A Bird Christmas Tree

This bird is a Masked Lapwing that was photographed at the Palm Beach Zoo. I decided I needed to practice some painting so I picked this funny guy who sort of waltzed into my shot. Since the background was not too exciting, I decided to give him a little more holiday spirit by both painting and adding several filters. This image uses a lot of different filters and textures. The background texture is from Kim Klassen called Papertrio Paper and Paste (not sure it is still available but she has some beautiful textures) – applied twice, the second time set to Hard Light at 49% layer opacity. Topaz (see sidebar for website link) ReMask was used to select the bird and put him on his own layer – then used the Mixers to paint him. Used Grut’s MI Sues Hedge brush to soften and get the pretty edging between the brown and white feathers and am finding this to be a very useful mixer! Also used one of Fay Sirkis’s hair blenders. Have to find the right brushes to paint these guys! French Kiss (see sidebar for website link) Myrica Gale png was used for the plant – color was painted on a layer underneath it to add some colors. On a stamped layer (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) Topaz Impression 2 was opened and Cezanne 2 preset was applied but masked out the bird to retain my painting strokes. On another stamped layer Topaz ReStyle’s Emerald preset was applied. Set the opacity to 69%. Corel’s Partical Shop was opened and used the Flame brush to paint a little color in the tree leaf and used Cluster brush to add some lights to the plant. Then used the Star brush to create the bright star on top and added a little color in by turning off the Glow and painting a little on the branches. Its Eraser brush was used to soften the effect a little. (See my Intro to Corel ParticleShop Brushes for Photoshop blog.) Back in PS, this layer looked pretty bright so lowered the opacity. Magic Dust Pretty Actions Brush was used to add a little white snow effect on tree and underneath text. Added some texture and clean up was done to finish up……Digital Lady Syd