First of all, I hope everyone has had a GREAT Thanksgiving Holiday!  I spent a peaceful holiday at home with family and worked on finishing up the next gem in the Daily Texture Collections....the Winter 2 Collection.  This new winter collection features 30 more fabulous textures - perfect for the winter season, as well as for your subjects which might call for a softer look.  The collection is on sale until next Saturday {December 5}, AND don't forget to use your coupon DT4040 for 40% off on this new collection.  {be sure to click APPLY after you enter your code in the box at checkout}.  I can't wait to see the amazing art you guys come up with - be sure to share on The Daily Texture Facebook page, as I'd love to see your creations!

Not only will you find new, full backgrounds to use, but I'm providing them in a variety of color tones!  For example, the original background for Lake 1 {the background behind the Canadian Goose} was autumn toned.  I created several color tone variations of this scene {9, to be exact}.  After blending my goose in with the original autumn toned one, I discovered the color tones in the bird didn't really work well with the autumn colored lake scene.  So under the bird -- on top of the autumn lake scene -- I imported a few of the other lake scenes to see if another worked better.  And it did!  This one with the green tones matched my goose much better!  So that's the one I went with in my final art.

These backgrounds are great for creating composites with one or more photos, as well.  In the image below, I used two different photos -- one of my husband photographing something with his phone that I captured on one of our nature outings, and another of the bald eagle in flight.  I masked away the backgrounds on both photos and positioned the subjects on top of the painted background.  Then I worked on blending them in with the background, and finally, I did the same thing as I did with the goose...I ended up choosing one of the other colors of this scene which went with the two subjects a bit better.

So if you enjoy the textures, but want to add just a little more excitement to your art, you might be interested in some of these new backgrounds.  You can also add quotes to them, make them into greeting cards, use them as a background for other finished art pieces or as a background for advertisements for your other art, special events, etc.  I hope you'll have as much fun using them as I have making them!

The Christmas Background Collection offers you 6 holiday backgrounds which will add a painterly feel to your photographs, painted subjects, advertising flyers, greeting cards and more!  Mask your subject's background away to blend right in with the background, creating a new work of art featuring your favorite subject(s) in holiday style.  Add text to create a personal greeting for your friends and family.  Use as a background for your art advertisements during the holiday season.  The possibilities are endless!  Get even more creative and add the falling snow overlays from the Winter 1 Collection to give your new art even more of a seasonal feeling.
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As I was creating Today's Daily Texture, I began to see a reflection emerge.  At first, I thought about getting rid of it. But then I decided, no, this could be useful!  And it certainly has turned out that way!  Many of my friends have gotten splendid photographs of the deer by this one pond at Shiloh, Tennessee {where I go to photograph wildlife and the eagles}.   I've never been so lucky {yet!}.  Now, thanks to this texture/background, I can create my own deer by the pond scene.  

If you're going to do this, it works really good to have a subject on ground level, preferably in the grass.  Or...you can add grass, as I did.  This doe was standing in some leaves right by the edge of the woods.  With large tree trunks on either side of her.  None of which I liked.  So I masked away everything except the deer and I placed her feet in that center, darker, area of the background.  I then duplicated her, flipped her and pulled that layer down into what I see as the 'water' in this background.  I masked some more of the layer away, so her reflection would be more faded into the water.  Then I added the grassy part, which I acquired from another photo.  I lined up the grass with her feet, and darkened the grass quite a bit to ground her.  Then I duplicated the grass, flipped it, and lined it up with the reflection, masking some of that layer away to fade in with the reflection, too.

I then duplicated the texture layer, and placed it on top, setting it to soft light at 100%.  This made the golds TOO bright, however, so I desaturated that layer completely.  This enabled me to take advantage of the lighting the soft light layer created, but not the extra color.  After merging, I made another slight adjustment just to brighten things up a bit, and viola, now I, too, have a deer by the pond. :)