Fun with Photoshop - Moving birds and butterflies

As you may know, one of the great advantages of painting digitally is being able to move things around within the image. Of course you can do that in a real oil painting by painting over something and repainting it elsewhere. But that's obviously a lot of work, and destroys the original painting. With a digital painting I can modify things quickly and easily, and still keep the original version intact.

I don't want to go around modifying things for no reason, however. I want to keep even my digital paintings unique. So modifying one just for the sake of a little variation is not what I want to do. But sometimes there's a good reason. Here's an example.

I wanted to put this painting of bluebirds and a yellow birdhouse on various products in my Zazzle store. The printable area on some products is square, some rectangular, some round. This image works fine as is for the square and rectangular products, but not so much for the round ones. Cropping a circle out of the image above would result in important elements being cut off, like this:

Not only is the upper bird's wing cut off, but the monarch butterfly has been cut in half, and the blue butterfly is completely out of the picture now.

So, to make things fit more nicely within a circle, I went back to my original layered PSD file and moved the upper bluebird and the two butterflies in closer to the birdhouse. Now, as you can see below, all the fit neatly on round objects like this decorative porcelain plate...

Bluebirds and Yellow Birdhouse Porcelain Plates by ForestWildlifeArt

...or this round accent throw pillow....

Bluebirds and Yellow Birdhouse Round Pillow by ForestWildlifeArt

...and this wall clock....

Bluebirds and Yellow Birdhouse Wallclock by ForestWildlifeArt

So, as you can see, it's not a dramatic change. At first glance it still appears to be the exact same image. So it still keeps the integrity of the original version. Only on closer inspection do you realize things have slightly. This little adjustment is worth it to keep all the important elements within the circle boundaries, making the end result a much nice picture than if I'd simply chopped things off.

See more items with bluebirds and butterflies in my Zazzle Store here.

Misty Morning Sunrise in October

Thank you to the person in CO who purchased a print of my Misty Morning Sunrise image. This isn't one of my paintings but rather a photo I took right here in our back yard on a chilly, misty October morning. We often get misty mornings in October here in western Washington state. And the dew settles on the hundreds of orb spider webs, making them sparkle. It gets very Halloweenish around here. Not much longer before I'll have an opportunity to get more misty morning Oct photos. Plus, I'm already working on fall and winter theme paintings and products. Wow, hard to believe it's already time to start thinking about the holidays.

New Pixels Apparel Featuring Animal Art

Pixels.com (aka Fine Art America) has added yet another new product to their line ... clothing! They have apparel for both men and women in various styles and color options, all featuring some of my horse and wildlife paintings.

For men:

• T-Shirts
• Slim Fit T-Shirts
• V-Neck T-Shirts
• Long Sleeve T-Shirts
• Baseball T-Shirts
• Tank Tops

For women:

• T-Shirts
• V-Neck T-Shirts
• Junior T-Shirts

  
I have already made several of my paintings available on all these style choices and will add more from time to time. If you want a particular image that you don't see on the shirts yet, leave a comment here and tell me which image you'd like and I'll be sure to put it up there for you.

Here's a small sampling of what's available so far.

Of course, there even more choices of clothing in my Zazzle Store but, if you are more comfortable making purchases through Pixels/FAA then it's nice to now have that option!

Animal Art Shower Curtains

Pixels.com (aka Fine Art America) has added a new product to their line ... full-print shower curtains! I have already added several images to the curtains and plan to add more as time permits. Here's a small sampling of what's available.

This image of cardinals at a bird feeder with Christmas decorations is also available on matching throw pillows, duvet covers, tote bags and, of course, fine art prints and greeting cards. See more products featuring Cardinals Christmas Feast here.

This image of Friesian horse is also available on matching throw pillows, duvet covers, tote bags, iPhone & Galaxy cases and, of course, fine art prints. See more products featuring Friesland Nobility here.

This image of colorful songbirds and flowers is also available on matching throw pillows, duvet covers, tote bags, and phone cases. See more products featuring Garden Party in Pink here. This is also available with a purple, blue, red, yellow, or green background if pink isn't your thing.

This image of a mother wolf and pups overlooking a river valley is also available on matching throw pillows, duvet covers, tote bags, phone cases and, of course, fine art prints and greeting cards. See more items featuring Passing It One here.

Browse all the shower curtains featuring my wildlife, horse, and domestic animal artwork here.

Cow & Calf Artwork Products

Today is Cow Appreciation Day. Cows have been a vital part of human history for thousands of years. They are important to us not just for meat, milk, and hides, but also as a working animal. In many parts of the world cattle are as important as horses for pulling carts and plowing fields. So, in honor of the important and hard-working cows all around the world I'm sharing some products featuring my painting of a Holstein Cow & Calf in a scene with rolling hills farmland and an old wood barn.


Fine art prints, greeting cards, phone cases, duvet covers, throw pillows, and tote bags are available here.

Many other products products like iPad and laptop covers, throw blankets, clocks, wallets, clothing, lamps, bath mats, and much more are available in my Zazzle Store.

Holestein Cows Home Decor
by csforest

New All-Over Printed Shirts

Zazzle has recently added a new product people have been requesting for ages, new all-over printable t-shirts!

I've added some of my wildlife and animal art images to these shirts. The digital bird paintings especially work well for these because the digital images are large and crisp and, therefore, print well on a large surface like this. Here are a few samples of what I now have available in my ForestWildlifeArt Zazzle Store.

Cardinals Christmas Feast All-Over Print T-shirt
by ForestWildlifeArt

Bluebirds and Yellow Birdhouse All-Over Print T-shirt
by ForestWildlifeArt

Goldfinches and Purple Birdhouse All-Over Print T-shirt
by ForestWildlifeArt

Bluebirds Goldfinches and Fountain Birdbath All-Over Print T-shirt
by ForestWildlifeArt

Since "big face" t-shirts are popular I edited some of my original oil paintings in Photoshop to have only the face blended with a background pattern. Here are a few examples of those.

White Tiger Face All-Over Print T-shirt
by ForestWildlifeArt
 

Gray Wolf Face All-Over Print T-shirt
by ForestWildlifeArt

Sad Gray Tabby Cat Kitten Face All-Over Print T-shirt
by ForestWildlifeArt

Happy Orange Tabby Cat Kitten Face All-Over Print T-shirt
by ForestWildlifeArt

More all-over printed apparel is available in my Zazzle store. Check them out!

Birds and Butterflies Painting

In a previous post I showed how I painted a butterfly in Photoshop. Now it's time to display the finished painting with butterflies, birds, flowers, and all. The rest of the painting was created pretty much the same way as the butterfly, by layering and blending much as you would with real oil paints.

The main difference between most of the painting and the birds is the brushes. If you look at bird feathers closely you'll see that the finer body and head feathers actually have a texture much like soft fine fur. So I used Photoshop's bristle brushes to create the hair-like texture of these soft body feathers. It took a bit of experimenting with the brush's settings to get the look I wanted.

Here you can see a detail close-up of the resulting texture on the bluebird's throat feathers, and the icon showing the bristle brush used.

And here is the finished painting.

Because this is a digital painting there is obviously no original available. However, there are Fine Art Prints available, as well as throw pillows, tote bags, duvet covers, and iPad cases featuring this artwork.