Earth laughs in flowers!

So a few weeks back, I met the sweetest gal, Emily from Family and Life in Las Vegas.  We met through our blogs during a blog hop I participated in.  From time to time, I love spending some time seeing what others are doing... and thinking... and sharing!  It's really good for the soul and the creativity process.  Anyway, Emily stopped by my blog because I had stopped by hers.  She had made a comment on my "tutus and trunks post"(still one of my favorite canvases I've created -- beautiful Baby Kendall captured by talented photographer, Vikki from Vikki Dinh Photography).  Emily made a comment that the picture was beautiful and that she always wanted to have a picture done on canvas..."maybe one day!" she said.  I thought, "There's no time like the present!" when I remembered a posting I saw on Songberries blog about a free 8x10 canvas offer by CanvasPeople.  So I told her about this offer I noticed on Songberries blog.  I was happy to offer her my services to make this happen.  A few weeks later, she sent me the following picture... It was the sweetest picture of flowers!  This is my first "nature" project for a client.  I was expecting a family picture or the kiddo picture...but instead I got a picture of flowers! How fun!

Original SOOC

Emily's vision was to create a "subway art"-styled canvas with this photo.  She wanted words like rejoice, celebrate, love, joy, etc.  She also wanted to incorporate a special quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Earth laughs in flowers." I LOVED that quote!  So I began working on this really fun project. I always create a few different versions in an effort to match the various personal tastes that varies from person to person. Here are some of the samples I created for this project.

First, I enhanced the color of the photo because I wanted it to have a really full-of-color feel to match the power of the words she requested.  Then I selected a color scheme by pulling colors from the photo and began selecting fonts that expressed the words visually to me. Then I added some pretty little sun spots and a soft milky frame to give it a little mystical feel and added some little daisy embellishments in the top corners.  I liked the results...

Color-enhanced photo

Then, I wanted to play a little more with the photo.  I just started using a trial version of a product called Topaz which has some really cool features to enhance photos.  I'd been dying to try it out so I played with their product called Clean Adjust.  It allowed me to stylize the photo...

Stylized Photo

Here is a close up of the difference between the color enhanced photo compared to the stylized photo...

Close up of the color-enhanced photo

Closeup of stylized photo

The stylized just added a little more texture and line to the photo.  I personally really love this effect for this particular photo.

Then I did another version, a little more of a crisp clean look (knowing that not everyone likes the embellished artsy look.)

Crisp clean version

I sent these versions to Emily to get her feedback.  It's a good time in the process to get a better idea of what the client likes (and don't like) and fine tune to the finish product.  Emily asked if I could create a lace-like frame. I wanted to see how a closer-in crop of the picture would look like so I created this...

Lace frame with a closer view of the flowers

In the end, Emily chose this version of the photo for the final printing of the canvas... The stylized photo including the really cool quote with the milky frame, sunspots and sweet daisy embellishments.  The gallery wrap sides of the canvas will be a dark sky blue that matches to the darker portion of the sky.  She sounded thrilled and I gotta tell you that is the best part of what I do!

Emily's pick

 Here's my favorite version...pretty much same as Emily's pick but with a closer-in view of the flower!

My pick

Emily promised me a picture of the final canvas when she receives it back from CanvasPeople.  I will post it here...I'm hoping it turns out great!!!

What's your favorite version?

Love and blessings!

Kathy