Sunday, March 13, 2011

Trace and Fill

I used the paintbrush to trace the lines of the photograph in white. Then I used the selection color tool, selected one of a range of colors inside the area, and then the paint bucket to fill the area. It was simple. I had my doubts though. After filling the first sections of the flower and losing all the exquisite detail that mother nature provided, I was sure this exercise would look hideous. But it doesn't. I persevered and really like the overall effect. The colors, the lines, the shapes....all pretty.  And, from a quilting perspective, I can totally see this as a quilt.  The quilting lines could stay simple to the concept, or you could pick darker threads and add the subtle shading that the flower started with.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Gladiola

Wouldn't it be cool to be able to paint a flower like this? It is so beautiful! My style of art isn't realism though. I find beauty in lots of places and consistently am drawn to clean lines and nice colors, very graphic in style. I think I might try to play with an image like this in Photoshop and perhaps draw on top of it, fill it in completely, and then "disappear" the photo all together. I think it would be fun to play with it on real paper too, with pencils and maybe watercolor...dreaming until I get my cast off. At least the photography is fun to look at as well. ps. can't really hold a camera yet, so I am sort of cheating by posting this old photo. Enjoy!