Last fall I decided to take some old images and rework them in Photoshop. Creating something directly in Photoshop doesn’t appeal to me, but seeing what happens to an image that’s been painted, with all the complexities of surface and color does. Here’s one that was posterized, among other things, and another that I inverted.

Then I was doing an image for the holidays…a Father Christmas. I finished the painting, but it was just lacking something for me. I brought it into Photoshop and started adding arbitrary textures, like cement and closeups of leaves and fabrics, tweaking screen levels and cutting away where not needed. I had a terrific time doing it and fell in love with the complexity of the surface. Cement into snow…what fun! This piece has been winning awards, so I might be on to something.

The latest piece was this cardinal. There was so much going on already in the original I had to be pretty descriminating about where to enhance, but put in textures here and there along with a couple of real berry photo images. There’s a richness that’s hard to explain with this system.

This is definitely a direction worth pursuing further. It brings a fresh tool to the studio, but lets me keep what I love about painting. Time flies when I’m working on these…fully engaged and excited. Feeling lucky.