Day Two Quote Challenge "Peace"

All I Am Saying is ~

From Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers group, todays word was peace which I think my image pretty much says it all.
Now can you get that earworm out of your head !

Day 38 Inspired Quotes - Life

Beyond Layers challenge is a week of inspired quotes, one word each day to put in our journal, working a photo and what it means to us.  The word was life.   I had just been out to visit Hagerman Wildlife Refuge which was teaming with life and beauty everywhere.  Living art, life at the most beautiful time of the year at the Refuge.   Robinson Jeffers  so eloquently wrote in Love The Wild Swan:

Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try

One grass-blade’s curve, or the throat of one bird

That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.

That pretty much sums it up ~
 

Blackbird Sings

I just love black birds with their bright wing patches and their little territorial antics and calls.  This handsome fellow was taken in April at Hagerman Wildlife Refuge.  The texture was from Kristen Frank. 

More Batik Experiments

More experiments with this Batik processing and I was happy to discover that it works on just about anything you want to play around with.  This Larkspur now is more botanical in appearance and is enjoying a matted look which I think really enhances its appeal.  It could stand a bit more work on the edges but in general I am happy with my experiments.  Enjoy ~

Batik for Photos

 I wanted to share with you some processing experiments that led to this cool batik effect in the sunflower below.  The first part is just taking a photo without to much background clutter and turning it into a sketch.  I will post this process below as I did it in Elements10.   Below was the same technique but I did something a bit different after the process of sketching was done.  Hope you like the exercise.  Enjoy ~

Open image and duplicate and name it "sketch".

Enhance: Unsharp Mask, you can play with this but I added quite a bit of sharpness, more than you would want for a normal photo.

Filter:  stylize:  glowing edges
again play here try something like 5,13,14

Go to the Sketch layer and invert colors with / control,shift,u

Enhance; adj. color and ;remove color

Create an adjustment layer over on your layers column and tweek levels and brighten .

Below the sketch layer you will now add a white layer, if it does not come out white then Press alt and  back space.  Double click and name "white".

Go back to sketch layer and put it as an  overlay

Go back to white layer and select the eraser tool and a brush like a dry media brush #63 set about 15-25% and begin to erase the white away to reveal the image underneath.
DO NOT FLATTEN YET.

There that is the process I used for the Zebras.

For this next step for the sunflower Batik effect I used a copy of the original background without any thing done to it except using levels to brighten.   In the Layers use a watercolor (lowest settings)
Now take this layer and drag or drop it under your layer named "sketch".    It should take on a life of its own now.  You may not like it, or it might be fantastic.   Keep playing with different images and experiment till it pleases you.   You can use blending modes such as multiply and linear burn, overlay or what ever you want for this till you find something you like, and then change opacity to suit the colors you want.

New work and more birds!

 The more I play around with birds and the processing of textures the more I am learning.  I guess birding might become a new hobby!   They sure are not easy to get images of and at least for my art I do not need super close images.  For once less is more!  Enjoy ~