I manipulated one of my original paintings to give it a new ethereal feel.

I have not had time of late to enter any contests, but when I began this year I made a point to try at least one a week. One of my favourites has always been @juliakponsford and @vachemorte amazing #artexplosion contests. When I saw their latest iteration of this was to be the theme Mystery and that they had extended the time alloted to two weeks, I figured I could try and fit it in.

Now, my work is often pretty layered and I do sketches and various other versions prior to a finished piece so I wasn't sure I could do all that for this contest. Then I saw dear @jungwatercolor great post and entry Where she took one of her amazing drawings and then digital manipulated it adding photos of trees etc. This gave me a good think and I sorted through some of my work.

Then I saw this piece I had done, which is how the original looks:

I figured taking this and adding to it and altering it a bit would be really fun.

When I did this painting I wanted it to have an almost dreamlike quality about it as if perhaps the dog was dreaming of his old master in his childhood, perhaps having gone off to adult life. Or maybe the boy was fondly recalling his old dog, now gone.

When I decided to add and alter to it I wanted to play on that dreamlike imagery and considered a layered construct of perhaps a lost mother recalled.

Perhaps she is in a sense a ghost, but is enjoying her current child in a sort of mirrored instance of him in a parallel time which mirrors the current time frame.

I know, convoluted, but you have to remember I spend a lot of my day dreaming out window, puttering about my garden, or sitting at my drawing desk. So, bear with me and bend your belief and ideas of reality and consider a place that can exist concurrent with today that also holds the living memories of those who have gone and are still with us in a very NOW sense.

So, what I did to make this. Here is a gif showing the layers.

Basically I chopped down the image, making the focus more on the figures. Then I added the drawing of the woman

Next, I considered her son mirroring his current movements but in her world, so I isolated him gave him a new layer behind the drawing and changed the intesity of colour and transparency.

I then felt that her white ouline was not as visible as I would like it yet I didn't want to really add any colour or form to her. So I took a simple brush in photoshop in a flat colour borrowed from the current paintings palette and did quick brush strokes of 'tree-like' bits behind her and in other bits of the wood, tying it all together.

I am pretty happy with it and if anything it gave me a new way to look at older pieces. It is no secret that I Love digital, but in many ways I use digital as a tool box mirroring what I did with real oils and canvas and watercolour. Taking a piece and altering it this way adds another layer of fun and creativity and that is really my main focus and goal in making art.

There is still some time to enter this contest so why not head over here and join in

Unfortunately, part of entering is to resteem it and as I went to resteem it today, I found I could not as it is older than seven days. But, that is okay as I don't really enter these to win, but to simply participate, see other artists work and to stretch my visual muscles into new directions.

I hope you have a creative day and stop and think, maybe, just maybe, those we have lost and loved are simply living along side of us, partaking in our day.