I am SO EXCITED to post this today!!!!!?? I have been wanting to do this FOR MONTHS!!!?? First I will post the pictures, then I will explain.?? Above is my finished project.?? Below is the original picture and then some zoomed views so you can see the detail.?? The picture features Jodi’s nephew Cole (sister Jen’s youngest) and Ty’s John Deere Teddy Bear.?? I took pictures of Cole and Brooklyn on Monday and this came from that shoot.?? I am so excited about finally learning this technique that I could literally jump up and down!

Above was the original picture SOOC (straight out of my camara – no edits).?? Following are zoomed comparisons between the painting and the original.

I wanted to post zoomed views because it is difficult to tell from a distance how “painted” it is.

Here is the story on this….

Several months back I stumbled upon a digi scrap that caught my attention.?? There was a little Christmas girl with a teddy bear framed in a holiday scrappy setting.?? The eye catching thing about this piece of work was that the little girl looked painted.?? Photoshop has many actions and filters for various painting techniques and they are fun but none of them actually LOOK like a real painting.?? I experimented several times trying to recreate a picture that looked like that little girl and nothing in photoshop allowed that level of creative control in an automated way.?? I didn’t figure I would find it either because the picture was way too detailed and I knew it had to be hand done but how?

Time passed and one day I was following an actions blog that I like and the photographer had ordered DVD tutorials on Virtual Oil Paintings – also known as Smudge painting.?? She posted a picture of a little African American boy looking out a window with a little pout on his face.?? I FELL IN LOVE WITH THIS PICTURE.?? I wanted to order the tutorials but didn’t want spend the money yet so I started doing my homework and found general and brief tutorials online for smudge painting.????See Innographix.

Basically, smudge painting allows you to take a photo and smudge it one??small area at a time producing an end effect that resembles an oil painting.?? You use the smudge tool and specific hair and skin brushes in Photoshop to do this.?? I also use a wacom graphic tablet – I think it would be very difficult to do this with a mouse.?? The problem I was having was (a) I didn’t have enough memory in my computer so the delay was making it VERY difficult to see what I was doing and (b) it’s really easy to distort everything with this tool so it takes practice.?? Everytime I tried, I just made a mess out of my portrait.?? That is why yesteday, I decided to try that vector painting thinking maybe I was going to need a lot of help with understanding highlights and shadows..etc.?? Once I managed that vector illustration, it boosted my confidence to try one more time with smudge painting.?? Jim recently put a lot more memory in my computer and that made a world of difference.?? I practiced and practiced with different brushes, different sizes, different opacities and then practiced increasing highlights and shadows in the right areas.?? I called mom at 11:00 PM last night to say “I THINK I AM GETTING THIS FINALLY”.?? I had shown my mom some virtual oils that I knew she would like earlier in the day so she was really encouraging me to figure it out.?? Jim also agreed to let me purchase the DVDs because he knew that I was really determined to do this.?? There is nothing automated about it and this particular project took me about 3 hours to finish but I loved every minute of doing it.?? I read online that Virtual Oil Paintings – depending on how they are framed and marketed, can cost $200.00 to $2000.00!!?? Hmmmmmm….side business some day??? You can have them printed on canvas and I would imagine they look amazing that way.

Anyhow, I am one HAPPY HAPPY girl over this!?? I can’t wait to try this on my very favorite picture of Tanner in the whole world.?? From the very beginning, I knew what picture I wanted to work on.?? I hope to do one for all three of my kids and have them printed on canvas for above my fireplace.?? And yes to my three sisters…I am going to do one for you for each of your recent photo shoots – it will just take me awhile to get them done.?? And Heidi – I want to try doing yours from my favorite “lullaby album” cover picture.?? 🙂

You just have no idea how happy I am!!!