That's what they say about, "works of art." I started this piece 6 years ago. It's based on a photo of my younger self holding my sister the day she came home from the hospital.Look at the "before" image on the left. The colors are unnatural and I really messed up my legs horribly. When I recently came across this ancient illustration, I became intent on salvaging it from the scrap pile. There were a few challenges. First I has to correct the color (which was time-consuming, but done entirely in Photoshop.) Next, I had to fix those legs! I repainted the legs (and hand holding my sister) on another sheet of paper, trying carefully to match the color, lighting, and style of the existing illustration.
This piece is mixed media: ink outline, watercolor, and colored pencil. In Photoshop I laid the new legs on top of the old ones and then blended them by using a Selective Color adjustment layer (complicated, "art-nerd" stuff.) If I were to do this illustration today, I'd do it in a different style with acrylic paint. Still, I think I was mostly successful at saving an illustration that otherwise wouldn't have been fit to see the light of day. Now I can finally give this to my sister as a much belated baby-shower present (my nephew just turned 6 last month!)
1 comment:
It looks great and I'm sure your sister will be thrilled (even if it is six years late). The new legs are a big improvement and they're spliced in there seamlessly. The new hand is better though I miss the knuckle highlight of the original (but that's being picky). Congratulations on saving an important piece from limbo. Now get back to that cat before six years go by!
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