MrVinyl Challenge Edit by Doug Friesen

Original Challenge: https://orb.club/p/c1jps6rsbwt1p7rhba

As I was reviewing my notifications today, I found one that peeked my interest. Mr.Vinyl, a friend on Orb.Club had tagged me to join in on an edit challenge. He provided an original image that he took while at what appeared to be a car wash. Instead of a dynamic landscape or art subject, we were to take on a very everyday subject and put our own spin on it. The original image began as a creative capture by Mr.Vinyl one evening with his phone.

Quality Note: Due to low light limitations of a phone sensor, there is some smoothening of details in the original image supplied, yet the exhibited composition and mood is very good considering the subject is a car wash. Well done.

Challenge accepted.

The resulting image above was built entirely within Affinity Designer using layers and blending modes. I utilized four (4) images from my archive of images in order to complete the transformation edits. The entire process was hands on traditional, where I selected images, layered them, and then selected the blend modes. To further the colour transformations, I created vector colour shapes and added them to the layers using the same blending techniques.

The result feels as if it is a frame from a movie, ready to be immortalized as poster art. I debated whether to use the image in the original crop or to use only a portion. The final decision was to use it in its original context ratio, which raised the challenge to maximize all pixels and yet feel creative.

Under the hush of electric rain, solitude becomes ritual. Light baptises steel in silence.

Layers. Blends. Drawn shapes to mask. No illustration. No AI. This is a hand crafted union of digital art and photography.

Strong reds take the limelight as does the name of the facility—acting as the title to the flick. I chose an intense light blue to fade from the division line downwards to emulate the cascading light and brightness, losing itself into the night ride of the evening. The flurry of colours pulsing throughout is a result of a tree branch budding with flowers in the spring. I used the blend of "colour" to transfer them into the image and applied a full gaussian blur so that the form of the flowers was lost in pure colour. The warm sun on the cathedral floor (photographed in Italy) was splashed across the scene to bring warmth to the original dark blue tones in the centre. In the lower half, I used the image from a room in Pompeii to bring out more subtle colour and texture. Bringing bold strength to the top portion, I used an image of an iron gate as photographed in Fan Tan Alley (Victoria, BC, Canada). Finally I accentuated the division by adding a slim red bar matched to the red tones above. This gave the upper portion of the art more presence and title.

The final artwork is comprised of eleven layers, with five (5) being shape layers with colour transformations and 5 consisting of my imagery along with the final layer which is the original image supplied by MrVinyl.

Never stop creating. There is beauty to be found in the every day around us.

The 5 images used in the final composition are shown in preview below ➡️