4 Painterly Photoshop Experiments

Devoted the day to painterly explorations following a Jack Davis webinar on Creative Live (as part of their Photoshop Week). He is so talented and so good at translating physical art into digital art techniques. I'm a real sucker for texture.

Here are some of my photos turned into painterly works using the free download of textures, actions, patterns, and brushes that Jack gave us. You can get them from his Facebook page, if you "Like" him.

Modified with Jack's Sketch action in Photoshop.
The action removes color. I put some back.

Combination of Jack's actions. A true experiment.

I had no idea how this would turn out.

Attempting oil colors using some of Jack's

stuff and some of my own.

Blue Clematis using the Photoshop Fresco
filter and Jack's pattern overlays.

Detail of Blue Clematis to show more texture.

His pattern overlays are quite lovely. The impasto strokes come in three sizes (small, medium, and large). The canvas texture is highly realistic. Some of the features only work in Photoshop 6.

He's going to be on "all day" tomorrow. Sign up is free for the live event. Recorded classes cost and come with some extras.

Winter Trees Mug: On Sale!

See the website for the discount code.

Finding My Himal

Since forever I've resorted to saying, "I'm going to go sit on a mountain top in Nepal!" when things got rough. Well, they're rough now and I'm focused on making my own Himalayan mountains.

The topological map import into Bryce didn't work, mostly because I couldn't find a free one that was appropriate. I tried making my own by drawing over a screen shot. Not very successful either. I ended up with lots of alien towers instead of mountains.

So, I resigned myself to making mountains in Bryce that sort of approximate a Himal feel. These are the best ones so far:

Generated these using the Bryce Fractal:Slickrock filter with a bit of Erode and Smoothing thrown in.
Not totally enamored of the texture. The shape is nice and the snow is in good spots.

You can see other attempts on my Facebook fan page.

Did you know that Nepal is like the Switzerland or Netherlands of Asia? People move in and across from all surrounding countries. There doesn't seem to really be a "native" Nepalese. In the south it's Indian Nepal and in the North it's Tibetan Nepal. Yet somehow all these people live and let live together.

There's a lot of photos, movies, and stories on Mark Horrell's site. Almost like being there.