Santa's New Avian Elf

[Patti Edens]

I'm skipping ahead and practicing on ornaments in addition to the snow theme. Snow is not so easy for me to create in Photoshop and if you live in Houston, you have to create it. :p For this one, I started with the green background, stole that tree from my Calgary photo and pasted it on the background, grabbed that Tern from a beach photo, made an ornament out of a composite of some blur photos I took of reflections in my pond of a tree with red and gold leaves and added it, drew the red string, made the pile of snow and tortured it with all sorts of filters and layer effects (still don't like the snow pile, but tired of playing with it). Then I put this image in Fotosketcher and ran the brushstrokes filter blended with the original, added the texture and frame. Then back to Photoshop and added a bit of falling snow, some more blurry. Added a few snowflakes from a couple of brushes, realized I should have stopped a lot earlier and finally stopped.

[denise ippolito]

Patti, This is fun and very well done. Your ornament kicks butt!! Outstanding-I may have to try one of my own!:) I love the entire image. The only little bit I might work on is the edge of the snow that is in the middle. I would make it a bit less smooth on the top ridge part-if that makes sense. Fantastic work and now I want to design a card. I love how you painted on the red string.

[Patti Edens]

Thanks Denise. I think I do know what you mean - that's the part of the snow drift that bothers me.

I love making ornaments out of collages. There's a Gavin Hoey tutorial for doing it, but if you have a way you make spheres, you can just make a collage and then use that to make the sphere.

I've been trying my hand at blurs. The ones of static subjects - reflections on the pond and trees for example, work pretty well. But I just tried some birds this am and they didn't work so well. I need to read the blur book again. Or probably I just need to take a whole bunch more in hopes of getting a good one.

[Ken Childs]

Patti, this is very creative! It sounds like you put a lot of work into this and I think it was well worth it....this is a perfect card for BPN!

[Andrew McLachlan]

WOW! Patti your hard work on this was well worth the effort. Very, very, very nice!

[Kerry Perkins]

You are one hard-working lady! I just love this card. I've been trying to think of a design for this year but I'm not having much luck. This one is great. That ornament is amazing! :cool:

[Paul Lagasi]

I'll be waitng for my card in the mail....nice work, lovely PP, ditto on the snow...well done

[Patti Edens]

Ken, Andrew, Kerry and Paul, Thanks so much for looking and commenting. I appreciate it.

[Patti Edens]

I tried to fix the harsh transition on the snow drift and then I got carried away...

[Judy Howle]

Very nice card Patti! The Santa hat is a great addition!

[Patti Edens]

Thanks Judy. I was afraid it was too much, but he has to have a Santa hat if he's an elf.

[denise ippolito]

Patti, I think it looks better. The santa hat is tooo cute!!!!:)