If there is anything I like more than taking photographs, it is turning photos into paintings.

Filters, filters, filters

I have a library of filters I use to turn photos into paintings.  Besides Photoshop,  I use Photomatix, Filter Forge, and an online editor called Picmonkey.  My friend uses many free phone filters to edit her photos.  Adobe Photoshop mix, Photo Painter, Photo Collage and SnapSeed – all available on Google Play.

The opportunity for artistic applications to photos is virtually endless.  It is the reason I am close to 10,000 uploads on a stock photography site – Public Domain Pictures. Here are a few before and after examples of my photos turned into paintings using Filter Forge.

Photos into Painting to T-shirt

On our t-shirt store, Neateeshirts.com, we created a t-shirt with a photo of Venice Beach turned into an impressionist style painting.  The entire shirt is the painting, front and back.  The result is a pricey shirt. We are exploring other less expensive options for creating t-shirts from photos-to-painting images.

 

 

A Photo turned into to a Real Painting

While it is great fun to play with my photos, imagine the thrill I felt when a real artist purchased one of my photos and painted a painting from it! Now that is cool.  The artist’s name is  Shannon Gurley O’Donnell.  Below are my photograph and her painting.

 

This is what Shannon said about her painting titled, “Saguaro Fortress”

So here’s what I learned (noticed 😊) about saguaro as I painted this one – Most of the spikes/pokers are broken off near the hole. There’s a bunch of blackish “gunk” stuck on the spikes near the hole, maybe bits of cactus discarded as the bird works on the hole. And, like so many other aspects in and of nature, the spike pattern is Fibonacci. If you have never heard of this pattern before, Google it and view images. It’s fascinating and magical!!!!!! ….so mathematically precise and beautiful. There are intricate, precise patterns within nature all around us that are like hidden little gems.

From here on, I’ll see saguaros with new eyes. Oh, and one last thing thought this was a cactus wren. I looked him up and found out he’s a Gila Woodpecker.

As she suggested, I looked up “Fibonacci” and found this on Wikipedia. Way over my head, that’s for sure….I am impressed with Shannon’s research on the subject of her paintings, though.

 

Few Wasted Photos

With all the filters and software to edit photographs, it is really difficult to take a “bad” photo that cannot become something beautiful.