Photo Art Fiday - February 24, 2012

It's Friday and time to join Bonnie over on Pixel Dust Photo Art for PAF (Photo Art Friday)!
This week we were given 3 different options: 1. Post Any Photo Art we wanted to.
2. Continue to work with Layer Masks or
3. Create a piece of Photo Art that wasn't pretty.  In Bonnie's own words:

Share a piece of photo art that isn't 'pretty'. Yes, art isn't always made from what's beautiful. How about sharing a piece of photo art that is:
* ordinary
* everyday
* gritty
* grungy
* that captures the underbelly of life
* that highlights the flaw
* that is an artistic statement without having to portray beauty
This doesn't mean that your piece won't be appealing, stunning, arresting or captivating ... it just won't (this time) be based on presenting something generally considered beautiful ...

Well that sounded interesting to me.  However last night after peeking at a few of the entries and seeing what Bonnie did I'm not so sure my piece fits #3 but since I already had it completed I'm going to say it's a "Combo" of #1 and #3 just to be on the safe side.

So here's a bit of the story behind my Art Piece.  At our local park they have this tree that has this one limb that grew way out to the side and kids love to climb on it and then try to climb further up the tree.  It's been a favorite tree in the park for many years.   Sadly it's also been used to carve "Graffiti" on as well although it does sort of add to the charm of the tree now after all these years.

Here is a picture of Coleen on the tree:

As you can see the limb has gotten so low to the ground they had to put a support post under it (behind Coleen).

Now for my piece I started with this Close-Up of a portion of the tree.  You have to admit it's certainly, Not Pretty, It's Oridnary, and it's a bit Grungy so those three things alone qualify it for #3 on the list.

I cropped the picture to get rid of some of the Graffitti marks on the right hand side and then edited it in GIMP using the Artistic Van Gogh feature until I got something that I liked.  Then I went into Picnik and used the Boost feature and adjusted it to a level that looked appealing.  Once that was completed I noticed that one of the tree knots looked very much like an eyeball and that gave me the idea to add the Quote and the frame.  (Yes I love to use Quotes on my photos).  So here is my final piece:

On a side note the book I ordered : Beginning GIMP (From Novice to Professional) arrived yesterday and I'm anxious to get started learning how to use this Photo Editing program better.  Wish me luck.

Don't forget to go check out the other entries as you are bound to be blown away by all the creativity.