Hi all! For a couple of small (under 3 feet tall ) reasons, I missed the deadline on the awesome Art Nouveau print contest this month- it was fun! Since I worked really hard on my entry I just had to finish it and see what people think.

As to my level of experience- I've been working seriously in Photoshop for about 2 years, was introduced to the program somewhere around 5 years ago.

This one started out with the b&w photo for the November contest. I used the pen tool to trace all the basic shapes in the photo, then on separate layers filled and stroked each shape. This completely covered up the original photo and became its own drawing.

I added soft light layers to paint on highlights and shadows, lowering opacity on the underlying layers so I could use the original as a guideline for where to place the shadows/highlights. This gave me a very cartoony, computer-generated look, so I used the art history brush to give it a more painterly look. Finally, I made a copy of the original photo, blurred it heavily to get very general shadow areas, and used it to darken up some areas of the painting to create more depth.

Thanks for looking/commenting!

Rachel

Beautiful work. What a shame you missed the deadline.

Syd

Lovely, Lilsip!

The only thing that confuses my eye in your rendering is the area to the left of her face. You've colored it the same as the skin tone on her neck where the eye expects to see shadowed hair.

Other than that. The overall delicate detail is excellent.

Sorry you missed the deadline.