Lost Aussie on the loose

Faux Old in Photoshop

It's been a looooong time since I did much with Photoshop other than than using it for photo processing and compositing so tonight I broke out the virtual canvas and the Mixer Brushes and had at it....

... and since my "proper" etching press is still dismantled and in various boxes, I spent the evening tinkering with techniques to recreate a somewhat faux old, etched/litho styled image.

The photo on the left is the SOOC starting point. 

From there I worked various layers in Photoshop using the Mixer Brush tools to develop a more painterly image.
Created some custom brushes to work with the Pattern Stamp tool, added a few doses of texture, various filter effects and a bunch of adjustment layers to get the contrast the way I felt it would be if the image were being inked and etched.

The final tie-in was to create a custom Gradient Map to mimic the bluey/indigo tones that you get when you ink a plate and press (the color is never quite black black) and then another Gradient Map to match the shades of antique paper.

On the whole I am pretty pleased with how it turned out and the "recipe" should work fairly well on most images - so it's been filed in the "book"....

Oh and there was another batch of Jam today ..... this time Pineapple and Mango (with Lime and Ginger) ... very yummy too!  Fortunately, there are only a few more empty jars left ... perhaps one more batch of pickle and then we can call the preserving adventures done for a while!

 

New Creative Bits...

DH is away this week for work and on the nightly phone call this evening there was "hello, how are you?" which was immediately followed by " where's the blog post for yesterday and why is there no new art posted ?"........

Hmmm like one makes art like one washes the clothes or vacuums the floors? .. On demand?

Fortunately for me, (or for him, I'm not sure)? ... there was some new work in the wings....

"Racing For The Edge "
© Marie Otero 2013

 Another piece of Surrealism .... Sailboat off the beach at Mullaloo, dolphin and a whale tail from off the coast of Perth, coupled with skies off Jones Beach on Long Island.

And then there's a bit of pseudo fantasy art, created using one of the images shot from the Belly Dancer event...

"Forrest Dance"
© Marie Otero 2013

Is that enough to garner my "productive" points for the day?  I can throw in a few hours of weeding in the garden and and hour swimming laps at the pool if I need to....and let's not get onto the subject of laundry OR vacuuming floors!

A Little Creative Fun

I've been playing with some of my "less than nude" pix today combining images from the model shoot with backgrounds shot in Brooklyn, textures of my own and a whole parcel of other Photoshop fun.

It's always nice to meander down the creative road with no particular direction in mind and see where you end up ....

Playing With Flowers

I hauled out my Macro lens today to take some pix of some of the pretty flowers in the vases around the house.  Gerberas are just about my all time fave blooms.  I love their delicacy as well the complex intricacy of their faces and they make great subjects to photograph.

In the favourite flower department, Orchids would make a happy second to Gerberas and in the few short weeks that we have been living here, thanks to a visit to a local orchid show and to Trader Joes,  I have garnered three new plants, all of which are enjoying the westerly aspect of the shelf they sit on and love the sunshine that they get in the afternoon.

This is the SOOC shot of one of them, which probably mertited a bit better focus and the bother of getting the tripod out....

However, add some texture and paint....

.. and there's a whole lot of fun going on....

Here's wishing you all a sunny and happy weekend!!

Wistful Thinking

It's nearly 12 months since I hopped on a jet plane and enjoyed my first proper photography/travel workshop in Venice.

I fell royally in love when I was there, not only with the City and it's people, but with my camera too and I'd like to think that leaps and bounds have been made in my photo taking abilities since that awe inspiring visit was made.

This is the SOOC image that I used for the photoshopped version above.

If you've been a student in my Paint Sketch Play class you should have a good idea of how I arrived at the final image.

Lots of Art History and Mixer brushing. 
Layers of texture and sketch. 
Judicious amounts of Gradient Mapping and Selective Color Adjustments, topped off with some Smudge, Blur, Blend and Vignette layers. 
And of course a good crop to find the part of the image that worked best.

Carnivale is almost upon us again.

I'm thinking, wishing, dreaming of being there again.  Sipping little cups of hot chocolate, dining in the cafes beside the Grand Canal, walking the promenade and the Piazza and feasting on the eye candy with my camera....

And Then There Was Seven...

Our merry band of two sons and two girlfriends have been added to by way of another "mum"  from Australia joining the band to become a semi-permanent member of our Christmas gaggle! Tripping around NYC today we could have made for a grand photo-walk group, and probably did.

We started our day by heading down to Union Square Christmas Markets where I snapped some images and moments that caught my eye.....

and then one or two that were a little more "usual"

and then some that I just had to "wreck" in Photoshop.....starting with a Pop-Up-Shop window decoration...

and ending with....

A grand day out by all accounts and a few nice snaps to add to the collection! :-)

A Not So "Still Life"

Things are busy and on the go at "Casa Otero" with visitors from afar, sightseeing and holiday preparations and trying to fit that all in with the non-stop, no vacation work ethic of DH.

I appreciate the kind comments and emails and am glad that you are still popping by to read the blog even though there is little creativity to be had at the moment..... I think it's a week at least since I even had my camera out!!

I'll leave you with a little "Pear Play" from a few weeks ago when I was messing around in the basement....

Here's hoping that your December is moving along at a spiffy pace!!!!  Mine sure is!!

Getting Decorated

Our Christmas Tree is finally UP!  Some years, the years when the boys are not here I can barely drag a box of Christmas decorations out and feel all surly and sour about the whole "thing" .... but the times they are here I love to get our tree out and see it primped in all it's glory!!

A labour of love and a certain amount of pedantic perfection required.... so many strands of white lights in the middle, so many coloured ones on the outer branches.... I'm picky (ask David!)

But when it's up and done I savour it so.
Quite the hotch potch of ornaments as they all have a meaning and a memory attached.  Garnered from Kindergarten years to present day, and each year we add a new one.  This year it's a glassy whale from Anthropologie - to symbolise the shape of Long Island (a la Greenport Brewing Company).
Definitely not your average Home and Garden cover material, but I love it anyway.

Then there are 4 boxes of "decorations" for the house.  A collection of Santas (for him) and a collection of Snowmen (for her).

A little over the top perhaps, but when I first came to America I was mesmerised at all the wonderful and (inexpensive) decorations and quickly amassed and rather large collection.

Fortunately these days I limit myself to the one new ornament a year but I still enjoy unpacking the different bits that have been garnered over time and perphaps even more so this year as I have in my mind's eye a little photographic whooppee to make with the tableaus that I create....

Somehow I think the Snowmen will win and feature on the Christmas Card this year.... or perhaps the Santa......

What do you think?

A Recipe For Tempest

Take an image of some weird plaster texture snapped in NYC on Saturday, clone and work the heck out of it to make a decent background, add a few photos of the odd building and basillica from Venice, drop in one more New York City church spire, currently almost sunk, mix thoroughly with the odd texture here and there, blend to taste .... and voila, and you have your very own Venetian tempest!

The good thing is no real buildings were harmed in the process :-)

From The (Virtual) Sketchbook

I got busy in the basement with my camera the other day, hauled some lights out of mothballs, rigged up backdrops and all manner of weird mechanisms for posing and suspending various objects and just played with the lighting to see what I could "see".

As you can tell from the above image, my subject matter included that which was raided from the fridge.  Corn duly snapped, was quickly imported into Photoshop for a bit of makeover, add a background of some vintage ledger paper that I ripped out from a book and voila you have your still life study.....

With narry a paintbrush harmed in the process......