Essentials Cafe

Whilst walking in the forest about 5 years ago this old oak was nestling up against one of the paths off the main track.

The camera was an old 35ml and this is a scanned image of the original print. When I got the film back from the local chemist I was surprised to see what seems to be eyes looking out at us from the large hole in the tree.

The image was run through in autopaint in Essentials 4. Underpainting, oils without changing colour and no jagged edge. Next I ran it through with the loaded palette knife and then popped into draw and paint mode to add a new layer. Back into autopaint to run it through with the thick wet impast brush. Back into draw and paint mode the remove the thick wet impast from the tree trunk and a few leaves with the eraser at an opacity of 18%.

Prior to this I had cropped the hole in the tree and enhanced the image in photoshop to try to see more clearly what was in the tree watching us.

I have put this crop in the lower right corner of the painting.

I hope it is not too small to see those eyes.

Squirrel you sure do have some amazing and beautiful trees near where you live.  This is lovely.  I can't quite work out the eyes thing but I'll have a couple more looks see and perhaps I will work it out.

Here is a larger version of the crop and I have increased the brightness and contrast. I can see a face and some little lights, I think it is the little folk of the forest who were keeping watch to make sure we got up to no mischief.

Seriously though, this is the shot as it was apart from cropping and lightening.

Well truely I would have to say you have an enchanted forrest near where you live.  There sure aren't too many of them in the world!

I'm still working out which pictures I want to entre anne, however I have already started a folder that is purely for these trees.

Thanks so much for the feedback everyone.