From Photograph to Watercolour Artwork & Digital Art

This project reveals how my original photography can develop along two different creative paths: into a traditional hand-painted watercolour and into a series of digitally composed photographic artworks. I began with two photographs I took of a 1965 Mini Cooper S. After selecting the strongest angle, I made a rough crop and then carefully removed the entire original background by hand in Photoshop. A temporary red background helped me inspect the edges and spot any areas I had missed. Using the prepared photograph as my reference, I created a light pencil outline with my Copykake projector and painted the Mini by hand. The six stages shown here are scans of the same watercolour as it gradually develops from its first faint outline to the completed painting. The original cut-out photograph also became the starting point for several completely different compositions. Using Photoshop and Corel Painter, I combined it with a 1960s Mini brochure, a clean period-style design, my photograph of weathered buildings at Portsmouth Dockyard, and a colourful layered background created with Painter’s painting tools. Every finished image began with my own photography and my own creative work. No AI was used.