Our Newest Dandie

On day 37 of Beyond Layers, Kim gave us a recipe to try out. No texturing this time, just some Gaussian blur, light adjustments and cross processing.

Our Newest Dandie

I tried the recipe on this lovely statuette. He is our newest Dandie. He joined us at Crufts in March, where we first admired him at the stand, and then simply had to come back and give him a new home with us.

His expression is quite priceless. "Isn't this a pretty hole and I dug it all by myself!" Must really be thankful that our present pack isn't really that keen on digging. We've had some great diggers, especially Fanny, who always dug herself a hole to lie in when in the garden. Dandies can really be a gardener's happy little helpers… whether the gardener is happy afterwards, depends.

Into the Light

Here I'm posting a couple of images I worked with for day 36 at Beyond Layers. By now the ecourse is finished, except that I got myself extra time to get through all of this. I really want to finish the course, even though there are still almost 70 challenges waiting. But the way to tackle them is, naturally, one by one.

The challenge this time was to shoot into the light. When I originally took up the challenge, it was December, and shooting into the light was rather impossible, with so little light available at any time. Anyway, I managed to get  this shot of a dried-up cow parsley with snow flakes clinging to it. Then I started to follow Kim's tutorial, but had to deviate quite a lot, since my image was so different from hers.

Into the Light

Resources:
- texture 3112 by Kim Klassen, masked with a sunburst brush by Rita @ The Coffee Shop Blog

Then I decided I needed an image that was at least somehow related to the whiteness of Kim's image and took a close-up of this white poinsettia we had received for Christmas. Here I managed to use both the tutorial and the textures provided so that they actually improved the original. I cut out the numbers from the overlay, though, since I didn't like them at all. But I'm really pleased with how this one turned out.

White Poinsettia

Resources:
- overlay 123 by Kim Klassen
- texture Softly by Kim Klassen

Is it really any wonder it takes me so much time to get through these challenges, when I have to do at least two takes on everything? But then, if that's my way to learn, so be it.