xenophora's photos

Collage on board. Originally posted 11/8/06.

Same card, run through "Pixelate: Color Halftone." Used the smallest setting available, with the "Exclusion" mode and a low opacity percentage (less than 20).

Collage on board, with some colored pencil added. Originally posted 11/6/06. For the record: "Tidbits" are boneless, cooked pigs' feet.

Same card. First the "Hues" option got tweaked to alter the colors. The Paint Bucket tool did some smaller changes. Then the whole thing went through the "Pixellate: Halftones" filter on a pink dot setting, which added some texture and a pink undertone to some of the clouds.

Collage on board. Originally posted 11/5/06.

I worked over some of the sloppier areas with the Smudge and Clone Stamp tools first. The shell pink hue on the brush bristles in the original collage was sucked out with the Sponge tool, set on "Desaturate." That particular pink is apparently the result of the acids in old papers interacting with the gesso or polymer I use to put these things together. Sometimes it looks appropriate. Sometimes not. The truly odd thing is that usually after a year or so, it disappears from the composition and leaves the original white as it was before.

Collage on board, with some colored pencil added. Originally posted 11/4/06. I hated this card at first, and almost threw it away. Now it's one of my personal favorites, but I don't know why.

The city view (early 1960s San Francisco) is filtered through the "Artistic: Fresco" option. The box and head were filtered through "Blur: Smart Blur." The floating orbs (actually from a page of tartlets, also early 1960s) were picked at with several Art History Brushes and a few other tools as well.

Collage on board. Originally posted 11/3/06.

Same card, run through a trio of "Artistic: Watercolor" filters. Other minor adjustments, too. To me, this filter option suggests acrylic paints more than watercolors, but your mileage may vary...

Collage and decollage on board. Originally posted 11/2/06.

Same card, using the "Sketch: Chalk & Charcoal" filter in shades of dull blue and brick red. The hair was re-penciled for a little more contrast. Other minor adjustments. By the way: Cards which appear to have foreign lettering really have plain old English text cut up and then re-assembled.

Collage on board. Originally posted 11/1/06.

Here's the "Artistic: Cut Paper" filter again, augmented with the Paint Bucket and a few other tools. Check out the mask effect this created on the upper left side of the "wall." Sort of seasonal, as are the marzipan candies in the kid's midsection.

Collage and decollage on board, with colored pencil. Originally posted 10/31/06.

The "Blur: Radial Blur" filter is the last refuge for scoundrels and also for badly-considered layouts. It adds intensity and knocks out sloppy pasting with minimal effort. Plus no waxy yellow buildup. Other tools used were the eyelash brush (yes, it really does resemble a single eyelash on the Photoshop menu) and Clone Stamp, again.

Collage and decollage on board. Originally posted 10/30/06.

Here, the limbs and faces were gone over with a few miscellaneous tools to smooth (heighten?) their Caucazoid coloring first. A "Blur = Smart" filter smoothed everything out further. Then the whole thing went through the "Artistic = Poster Edges" filter.