"Homeless Da Vinci - Textured" Corel

Da Vinci by Francesco Melzi

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci; 15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest polymaths of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.**

Homeless Da Vinci

My Homeless Da Vinci is from a photograph of a man of maturity from MorgueFile. I opened the photograph in Corel PSP Pro X3. There I applied the Threshold tool for a black and white image.

I had just received from StockVault Friday Free Textures a few colored paper textures. I opened them also in PSP Pro X3 and copy and pasted as new Layers on the black and white Portrait. I first used the greenish aqua colored one, adjusting Saturation Vibrancy and Curves for more color, I applied the layer property for Transparency, thus leaving the black and white to now reflect the greenish aqua and white image.

I used a Vintage colored texture and also added that with transparency properties. I then added my signature and merged all the layers to one background.  I adjusted with the Saturation and Curves again for an added boost to the overall piece. I added a partially Transparent Frame to it. I saved that large iteration.

Next I opened with Corel's PhotoPaint to resample the file size to display here and to compress (75) and smooth (33). I saved for display.

Da Vinci's Study of Man

Leonardo's work is very famous, this is one example of one that is frequently used in design and artworks. I had to censor it due to having a "G" Rated Blog. Please excuse that if you object. Remember I am highlighting the full piece and the wonderful symmetry of it's details. Some may object to not having censored it.

** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci

"Series 66 #1" Digital Collage - Corel PhotoPaint

Series 66 #1

"Series 66 #1," is a Digital Collage done using scanning with my Canon MP495 and a number of different sources. I created this face using the disparate parts from these sources. It is much like regular collage work only you cut and paste on the computer. I used Corel's PhotoPaint and Canon's scanning software.

I have a man's nose and mouth, drawn woman's eyes that I duplicated and flipped, a man's hair and ears and a woman's eyebrows. The jaw line was taken from another source and carefully trimmed and sized for the image.

I added the distinctive type of DaVinci for some texture at the bottom of the image, with a drink and a symbol on top of the writing.I saved the large file and resampled for display after adding my signature.

Listening --- Bob Dylan --- Series of Dreams

"Steampunk Experiment II" Corel PhotoPaint

Steampunk Experiment II

I discovered this diamonds light grunge texture online, I love the colors. I opened it with Corel's PhotoPaint and went to Picasa 3 and browsed to my Leonardo folder for some diagrams and lettering. These are DaVinci drawings. I enlarged them and darkened them,after copying and pasting into the background, using the Tone Curve. I applied the property Color Burn to them each, lining them up. I then searched my Dover Publications sampler folder and found four more pieces to add to my Steampunk Theme. 

I used Color Burn on the flute players and Subtract on the car, I made the car smaller and lined it up with the DaVinci drawing. I added the harp player keeping the color. I feathered that piece. The Art Nouveau woman in the circle I added next shrinking it to size.

I like the DaVinci influence for Steampunk, adding his genius makes for a great image. The music themed images and the car don't fit at all until you add the Steampunk Theme.

I added a 70 pixel brown border and used Filter Forge's film frame to frame the piece. This was all to size from the beginning size of the background texture. (Adding 70 pixels made it slightly larger.) All in all not the largest image I've worked on. I completed it with my digital signature.

Listening --- Jethro Tull --- Thick as a Brick