Hi! This is a project for my Color Studies final that I had a ton of fun doing and would love to show everyone my process!
To start off, my teacher gave everyone in class a chance to randomly select four words that described an environment, a light source, a living creature, and a tool of some sort. We were then tasked to find a single photo for each of our descriptive words. We were allowed to choose more if we so wished, but four was the minimum.
Below are the photos I was able to find for my words!
(Left to right: Environment - Ocean, Light source - Glow stick, Living creature - Invertebrate, Tool - Dishes/silverware)
The next part of the project was to mask the subject in the photos and place them in a realistic composition. It didn't have to adhere to reality, but it had to be cohesive enough to look believable.
I then made each individual piece look as if they belonged in the same picture by adjusting the levels, hues, and saturation in each photo.
After that, I incorporated shadows and highlights in areas where the natural lighting and the added lighting made the most sense by burning and dodging a solid gray fill layer clipped to the appropriate object.
To finish the composition off, I made the glow sticks shine by adding a purple fill layer, inverting the mask, and using a soft brush with low opacity and flow to paint a halo around the sticks. I also made sure to add a tinge of purple to the octopuses tentacle and the rock wall closest to the glow sticks.
(Top left to top right: General placement, additional cut and paste, level adjustments)
(Bottom left to bottom right: Hue/saturation adjustments, shadows/highlights, glow lighting)
(Full-scale composition below)
Our last task was to turn our beautifully realistic composition into an oil painting!
To do so, I made sure to add a new empty layer on top of everything I'd done. Then I selected the mixer brush, checked the buttons that ensured the brush was cleaned after every stroke along with sampling from all layers, and painted in the empty layer.
Ta-da! Masterpiece complete! You may now gaze upon its glory. :)
