My Girl Smudge Painting-What Do You Think?

[graham5]

I am finally back after a while. I am not sure if this is in the right place or if it should be in Critiques. I posted my first smudge attempt a while back and received several valuable critiques which I took to heart and came back and practiced, practiced, and practiced. I finally got it. Now I understand all about the different strokes, layers, etc. While it was sorta frustrating wading through all of it and the numerous tutorials that are mostly for photoshop ( I use Paint Shop Pro X2), I feel fantastic for having stuck with it, because I finally produced a painting I am happy with. I am sure it will not be as good as the many professionals gracing this board, but I believe I am on the right track. I always have room for improvement, so please tell me how I can improve on my work. By the way, this painting was done using the mouse on my laptop. I do not own a pen tablet. I have done just a little research on them and they can be somewhat pricey for me. I guess I wanted to see if I could accomplish this type of artwork before investing in one. All of this is my own handiwork....no filters, plugins, etc. Just bunches of layers and combining different things. I tried to use some canvas textures, but they were okay, so I didn't send that one. Hope the pictures were uploaded correctly.

[palms1]

Graham sorry i meant to post a reply yesterday but got waylaid ( again)

Glad you did stick at it, your work looks very nice, smudging is a lot harder in psp ( i did try it once and immediately gave up )

a pen tablet does make a difference,especially on long hair you tend to get a waver with a mouse,(my first smudges was with a mouse) one way i found helped was to rotate the image so i smudged horizontally for the hair .

When you have finished zoom in real big and look for bits that you have missed ( there always is some) like around your mouth area


Palms

[Peter S]

Well your definitely getting there, very good for just using a mouse.
Maybe try increasing the saturation a little to make it pop a bit more.
I've attached my effort with a canvas texture added along with adjusting the lighting effect. (I've probably overdone every thing of course)

Peter

[graham5]

Thanks alot guys. I feel more confident in myself now. Great job Peter on your take. She's beautiful. I redid the picture and increased the saturation a little. It made a big difference and now she looks so warm. By the way, this is a picture of my beautiful daughter who loves to pose for the camera. Here is the new redo I did along with a canvas texture. I am getting there!!

[Fluffbutt]

Wow - she's very pretty.

Here's a quick blur-smudge thingy from FotoSketcher:

[ahutton]

I don't have any plugins installed on my new computer, so this is straight PSP.

Done with salt and pepper filter and then a couple passes with a high pass sharpen,

Amy