Blooming Marvelous

I am finally experiencing some California sunshine. It’s mostly been a cold and rainy week so I haven’t been out with my camera as much as I would have liked. My sister and I did stop at Roger’s Gardens yesterday; I’m helping her learn how to use her camera, especially how to blur the background in her photos. I captured some beautiful blue hydrangeas, a favorite flower of mine.

I began this page by placing a photo on a new blank 12×12 document in Photoshop. I duplicated the photo twice. The bottom layer is the original on Normal blend mode at 100%. The second layer I took into Topaz Studio and gave it a sketchy look. I changed the blend mode to Hard Light at 100%. The top photo layer I also took into Topaz Studio and gave it a graphic look and changed the blend mode to Normal at 40%. I linked all the layers.

Next, I placed fotoblendz 1 from Sirenic FotoBlendz No. 1 on my page. I clipped the three photo layers to the fotoblendz mask.

I turned on solid paper 3 from ArtPlay Palette Sirenic.

Note: I had already decided that I was going to use this paper from the ArtPlay Palette.

Just above the paper but below the photo layers, I placed transfer 2 from ArtPlay Palette Sirenic on Normal blend mode at 100% opacity. Above the photo layers, I placed the same transfer, rotated it and changed the blend mode to Multiply at 100%. I added a layer mask to hide part of the transfer. I also placed the gold paint from ArtPlay Palette Sirenic.

Finally, I stamped a brush from ArtPlay Palette Sirenic on the left, placed the layers of file 2 from MultiMedia Sirenic No. 1 on the right and added the word art file from Love WordART Mix No. 2.

It’s a simple page, but a good reminder of some of the beauty I saw during my week in California. Now I’ve got to get back to helping my sister organize her photos.