Koi Painting

4/13/21

    Helen posted the fish starter image from Pixabay, shown below. After I ran it through the camera raw filter, I knew I wanted to jazz it up with some color. I tried several different methods, including rainbow scales, until I settled on this one.

    The first thing I did was isolate it from the background and exchanged the blah water for a shades of blue gradient. I then added texture image of my gray marble cutting board with a soft light blending mode.Then I added a pastel holographic texture from Adobe Stock with a linear burn blend mode. Then I added a brighter holographic image from AdobeStock, this time on blend mode. I just kept copying the first mask I had made, so only the background was affected. Next was a small flowered texture image  in mostly orange tones using linear light — this time I inverted the mask so only the fish changed color. To finished, a added a dark vignette around the edges.

    I’ve had downloaded the room image from AdobeStock some time ago, You may even recognize it in another composite image. This time I did not show the windows. I thought about adding a sofa, but thought some composite would be more dramatic without it.

I sized the image to take up most of the wall, Next, I added and recolored a wide, wood frame I  made from scratch a few years ago. At the time, I made five or six different molding profiles and colors one afternoon. Those frames have been so easy to use and reuse for all of my framing needs. :-) It was well worth the time. You can watch the somewhat dated, but still applicable video here to see how it’s done here: http://bit.ly/12YJ1wI

    Take care, and stay well.