Abstract

Cheery red abstract is a perfect background for your cheery Hello!

You would never guess, but this abstract began life as a photograph of two yellow conehead flowers! That is, coneflowers. I don’t think coneheads have been around a while. It’s late while I write this, as you may imagine. The coneflowers were shaped very interestingly and the lighting was cool.

But, they really popped when I adjusted their colors to other-worldy purples and reds via the wonders of Photoshop and Lightroom. I took the image back into Photoshop to reduce some noise that was bothering me, but ended up accenting the grain of noise vertically to get some cool stripes, blurring them vertically and, finally, adding a radial blue filter. The pink and purple smudge was the original dominant coneflower, the dark smudge on the right was the backgrounded coneflower.

So, now they’re a cheery group of cards, postage stamps and other gifts. The key ring is strictly in honor of my niece, who locked her keys in the car once again. Maybe I should invent a Velcro key retainer for her like you would have on a jet-ski instead of designing another key ring she’ll leave behind!