Vintage Findings

Where the Sea Meets The Sky

Oh how I loved this fishing village on the Cinque Terre Coast ~ this is Vernazza halfway up on our climb to a fabulous lunch.

Still experiementing and playing with digital brushes and digital canvas.  I think I'll always enjoy pushing pixels.

The original image:

We've had a couple overcast days, sort of like this image but without the spectacular view :-)  

~Karen

Wash Day

Wash day, which I suppose was everyday since I saw and loved all the laundry hanging from windows throughout the towns we traveled.  Of all the laundry lines I photographed I finally got one with someone actually pegging the laundry.

And the original:

The little town of Riomaggiore.  Still working on the possibilities of Corel.

Happy weekend to you ~ hope your laundry is all caught up.

~K

In the Marina ~

~ the boats wait patiently.  I think they were as colorful as the hillside homes in Riomagiore.  Paintwork, textured, a little Art History Brushwork for touch up.  Again, I offer you the finished image along with the original photo.

I have the idea of a final image in my mind, but am still unable to grasp it fully with the digital brush ~ I will get there, though, with time and practice.

~Karen

 

 

The Colors I Fell In Love With

Everywhere I looked I saw beautiful saturated colors ~ I loved it all!

Comparison images.  Vernazza, Liguria, Italy.

Corel Paint work and texture work.

More later. . . 

~K

Walking in Pisa

Down a little side street, in an alley, leaning against the wall. . .

 

Painted digitally in Corel as well as painted textures from the paper library into different portions of the image.  You can click on the image to view it a bit larger if you have time.

Of course we saw the famous leaning tower of Pisa, but some of the side streets were really interesting, too.

Sunshine continues here ~ it is that time of year that I enjoy having my lunch sitting outside my laundry room door.  And this weather makes the hike to get the mail much more inviting.

Hope spring is arriving where you are.

~Karen

Vintage Play

Seems I've used a lot of processing on this one:  LightRoom, PhotoShop, and Corel. Hope to do more in this style. Not only do I get to use the programs I love, I get to incorporate vintage photos, ephemera, brushes, and texture.

Hope you are headed into a wonderful weekend.

~K

 

A Little Rain Never Hurt ~

Original image was taken in San Franciso last summer. I recently painted the bicycle and the fence in Corel and left the background unpainted so I could add the background. It looks like watercolor washes, but it is the colorful bokeh from a shot at the farmer's market. It seems to have the right light for this image, especially after adding the water drops that remained on my window after a recent rain. I liked the look of shiny, wet pavement it gave to the overall image.

I know I should be working on other things, but sometimes I just get carried away with all those wonderful digital brushes. . . 

~K

 

Buoys of Oysterville

Quite some time ago, my friend Mary and I set out on a road trip and had a great girl's weekend.  We spent some time in Long Beach, Washington, and stopped at all the little towns between points of destination.  One such town was Oysterville. I used Corel to paint some of the colorful finds.

We stumbled upon a house that had thousands of buoys ~ they were hung as a fence row around the property, they were piled on the back porch, they were overflowing from boats, they were tangled in nets, etc. Everywhere you looked there were more. My reference image is shown below.

We just had to capture these colorful beauties swaying in the wind. No dogs barked, no one yelled at us, so we just kept creeping around the backyard snapping photos. What a great time we had :-)

I hope your new year will be filled with adventure . . .

~K

An Arrow ~

An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backwards ~ so when life is dragging you back, it means that it is going to launch you into something great. So just focus and keep aiming.

I have no idea who said that, but I like it. I hope to continue in the direction I have been aiming for in this New Year.  

Part of that direction I'm focused on is Corel Paint work. I wished to give this old building a sun-drenched look, sort of like the sun going down with the last bits of light hitting the stucco. I had a hard time finalizing my vision.  Here is where I began:

Some under-painting work:

Perhaps I got carried away with dabbing color everywhere but I loved the  Scumbly Tail brush from Jeremy Sutton/PaintBoxTV . It blend beautifully. So after much paint, sketch, emboss, and texture work, I finally arrived at the image that I had in my mind.

The new Lighting Effects in CS6 helped keep the light foward and the shadows in the back of the image. Will be posting this one later today on Flickr.

Enjoy your weekend and keep your aim, because we are launched into a whole New Year :-)

I almost forgot ~ I wanted to include the screen shot of my layers panel:

~K

Sweet Wishes

What is more magical than waking to a world of white ~ climbing out of bed and peering at the transformed landscape? It settles a hush deep into the crevices of time and answers the thousands of wishes of children (young and old) everywhere. I hope all of your wishes come true this holiday season. 

The original image for the view out the window is from my friend Alan who lives in Wisconsin.  It is a gorgeous winter scene which he graciously let me attempt to paint. I could not do it justice. This is an image viewed best just as he presented it. Thank you, Alan, for letting me have a go at it.

I am attempting to paint in Corel, but could not do Alan's image justice. In an effort to save a poorly painted image (I have many LOL), I have hidden the attempt under layers of texture trying to use texture to give the look of peering out a screened window while retaining the frosted glass look.

All the very best to you this Christmastime.

~Karen