Beyond Layers Day 34 : Charlie and the White Rose

"Charlie and the White Rose"

I debated posting this image.    It's a huge departure from the "nice" comfortable images of flowers, books and tea pots most people in the class are posting.  I also didn't want to be mistaken as disrespectful for posting something as gruesome a skull.  Kim Klassen goes to the store and comes home with flowers and an elegant tea cup for a lovely still life; I come home with a skull.   [What can I say?  Halloween is the time of year to buy them.]  Actually, it's true -- If I have my way, you'll be seeing more of "Charlie" here.  A Skull is a powerful symbol of Death, Change and Transformation.  Don't forget Love--A skull is the shell of a person, someone who probably had Love in their life.  It's unfortunate that skulls are thrown around with such irreverence this time of year.  They get your attention because most people don't know what to do with them; It's the freak-out factor.  They don't know what to do with Death.   I tried to elevate the higher ideas with the quote.      Stay tuned ...  My journal is filling up with notes and ideas.

In this lesson, Kim offered us lots of tips and tricks for processing our images.  I tried the recipe out on a picture of someone flying a kite on a beach, but the overall recipe just didn't work on that image.  I'll save that one for another day.   So I turned to "Charlie and the White Rose."

 Original image straight from my camera

Here's the image-processing recipe layer by layer :
Layer 1 : Background Image
Layer 2 : Clarify with a High Pass Filter
Layer 3 : Blur
Layer 4 : Beautiful Wings Brush added last.  This appears to be in a format not compatible with my version of PSE, or maybe Mac.  So I wound up using it as a jpg in a layer by itself.  Darken Blend mode made it's background blend perfectly with the rest of the background.  The wings could brush the skull's forehead.  Just the effect I was looking for!
Layer 5 : Levels Adjustment
Layer 6 : Gradient Fill : White > Black ; Normal blend mode - 25 opacity
Layer 7 : Color Fill (Peach) ; Screen blend mode  - 14%
Layer 8 : Copy Layer 7; Multiply blend mode - 26%
Layer 9 : Kim Klassen's Chase Texture ; Soft Light - 66%
Layer 10 : Copy Layer 9 ; Multiply blend mode - 66%
Layer 11 : Text ; Caflish Script Pro 60 pt with color chosen from elsewhere in the image
Layer 12 : Color Fill 2 - for feathering at frame
Layer 13 : In Picassa - Glow Filter
Layer 14 : In Picassa - Inner and outer borders added