Nature-inspired Art

Home	Field and Swamp: Animals and Their Habitats

Digital Art: Fun things you can do without lifting a pen/pencil/brush

All of these pictures are original art works, using photos I took myself and processed using Adobe^® Photoshop^® CS5. They illustrate a variety of features of this versatile software. It's easy to get beautiful effects with the Filters and Image Adjustments. But there are many other diverse and powerful tools if you're aiming for originality.

Please contact me, Dorothy E. Pugh, for the rights to use these photos. All are copyrighted (2012).


A coastal area. Could be farms near an ocean or (more logically) a waterfowl impoundment near a river. This image started out as a photo of the reflections of windows on water, and involved the use of the Magic Wand Tool with the Hue/Saturation/Lightness Image Adjustment function, as well as the Smudge Tool.

Slouching toward creativity.. This, believe it or not, originated in a photo of a stack of tomato plant stands!


Cattails in my local marsh. Filters and adjustments of hue, saturation and color balance were used.


A field at Penny's Bend Nature Preserve, Durham County, NC. I used the Plastic Wrap filter and touched it up with typical image enhancement.

The inside of the Mellow Mushroom restaurant, downtown Winston-Salem, NC. After basic image enhancement, I applied an Angled Edges filter.

The Birding Cat: This image was assembled from "cut-outs" using the Magnetic Lasso Tool from many bird photos and a cartoon of a cat holding a camera, also drawn using basic geometric shapes and the Move Tool, using the Warp function. It used 80+ Layers.

The Process of Photography: A composite of "cut-outs" of many photos and a cartoon face. This used dozens of Layers, each of which required the Magnetic Lasso Tool, the Move Tool (involving generous use of the Warp function), and occasional use of the Eraser Tool.

Imaginary swamp: Lots of "cut-outs" of animals applied to a swamp photo. Note the alligator in the distance.

Flowers, flower flies and bee flies: I had fun with Layer re-ordering to make the flowers seem to lie in a pile.

Karl with a bluebird on his shoulder: This is a "drawing" I did of my husband, Karl Gottschalk, for his Facebook profile photo. He requested the bluebird addition. Much of the work was done with different brush settings. However, his shirt and eyebrows were produced using the Move Tool (with the Warp function) to reshape an ellipse.


Goth Face: This picture used a photo of a window reflection as a starting point and used the Healing Brush Tool almost entirely. However, the Move Tool, the Smudge Tool and the Eraser Tool played minor roles.