A Father's Day Gift (I cheated a little)
Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 04:08PM 
Photoshop never fails me. I use it for far more things than I probably should. Today I used it to make a father's Day gift. I needed to make a splash for Father's Day, since his fortieth birthday present was shipped to the wrong house and is currently making it's way back to Italy. It was a toaster oven, to make up for the one I tossed when I moved in with him. I know what you're thinking, but it's a very fancy toaster oven.
Anyway, TC, had requested an image of Bee for his office. I had taken a photo of her recently that we both loved, here it is:
I opened it in Photoshop and desaturated it, making it black and white. Then I used the colored pencil filter (and the eraser tool, to remove the background) to create this image. You'll have to fool around with the sliders in the colored pencil filter preview window, this is an extreme setting.
And then I printed it out on watercolor paper (I used the fine art paper setting on my printer) and sat down with my watercolors (which don't see the light of day much!) and went to work. In the one water color class I ever took (highly recomended) I learned that you should apply very light layers, starting withthe lightest color and ending with the darkest. I followed the shadows that were on the page as guides, and refered to my photo for colors. Its not perfect, somehwere in the middle I had to stop and negotiate with a ten month old regarding her nap time and clean up some dog barf, and it's not an exact likeness but not too shabby, right? The best part is that the paper is nice and big, and I'm putting it into a big shadowbox frame with a thick mounting dot behind it, so it sorts of floats. As soon as Bee is up we are headed down to the Seaport to buy some wrapping paper, and voila!
Reader Comments (6)
Fantastic! I may need to steal that idea one day. Your little girl is beautiful!
He will LOVE it! She is adorable. I love baby rolls! And you'd be surprised how many artists (past and present) "cheat" like this! ;) Great job!
Gosh she has grown up!! And she looks so much like you :-)
Beautiful gift!
She is adorable and has such a sweet smile! Your painting is equally adorable and is a perfect present!!
You do wonders in Photoshop! Thank you for sharing your process! It is very informative!
A precious baby, a precious gift! Thank you for sharing your process. Not that I think I could do it justice, but it's nice to have the information!
really cool idea! thanks for the 'tutorial'