Beer-surprise

I have selected this plain photo of a beer bottle that I shot while out eating at the "Shrimp Basket" in Perdido Key Fl.  Since I love beer I thought well lets see what I can do with just the bottle.  I put the rust filter on that I had talked about in the previous blog to age the photo.  I liked the heavy look but the photo it self being not too good started to be less and less of the focal point.  I still wanted the heavy rust since this was not a shot of a place or person  and it was not important to be able to see the image clearly I thought what more could I do to pep it up a notch.  I went to my Illustrator CS2 and started to fool around with some clipping mask (did that on the bottle).  Since I loved the background I made sure that I added that back in so that the bottle was on a different layer and I could lay what ever my harts desired between the bottle and the background.  I then did a couple of strokes with the paint brush choosing a swatch from the beach pallet and then used the twister tool to give the effect of swirls and then reduced the additions anywhere from 30 to 45% and there you have it.  You could do this with anything.  It will add some more interest in even portrait photos that may have some dead space in them.  Perhaps give new life to photos that may have been rendered bad just due to bad placement.  Remember as always that these little additions should only help make the object more pleasing and should not be a focal point.  Your eye should flow easily over your completed image.  And always have fun.  Art is supposed to be fun.  Don't put too much on trying to be perfect it is those imperfections that may your artwork unique.  

Beer-surprise
Originally uploaded by Jeweledfrogcreations