Textures Combining Images

Last month one of my hard drives crashed and I lost 750 GB of Photoshop files from the last 2 years.  Of course you are all saying- why didn't you back that up?  Probably because I kept saying, I have to back this up and in all these years I never had a problem, I'll get to it. The drive in question was randomly disconnecting itself and that should have been my first clue, but hey I'm invincible aren't I?   That would never happen to me.  This was an exterior drive I traveled with and got into the horrible habit of working on that hard drive anywhere I went since then it was easy to have tons of images ready on my laptop or my desk top. I am trying to be better at backing up my images, but find myself in the process now of rebuilding a library.  That brings me to the textural post for today.

This black and white is a scan of a photograph I developed the old fashion way- in a dark room.  The original image is on watercolor paper an emulsion I brushed on to be able to develop the photograph.  Here is the layering done in Photoshop to give me the final image with textures.  The textures come from the patterns and textures I create and emboss on the layer selections.

A photograph of the Merced River from Yosemite National Park was layered in with the black and white.

Selections from Merced River Photograph with textures embossed.

Final Image

Actually in some ways it has been a good thing to have to get more creative because there is only what is in front of me with images, not what was behind:)

Mixing it Up

Mixing up textures creates amazing surfaces.  These detail pics show a variety of digital prints and other elements.  Included in the textures are: digital print on lutrudur, cheesecloth skin, canvas and silk.
Other materials: wire, recycled art quilts, dyed burlap, dyed canvas, crocheted hemp. piece fabric, dyed cheesecloth and denim. The fabrics are cut and assembled through the squares of 1/2" grid hardware cloth. The pieces are drawn through the mesh the way you would latch hook yarn to a canvas without using a latch hook.

Metal Mesh Collage Details

Creating textures from digitally printing metals and metal mesh is challenging.  Metals are mostly smooth surfaces.  When you get into metal mesh the grid of the weave shows textures on it's own.  Then there are the surfaces that are such a wide mesh that the ink flows right through when digitally printed.  These need to be altered before printing.  Beverage cans are smooth but have their own individual look when printed.  Regardless how you handle metals the textures are wonderful when treated correctly and printed on an archival ink jet printer.

These detail prints are from one of my pages in a giant Forest Book.  These are studies as I work out any solutions in putting a book of this size together.  Completed pages are posted on my KathyAnne Art Blog.

Digital prints on aluminum screen make up the top left corner. Fine copper mesh is the base surface.  small pieces of printed printers plates and printed mesh are strung with beads and without to enliven the surface. 

Cut outs of prints on aluminum screen are attached to the surface with waxed polyester thread.

Pieces of printed aluminum mesh are crocheted together with waxed polyester thread.

Recycled printers plates riveted over fine metal mesh prints.  For a look at the finished visit go to my KathyanneArt blog.