n2cre8n

Horse Painting gift

1. My mom's birthday was coming

2. I had been sketching horses a lot

3. I told my mom I would make her a custom iPhone case (months ago) from a piece of artwork I made

SO . . . 

I got this idea to do a practice painting for my daughter's bedroom (see previous post) and make something for my mom.  My acrylic painting class instructor showed me photos of other artists that had added color into animal paintings.  My favorite artist was Laurie Pace. I was instantly hooked and had to try it. Here are some of her paintings.

I chose my favorite sketch and drew it over and over until I had it the way I liked it.

Then I cleaned it up in Photoshop, printed it out, and used my projector to make it the exact size I wanted it on my piece of plywood (w/ 2 coats of gesso).

I wanted my personal touch on the background, so I did my tradition steps of paste texture and added some drywall and masking tape.

I started with some typical shade of brown that you would see on a horse.

Then painted my background shade of blue (my mom's favorite color).

Here comes color!

And here is how it ended up online, as the iPhone case was in progress!  I have uploaded several jpegs of artwork for custom cell phone cases and Case-Mate does an awesome job!  

 

Then I played around with some close up shots, using my 50mm 2.8/f lens.  

I love the short depth of field it will give me.

This might be a new favorite painting style - I got to combine drawing, texture, bright colors, and I learned a lot!

 

Photography of Scotland

Since I'm painting a photo I took in Scotland, I thought I'd share some of the pics I took while we were there.

The movie theatre in Edinburgh, where we saw Harry Potter 7, part II.  So exciting to see it in the city where she wrote the books!

Little bistro/deli where we had lunch the first day.

Edinburgh Castle

 

A mountain in Edinburgh that we hiked up.

Church ruins of Holyrood Palace . . . amazing carvings and detail here.

some detail of the Rosslyn Chapel . . . where Da Vinci code was filmed.

the castle where we stayed one night.  it was so fun.  we had dinner in the old dungeon!

one of my favorite memories of Scotland was the coffee we drank and reading my book, "The Winter Sea" while we were there and finishing it when we got home.  It's about a writer who went to the Highlands of Scotland to write a novel and her experience while there.  such a treasure to me now.

We rented a car and drive up to the Highlands (like what we refer to as "going to the mountains").  It was soooo beautiful up there.  we could have stayed a month up there.  so many lochs (lakes) and beautiful scenery.  

look familiar?

view from another castle (we saw 6 total) . . . American! LOL

a few pics of the scenery along the road

heading out on another hike

another castle, out on its own little island

I think this was my favorite castle . . . it is in ruins, but still so beautiful!

same castle, view from high inside it

some panoramics I made in Photoshop with photo merge . . . this is a view of Edinburgh

another of Edinburgh

and a view from Stirling Castle

 

It was truly an amazing trip.  I would go back in a heartbeat!!!

 

See the photos section (right column) for more photos

Music Album Inspiration

I love album art.  I right-click and save tons of album covers for inspiration.  Here are a few that I've saved.  I compiled these into a blank sheet and use it as my desktop wallpaper right now.

Right about in the middle is Faith Hill's "Fireflies" album.  I decided to play with this one tonight.  She has two bright lense flares near her chin.

Here is my version on a photo of my dd10 and dh of 15 yrs.

 

How to use lens flare: In PSE: Filter - Render - Lens Flare

You can play with placement and brightness. 

For more flexibility, you can do the flare on a black or gray layer (google this), but I didn't do that here.