I noticed this community welcomes artwork contributions but we don't seem to get many so here is an offering from me.
One of my hobbies is to create wildlife art from macro photographs of weathered urban surfaces. Things like rusty corrugated metal and cracked paintwork. These patterns and textures are all around our urban spaces but usually dismissed as an eyesore when infact they can be quite beautiful in their detail once separated from the idea of "decay". And weathering is a natural force that creates natural patterns that reflect the natural world around us. Cracks mirror branches and rust has the texture and colour of sandy landscapes, for example.
I take these photographs and use Photoshop to add wildlife which forces the viewer to see the weathering as a natural scene.
I don't remember exactly where I took the base photographs for these bird examples but I spent many years living in Bangkok so that would be my guess!
"Dunlin Shore" - the colours and rippling of rusty corrugated metal always make me think of shorelines and therefore shorebirds. And these dunlin are a good example of one technique I like to use that adds interest and keeps the eye working. Some birds are dark so show up against the lighter parts of the background, others are light so stand out in the dark areas. Mixing the two helps to add depth to the image. Catching the flock in the process of landing is a good way to create a more dynamic feeling.
"Cormorants on a Rock" - a stain on a weathered old wall becomes a perfect boulder for a flock of cormorants to perch on. The trick with this technique is blending the birds into the background so they look like they belong and cormorants are a great subject to work with because their shape is so distinctive. The whole body can be hidden in the background but as long as that head and neck are visible it is recognisable as a cormorant.
"Gamebird" - some sloppy drippy cement work turned upside-down makes a nice rough bit of grass for a pheasant to hide behind. So the main element in this background isn't actually caused by weathering but neither was it deliberately made by a human so the result looks more naturally random than designed.
"Penguins" - another one that didn't actually involve much weathering. The background is just a photograph of a galvanised metal sheet where I increased the contrast until it was virtually black and white. Again I used both dark and light birds and had a lot of fun finding places for them all. In total there are 29 penguins in this chaotic colony.
"Sunset Pigeon Flock" - if the colours are bright and strong like this streaky weathered paintwork then a background sunset sky virtually makes itself. Adding a flock of pigeons probably came to mind as I was living in a city at the time I made this.
"Swallows on Wire" - made from a photograph of old concrete on a road bridge with rainwater drips stains seeping through the cracks. I like this as an example where the background doesn't actually have to make sense in terms of representing something from nature. I have no idea what those drip stains are doing there but I do like how they look. Just an abstract naturalesque element.
