C is for Challenge

At times it's a challenge to find the right word for Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday, isn't it? However, it's also great to take on challenges now and then to broaden one's horizon. I recently participated in the November challenge of the Digital Montage Studio Challenge blog. From the post:

"There is an over abundance of texture in our world and this month I would like to challenge you to get out and grab some photos of texture that can be combined with other images to alter them digitally. [...] Once you have some interesting textures from around your home or town, use them with a blending mode to merge the texture with another interesting image."

I like to play with texture and blending modes between layers, so it was fun to give that challenge a try. I used one of my photos of a tree's bark...

... and the photo of one of my Halloween pumpkins.

I use Paint Shop Pro 9 but you can practically use any graphic software which works with layers to combine images. I blended the images with "hard light," loving the new look of them:

To give the collage something special, I added the face of a boy near the middle and finally aged the picture by using a filter.

Another blending mode which I liked was "difference."

For the final image I added the image of a fairy, altering her coloring to suit the background.

It's great fun to work with texture and blending modes -- the possibilities are endless. If you want to give it a try, too, please add the link at the Digital Montage Studio Challenge blog. Oh, and if you are interested in digital art in general, please consider checking out We Love Digital Art.