The one with the girl in the brooch.

 The MATS (Make Art That Sells) assignment for January was all about Edwardian brooches. I was so intimidated by the intricacies of the metal work details and was really struggling with how I was going to show the facets in gemstone. I sketched out a few images, and waited for the information on what the final product needed to be.

The final product needed to be a journal/diary cover still using the idea of the brooches. I sat and stared at my sketches.  I drooled at all the other people submissions to the classroom in Facebook. I kept coming back to this brooch and seeing it like a girl, wearing a fancy headdress. 

So I sketched it out and painted it with my watercolors. I loved it, but I was baffled with how I was going to make a background that complemented the colors and style of the piece, and  was still interesting enough to be a journal cover.

I have a very large abstract painting hanging in my studio that I have been tinkering with for months. I took a few snapshots of various pieces of the painting and decided to try and incorporate it into the background digitally.

  I brought the brooch girl in Photoshop and removed the paper from her background. I brought in the painting, made some adjustments in lightroom and cropped it to be the adequate size for a journal. I then merged the two layers, added a text and binding, and I was done.