Let's finish off the month with two brand new texture collections!  First, we have the Illumination Texture Collection - featuring 28 textures filled with wonderful color and glow to majestically enhance any subject.  And then we have the Splendid Spring Collection.  This collection also features 28 textures, from soft and subtle to funky, impressionist style in appearance, for your spring subjects.  The Spring Collection was inspired by the newly released color palette in the Pantone Spring 2016 collection, so I'm sure you'll enjoy working with these fresh and vibrant colors. :)  Both collections are $10 off each through the end of February 2016, too.  Enjoy!

Isn't it funny how we wish for cooler days in summer, and in winter we wish for warmer ones?  I was wishing for a warm summer day when I painted this fun texture!  Filled with brilliant yellows, oranges and reds, along with some heavy brush strokes and deep texture, I hope you'll enjoy this abstract texture as much as I do!  I paired it with a photo of a gorgeous bird I see every summer - The Summer Tanager.  His red color was a perfect match for this one.  I used the texture as a background and also as a soft light layer on top, set to 50% opacity.

Ok, so Today's Daily Texture is pretty abstract.  It's also filled with the beautiful colors of Spring!  You may find it more challenging to work with, but, what fun is life without challenges? :)  I paired it with a brilliant yellow goldfinch.  The yellow on his head matched the yellow in some of the wild strokes, so I thought it might be fun.  I have thousands of photos of these birds -- all taken in similar areas with similar lighting.  This is where the fun of using textures come in...because that makes where the original photo was taken totally irrelevant.  By using textures, each similar photo can now become a totally unique work of art, each different from the next!

Tired of winter?  Here's a colorful Spring abstract texture to lift your mood!  I paired this texture with a photo of one of our neighborhood kitty cats.  I love the way his fur tones and blue eyes look with the texture.  I worked the texture in as a background {the same way I describe in my video for the Nature Splash Collection} and then duplicate the texture and placed it on top in overlay mode at about 50%, just to pump up the brightness and saturation a bit.  I also layered the texture again on top in soft light mode at about 30%.  Then I decided I wanted the kitty to appear more painterly, so I ran just his photo layer through Topaz Impressions, picking one of my custom presets I've made that just soften things slightly.

Since we are getting blanketed in snow today, I thought it was appropriate for another winter texture.  I used this texture as a background for this sweet little fawn, masking away a good part of his feet to blend him in with the snow on the ground.  I added snowflakes from the Winter 1 Collection to give him a true sense of the season.

Today's Daily Texture is a bold mix of reds paired with winter blues.  I used this fun texture with one of my cardinal photos.  The poor little guy was missing his tail, and I thought he deserved to be showcased!  I put him off to the left side, leaving empty space on the right for interest.  I used the texture as a background, and also placed it on top in multiply layer mode at 20% just to tone down the brightness a little and to allow him to pick up some of the color from the texture.

You can turn any subject photographed in any season into a winter one with Today's Daily Texture.  That's exactly what I did with this Zebra photo.  How often do you see a Zebra in the snow?  Probably not often, but because I'm the artist, I decided to create it using this texture, both as a background and as an overlay. :)  To further enhance the scene, snow was added from the Winter 1 Collection.

Today's Daily Texture is another one filled with fabulous lighting - perfect for your birds in the sky or any subject where you want to add a beautiful glow!  I used this texture with this bald eagle photo.  Because the sky was plain blue with no distractions, I did no masking.  Instead, I placed the texture on top in multiply mode {with a bit of this layer masked off the face} and then duplicated the texture and placed it on top in soft light layer mode at 100% to enhance the glow and color.