Romance

[Nancy Bell]

Contractors have been working on the house for the past 2 days - hurray!

On this image I started with fractalius, then topaz stylize details, nik effex pro hi key, then lots of experimentation with PS gradient map until I settled on this color combination, then 50% PS B&W. Most of the time I use some value less than 100% opacity for each effect or vary the opacity on various parts of the image. Since I use a Wacom tablet with a pen stylus I feel like it is a paint brush as I do a little of this and a little of that!

The kanji means romance.

[Mitch Carucci]

Nancy,

Of course it is always annoying to have to wait for people to do what they had promised to do... But , it seems to be a spurt to your creativity. This is beautiful!

Mitch

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Nancy, the blossom turned out quite well with your treatment. The pink tones are lovely!

[Indranil Sircar]

Beautiful composition, Nancy. It's the color and your treatment that makes this simple composition so much elegant. Your Chinese calligraphy is wonderful Excellent processing!

[denise ippolito]

Nancy, Soft and dreamy! It really does have a romantic look to it. I love the colors and your writing is a nice touch. At first I was going to suggest fixing the stem where it is on the edge but after viewing Dan's gallery I think that the wave is a nice touch!

[Dan Brown]

Beautiful work again, Nancy! Several changes to improve this, IMO, would be to reduce the size of the calligraphy. The size of the calligraphy causes it to compete with the main subject. Adding a small red chop below the calligraphy as your signature would be nice to, as we don't know who the maker is! I also would try to reduce the length of the lower two leaves as they seem out of proportion. As for the stem, the light area just after it enters the frame gives me the impression of a weak area where the flower might droop over! So, darkening it to the same value as the rest of the stem would give it strength and keep it from falling (in my mind anyway!).

[Nancy Bell]

Here is a repost incorporating some of Dan's suggestions. I reduced the size of the calligraphy, added my chop and made the flower stem more solid. I could not change the leaves without seriously changing the lines so that must stay. Thanks all for your comments and suggestions. I have learned a ton these past 2 weeks on Asian images.

The calligraphy is compliments of downloading from www.the japaneseconnection.com

[Dan Brown]

The repost looks great, Nancy! Pretty much what I was envisioning! The leaves will work. Very nice!

[denise ippolito]

It does look great!

[Cheryl Slechta]

Very nicely done, Nancy. I like the repost better. The tones are lovely - I love the entire image

[John Storjohann]

Nancy, the re-post nails it...beautiful image, striking yet subtle...love the tone, color and processing. You're on a roll!

[Nancy Bell]

Thank you all! I hate for Asian Week to end, I'm having so much fun!