Monarch on Globe Thistle

Original Monarch Butterfly on Globe Thistle



Textured Version




Black & White Version

Hand Colored Version

Well here is my second attempt at hand coloring.  Actually have tried many photographs, but this one and the Blueberries so far are my favorites.  With the Monarch Butterfly for textures I used:  Beowulf, Muscatel and Fly textures 30.   In Photoshop Elements I used the black and white conversion with the vivid tool to lighten up the photograph.  I had to lighten the shadows even more by about 10%.  I still of course need lots of practice, but I believe I am on the right track.  Both the Blueberries and the Monarch were hand colored in a 5x7 size.  I will enlarge them to 8x10 and 11x17 and sell them at those sizes too.  I have another Monarch I want to try and a Cosmos flower.  And I think that will be a good starting point for me to master the hand coloring techniques for hopefully the 4 photographs.  Until I can get some new photographs.  I mentioned in the last blog that I was going to hand color my Ivy Door.  I did and at first I didn't like it.  It wasn't as nice as the traditional hand colored one I did on fiber paper using colored pencils.  I know I am using a whole new technique, but I had to compare and of course I was very disappointed.  So I set it aside and now the more I look at it and once I enlarge it to at least an 8x10 (it too was a 5x7) maybe I can make it work out better.  Again I have to practice and not compare.  Because it won't be the same.  Before long I will get it.  As they say practice, practice, practice!  Practice makes almost Perfect.

From Original To Textured To Black & White To Hand Colored

Original Blueberries

 This is the Original photograph before any thing was done to it.  These blueberries where from my own garden.  Which where quite tasty and my dog Ben thought so too.



Textured Blueberries

 
This photograph was textured using Flypaper Textures.
The textures I used were:
Colbalt Clouds
Evening Veil
Beowulf
Nuriel Clouds.
I am really liking the textures and how they look in black & white then to hand color.


Black and White Blueberries


I converted the textured photograph to black and white in Photoshop Elements 8. I convert it to black & white then used the infrared tool to lighten so I could keep all the textures details and then lighten up the shadows quite a bit.
I do want to point out that after I had sprayed the photo with the Premier Art Spray it darken up the photo a bit.


Hand Colored Blueberries



This is my first attempt at hand coloring using techniques that were taught to me by Dianne Poinski.  Unfortunately I don't have a flatbed scanner yet. So I had photographed the photo which I am not really good at, but this is the closest to the original photograph I could get.  It is very close just there is a little more green in the light colored berries and more green in the background, but the blue is pretty right on.  Some of the tools I used were q-tips for mixing my colors and the cotton balls were used to dab over the background and used blending sponges to blend.  It isn't perfect nor is it ready for sale, but I think I am on the right track and with more practice I will soon be almost as good as Dianne.
Over the next few days I will be doing some butterflies, sunflower, and ivy door and others.  Which I will post in future posts.