In southern India, my traveling companions and I stumbled upon an intriguing dilapidated building just bursting
with goodies: statues of all description, rustic-antique furniture, paintings, this and that, everything tempting beyond reason.
Two of us could not resist some very crumbling, aged statues of
Indian Deities.
We waffled back and forth, "no we can't get them home"..."well, we will never see these again."
"what should we do?" The winner:
I purchased four, my companion...can't recall but she definitely packed some home.
These statues have a rather interesting history. America in the 40's and 50's enticed women to purchase certain products and with the purchase was given a premium or gift. An example would be today's collectible green glass. Well who knew, in India there was something similar. We learned that these marvelous, old statues were also a "gift with purchase." This bit of information from our sales woman was all it took to "entice" us to buy.
Besides displaying our Indian statues in our home, I wanted to set up a few photo shoots. The following is one.
There is quite a difference isn't there?
Here are a few steps that I took to move the original photo to textured completion.
I took dozens of photos with the statues, oranges, hornet's nest and dried leaves.
Never, never once did I notice the label left on the orange!!!!! So that was the first step to
remove the label.
The top half of the background was brushed with an "oil brush" designed by Melissa Gallo to paint the background in several shades of ochre so that it was unified.
The same technique was used to paint shadows on the white cloth.
Next I played with words and warping....this was a test of patience!
Time to apply textures. I used two of Kim Klassen's textures
# 0801 and 2801. Each was adjusted differently: soft light and screen.
Adding the last texture, which has a grunge appearance, I removed the dark grunge color from the statues and high lighted the oranges.
I now feel Peace to have completed this project and wish the same for you in those things you choose to do. And may you always remove labels.......
Sharon, your little Indian statues are charming. I can see why you found them irresistible. Your processing and the added textures really suit the subject well.
ReplyDeleteLove the story behind these colorful statues. Your still life is beautiful in its combination of objects and its composition. And I like the post-processing - it adds another layer of interest to the final result.
ReplyDeleteWonderful statues. I may be weird, but I like the orange with the label. To me it emphasized the old statues as a give away from old and the new oranges and the way they are sold today.
ReplyDelete