I drive by these pyramids of earth and unidentifiable mounds of soil on the way to Whole Foods to buy a chicken and radishes. I stopped and put down the passenger window and the sweet smell of mulch trickles into the car. Maybe this is the place where all the garden shops will get their soil and mulch so gardeners can begin spring and leave thoughts of this winter behind?
Yay! It deserves some photo love, plus, there’s a truck. Reason enough to take the photo. But, there’s a car wanting to get by me and so I have no time to do multiple exposures. My camera is always on manual and despite knowing I should put it on automatic for just such instances as this, I rarely listen to my own counsel. Sigh. One snap will have to do.
This is what the original photo looked like.
If ever there was a photo that needed some help, this is it.
I decided it was, at its heart, not a photo or a painting, but a charcoal sketch. I applied one of the sketch options within Topaz Impressions plug-in. This sketch feature won’t get as much written about it as the painting modes, but it is a light years improvement over other sketch options I’ve used. ( I don’t get paid to say this, btw). I used some Nik filters after to define the sketch a bit more. (They don’t pay me, either). I just like to tell you about the stuff I like. Period.
Then, since it is finally March, and the sky was indeed a bit blue and it was 57º, I layered in a blue sky texture (not the original sky) that had some white clouds to mirror a bit of the snow atop the dirt pyramids and the truck’s cradle.
But, that didn’t quite capture what I wanted either. Since, it was a day where hope was in the air, along with the smell of mulch, I wanted a bit more hope in the sketch.
I’d recently seen a watercolor painting on FB by Trevor Chamberlain from the UK with a pinkish sky and a darker toned boat harbor landscape. I loved it.
So, I thought, “Hmmm… I’m gonna give my earth moving landscape a bit of a pink sky texture instead of blue. Just like that lovely harbor scene.
Ok. I’m done. For now.
Otherwise, it still would have had a tinge of despair in the photo sketch that suggested January. And, I’m not going back there. No way.
But, I am going to try and keep my camera on automatic when I’m in the car.
We’ll see.
