Remember

Before I move on to discuss the other classes I took at Art & Soul last month, I want to backtrack to yesterday's post for a moment, the one where I showcased several detail photographs of the paste papers I created in Albie Smith's Paste Paper Extravaganza class. I was even inspired to use a paste paper photo as a digital texture in a photoshop creation, shown at the end of the post.

I haven't been able to put aside the idea of using these detailed paste paper shots in photoshop. I know they're a goldmine and I just want to stick with them. Late last night, when normal folks are trotting off to bed, I opened another paste paper image in photoshop and totally messed around with it, going at it with everything from curves and levels adjustments to hue changes and filters. The end result was an image that barely resembled the original, which was my intention. But then what? If I couldn't make it work as a texture or background, I'd consider it a waste of time. The next step was to create something.

So I did. See above, what I've been working on today. The texture I created from the paste paper photograph was used (as was a bird photograph I took in Florida this winter, along with a couple of other touches) but I altered the texture once more, making it square and totally changing the colours from warm and earthy to cool and blue. I'm quite pleased with the final results and now know that I will not only be taking more photographs of my paste papers to use in this fashion, but will also be spending an inordinate amount of time altering them!

Here's a copy of the texture, before I squished it into a square format and made it blue. Just click on the image or click HERE, then click on the All Sizes link, to download it. If you use it, I'd love to see your creation -- I hope you have fun with it!