Only a few miles from my house is the largest Buddhist stupa in the US. Visitors are allowed and it is interesting to walk in our typical Ponderosa pine forest and suddenly a stupa looms in a clearing! This buddha statue inside the building is huge and as you can see, very gold. I added a texture with reduced opacity, then a layer of fractalius. I finished with a vignette blur and very thin border from Nik efex color.
Although it is not central to my image, I wonder about the meaning of the hand position. Does anyone know? It seems a bit modern. Or maybe this gesture has very old origins with a different meaning.
04-16-2013, 01:53 PM
Dennis Bishop
I like the colors very much. And the outlines and the eyes. There is something I want to be able to interpret about the expression of the eyes, but it remains a mystery, and that's a good thing. I couldn't help but investigate your hand question. It turns out that Buddhist hand gestures are termed mudras. This one appears to be a Vitarka mudra, which is related to discussion and teaching.
04-16-2013, 05:40 PM
Cheryl Slechta
Perfect image, Nancy. The fractalius lines and the eyes add to the Buddha's radiance and the addition of the mudra is a nice touch. How wonderful it must be to find this in a forest:S3:
04-17-2013, 03:02 PM
Hazel Grant
The frac makes it glow.nice image.
04-17-2013, 08:36 PM
John Ippolito
Excellent processing, and it looks very polished as an image. Nicely done, Nancy - it actually glows on the screen.
04-17-2013, 10:14 PM
Kerry Perkins
Nancy, I was looking at this image last night and I was going to comment on it, but I couldn't stop looking at it long enough! The eyes are captivating, and I believe that they are looking inward, lost in the figure's meditation. The gold tones are great and the fract work adds to the notion of energy that the statue is drawing from within. Very nice!
04-18-2013, 09:49 AM
Anita Bower
The eyes stand out which is perfect for this theme. Making the rest of the image softer with fractilus, etc., causes me to look right at those amazing eyes. I like the white around the figure--as it it were glowing. Actually, the whole image seems to be glowing. Well done.
04-18-2013, 02:08 PM
Paul Lagasi
Well thought out image for the theme, love the effects that you applied....very nice work.
04-18-2013, 05:11 PM
Nancy Bell
Thank you very much, everyone! I'm glad the fractalius/glowing part worked out so well.
Dennis, thank you for exploring the hand gestures/mudras. This particular Buddhist center does a lot of teaching.
