Yesterday we spent a short time out at the Palazzo Grande banquet and event center in Shelby Township. They just opened up a couple years ago and have an amazing establishment for a Michigan wedding or event.
Yesterday they had a bridal show in conjunction with Viviano’s flowers and we were out there for a short time just to take some photos.

When I got home I spent some time in Corel Painter to add my own touch to the images.

Here are just a couple other photos that I liked a lot.

The last few days I’ve been working hard to create beautiful paintings from some of my travel photos. I’m really excited to show the latest pieces.
In a few days, I’ll be offering a service to take YOUR vacation photos and turn them into one-of-a-kind masterpieces.

This first one will go in our living room and it is a 55″x100″ canvas wrap.
If you want to be able to zoom closer to see all the detail and brush strokes, click here:
http://arisingimages.com/painting/amalfi/amalfi.html

Town of Amalfi along the Amalfi Coast in southern Italy.

Here’s the original:

This next one will be a 55″x183″ canvas wrap that is split up into 3 panels. This will be by far the biggest piece that I’ve ever printed and it will go in our living room.
It is a photo of Cliff Palace which is an ancient Anasazi Indian cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park in south western Colorado.

Here’s the original:

Our recent shoot with Joey went really well.  My two favorite products that we offer are our paintings and our sports photos so I was excited to have the opportunity to do both for Joey.

We’re definitely hoping to do more sports layouts for some of our clients, especially the high school seniors who are into a lot of different sports and activities.

and here’s the painting that I did for Joey:

I just completed a painted piece from Sam’s photo shoot last week.  I love doing these because they are a super cool and unique way to present a high school senior photo.  Our goal is to stand out from the rest and this is one of our most fun and artistic products.

This afternoon I was working with some of Ralph and Devon’s photos and there was a photo of the Taj Mahal that they took while in India and I absolutely loved it!  I spent the afternoon playing with the photo in Corel Painter and Photoshop to turn it into some artwork.

Here’s the final:

Here’s the original photo:

These were also painted off of images that I took at the Easter service last year.

I just finished making a new wall display of images that I painted using Corel Painter. These images will be printed at Simply Canvas on their gallery wraps which look really cool, and then we’re going to hang them in our bedroom.

I played around a bit more this afternoon. I’m really having fun with this and am FINALLY seeing some skills develop. It’s been a long and frustrating road with this program, but I’m starting to get it. However, I still have a ridiculous amount to learn still related to brush work and artistry.

I’m really getting into this Corel Painter stuff and having a good time exploring new brushes and painting techniques:

Tonight I had a little bit of time to play around with Painter again.
Here’s the result with a bit of detail of the progression:

Today I went to an all day Corel Painter class taught by Kathy Falls.
The most helpful part about it was being away from home and being in an environment where I could do nothing but paint. I really enjoyed the class and learned some nice tips from Kathy.
Here are the three images that I worked on in the class.

On Monday I’m going to be taking a Corel Painter class to help further develop my painting skills. I had to install Painter on my laptop and after doing so, I got wrapped up in it and decided to play with one of my recent photos: