky bottom; and bails his skiff; 
While the slow waves thunder along the cliff, 
And foam far away where sun and mist 
Edge all the region with amethyst. 

-John Townsend Trowbridge

Leaving Maine today we stopped and spent some time in Portland (the other Portland). I really liked these lobster boats but thought they might look better with a painterly treatment.

Coneflower

ConeflowerFLw

This was captured using a technique called free lensing, where one takes the lens off the camera and turns it around to shoot through witout being attached. The trick is finding and holding a point of focus. I was going for the little curly cues and I think it turned out pretty well. I also added a texture to take it even further in a painterly direction.

Italian Alleyway

Alleyway

As I am learning new skills in Photoshop Artistry I have been going back through old files to look for things that would benefit from a different treatment. This image is from a 2010 trip to Italy. It was quite dark and required some serious levels adjustment to be usable. From there I just gave the edges a watercolor treatment, added some textures and an Italian stamp.

Deer in Snow

DeerinSnowW

Not much time for photography this week but this image I shot in New Mexico some years back on the east side of the Sangre de Cristo Range. It had just started to snow. Unfortunately it turned into a full blown blizzard and I was on the wrong side of the mountains!

I did a watercolor treatment on a texture to get the effect. I think this one might look good printed on wood.

Bicyclette

Front_Porch

I’ve been working on digital art this week. The weather has not been too cooperative for getting out to photograph. I’m getting better at blending and adding water color edges. The photo is from Santa Fe. I just felt like giving it a French name.

So, the technique here, in Photoshop, is to mask out the entire image then stamp it back in with water color brushes using white on the mask. I also applied a blending mode which is how the wall behind the bicycle got blended into the background. Looking at it now I think maybe I should have expanded the image a little toward the upper left.

Paddleboats

Paddleboats

I was working on a web gallery of my Cuba images yesterday and came across this one that I hadn’t done anything with. I loved the colors of the paddle boats and the water but they were a little dirty and grungy so I decided to try a painterly treatment in Topaz Impression which I love. I also cropped in quite a bit to get rid of distractions in the background and make it all about the bands of color.

Dreaming of Spring

DreamingofSpring

I’ve been suffering from a bad case of the winter blues mixed with serious cabin fever. I though since I went to Cuba in December I didn’t need to plan a warm winter trip for January. I was wrong. Won’t make that mistake again.

Anyway, I’m plugging away at Photoshop artistry and started playing with these orchard blossom pictures and came up with this composition I call Dreaming of Spring. It went through a lot of steps of blending and filter gallery and Topaz Impression and the addition of an artistic border but I’m pretty happy with the final result.