Clique: April 2011

Welcome to CLIQUE!

I can trace my love of photography back three generations, to the early 1900s and my paternal great-grandfather, Henry Mattson. I have a really cool photo that he took of the old family homestead in Minnesota, sometime before 1910. According to family history, Grampa Mattson frequently took photos of his world - the people and places that he loved.

It warms my heart to know that this love of photography didn't skip any generations as it passed down to me! I am blessed to have such a legacy and I hope to pass it on to my own children and grandchildren some day.

I experience a physical and spiritual thrill whenever the Lord shows Himself in His marvelous creation around us and in the people I meet. My dream vacation would be to spend a year or two just traveling around the US, stopping at little out of the way places and photographing the interesting characters and the beauty of nature to be found along the way - those things that draw me closer to GOD and help point others to Him, too.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Texture Tuesday Challenge ~ April 19, 2011

I'm a member of this really fun and creative site called Kim Klassen Cafe'. Kim is an amazing artist, specializing in creating and using digital textures for photos. She has classes, tutorials, designer texture sets one can purchase and even has free textures for those who subscribe to her "Texture Lovin' List." Each Tuesday, Kim has a challenge using one or more of her textures. Today, we are to use two of her textures on one of our photos and share the link on her site so all can visit and applaud our efforts!

Here is my photo for this week's challenge --

I used Kim's "Slience" texture - multiply blending mode @ 100% opacity and "Sweettreat" texture - multiply blending mode @ 70%. I used the "High Pass" filter to sharpen the branch and ice drop a bit and lightened up the background a bit, as well (Kim shared a tutorial today explaining how to do these steps). Clipping mask was made from corner brushes ("brushes_by_Affaleen") and border brushes (designer unknown). Fonts are CAC Shishoni Brush and Century Gothic.

Here's the original - SoC - image --

~ klb

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Newest Textured Photos

"Bed on a Workday Morning"
Textures: Kim Klassen - "Warm Texture" & Jerry Jones/Skeletal Mess
Brushes: brushes_by_kaffaleen
Fonts: Arabian Typesetting, Mistral, Century Gothic

"Spring Blooms in my Kitchen"
Textures: Kim Klassen - "Sweettreat" & "Chamomile"
Brushes: brushes-by-kaffaleen; border brushes unknown

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Textured Photos

My current digital interest is adding textures to my photos. Some of these images are duplicated, but if you look closely, you'll see they are not identical, due to the variety of textures and blending modes used. It is my hope that I might find a market for this type of artistic style and bring in a little income while sharing the beauty and majesty of GOD's creation.