Photo Illustrations

One of my first photo illustrations was for our Christmas cards in 1995. Hayley was two years old. I had her pose draped with a sheet with cow spots while standing on the hamper in our bathroom . I turned the shower on really hot to make steam hoping she would look like she was in the clouds. It didn't work. It looked like she was in a steamy bathroom. Luckily I had taken some pictures before it got too steamy. I scanned in the print and with the help of my computer I added angle wings and clouds with the saying "Hayleylujah". It was a big hit. Here's some of my favorite cards created from photo illustrations.

Back in 1995 I didn't have a digital camera or a 400-megahertz PC with 200 megabytes of RAM. This new equipment makes my job easier and faster. I have a Cannon Power Shot A50 digital camera which I take with me everywhere and I take a lot of pictures. I took this picture of Hayley at swim practice. I took the one of Paul Ray while shopping at a gardening store. I use Adobe PhotoShop to edit the images. I added the flowers in the image of Hayley from a stock photography collection that came with the camera. I created the Planets in Paul's image with Metacreations Painter. I used clip art from my favorite collection, Task Force Clip Art for the space rockets. In addition to using these on cards, I make T-shirts with them. I pint the images from my Hewlett Packard OfficeJet color printer onto Hanes Easy-Peel iron-on transfer paper.