Playing with Photoshop's New Sky Replacement Tool

 

Always in the mood to learn something new, while not wanting the end result to to be like anyone else's, I decided to experiment.  Photoshop's new Sky Replacement tool has a number of nice sky presets.  But when I use them, I'm using elements I didn't create, and that anyone else can use, which is never my first choice.  So, I figured out how to insert another image into one of the Sky Replacement layers to create something that is all original. 

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1.  The original, edited photo, of a king tide shot in Bolinas, California in Jan 2018.

2.  That same shot with one of the Photoshop sky replacements.  

3.  A photo of mold growing on one of my lemons.

4.  The original photo with a close up of lemon mold replacing the Photoshop sky.  Looks like the fire sky we experienced for too long this past summer!

In the Studio

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1.  Finished oil on canvas 18x24 "Fleeing the Fire Ash Sky"

2 and 3:  In process 36" x 36" oil "Boat in the Water" very early stage underpainting

Playing Around With Old Photos, Patterns and Neural Filters in Photoshop on a Gray Day

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Photo shot in Seattle, September 2011 with Amber, Cole and Wilson - as shot

Same photo with B&W filter and some Photoshop Beta Neural face smoothing

Same photo with a different Neural filter and a pattern overlay of a repeating self portrait painted by my father, the late, great E.A. Autrey

Same photo toned down a bit by re-layering the original photo over the 3rd photo.

Since I am no longer travelling up to Seattle on a regular basis, this makes up for it a little.

New Fabric Designs and a Contest Entry

I'm back doing more fabric designs, which are available in my Spoonflower shop here:  https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/lucy_autrey_wilson. 

 Some of the new designs are not yet available but will be soon.  They can be seen by clicking on the "designs not for sale" button.  I have to buy test samples before I can sell.   Some of what's new is described below

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1.  New coronavirus repeating fabric design.  The viruses were created with Illustrator and Photoshop, then layered on top of a photo of a chain link fence in front of a garden which was modified to more closely appear like an electron microscope scanned viral specimen.

2.  I painted a Dodo with pen & ink and watercolor, put it on a watercolor rainbow painting and added scanned cheesecloth. 

3.  An old fabric design of a bacteria.  Face masks made with bacteria and/or virus image fabrics seems like something that makes perfect sense.

4.  Last, but not least, I created a Poster Tea Towel image (to be printed on linen) as my entry into a Spoonflower contest.  I painted the image (actually a larger version of it) while on one of my many Ibiza vacations.   Voting starts Oct. 22.  You can vote here:  https://www.spoonflower.com/design-challenge

 

Painting Mock-Ups

 Trying to mock up a few future paintings and can't decide.  Any thoughts on preferences would be very helpful!  Choices below:

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1.  Dodo Over the Rainbow

2.  Dodo in Distressed Natural Environment (global warming theme)

3.  Dodo in the Forest 

4.  Durer's Nemesis Angel of Fortune at the Beach with Raven

5.  Durer's Nemesis Angel of Fortune with Rainbow Background and Raven

6.  Boat in the water in Bolinas

Painting Fruit with some Fernando Botero Influence

 Top to Bottom Two New Original Oil Paintings on Cradled Canvas:  5" x 5" x 1 1/2" 

1.  Fat Lemon - with final color glaze 

2.  Fat Pomegranate - with final color glaze 

3.  Lemon, before the final glaze, with the original model.  Like Fernando Botero's paintings, the final product seems to have expanded!  Link to Botero Museum in Bogota, Columbia for examples of his work (which I love):   https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/museo-botero-bogota 

4.  Pomegranate with its model

Collaborative Painting

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1.  Finished still life "Brayer with a Jar of Paintbrushes" oil on stretched canvas 16" x 20" x 3/4"

2.  Sketch of Cole Taylor June of 2016 which Wilson painted

3.  Sketch of Wilson Taylor June of 2016 which Wilson painted

4.  Sketch of wall with outlet and window July 2016 which Wilson scribbled on

5.  Sketch of Cole and Wilson July of 2014 where Wilson added the bodies and did the coloring

The bottom four pictures were the inspiration for the top oil painting.  I loved doing art with my grandsons where I would get to a point and they would take over.  Often the results made the pictures much better!  So, without the benefit of having my grandsons around, I pretended my Brayer had a life of its own, and it got into the action after I finished my still life painting, by smearing blue paint on the finished canvas.  

Upping my Game with New Product Designs at Zazzle

 Lucy Autrey Wilson Redcrow Art on Zazzle

October Oil Painting Progress

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1.  Pomegranate:  Needs one more thin glaze layer

2.  New birds escaping a raptor against a fire haze sky.  Underpainting stage 2

3.  Paintbrushes in bottle with some refinements.  At least one more pass coming up

4.  Bird in a tree with a Full Moon.  Underpainting.

Ode to California in 1963

Will California ever again be

The state I remember fond ely

From 1963?

Photo taken by E.A. Autrey in Santa Barbara, 1963.  Poem inspired by another day inside with my air filter running full blast because of the Red Flag warning, and the EPA PM2.5 (particulate matter) >150 (safe is under 50.)  But I'm one of the lucky ones; Santa Rosa PM2.5 is >250 and Cloverdale is >400.  If Covid doesn't destroy ones lungs, the bad air will.  

Some good links on air quality below:

https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/extremely-high-levels-of-pm25/

https://www.purpleair.com/map?opt=1/mAQI/a10/cC0#8.2/38.785/-122.977