cupid

When I opened Stephen's Valentine's card yesterday, I said, "You'll be surprised how similar mine is."

I kind of love that we had the same creative impulse leading up to this year's V-Day. But I ask you, how could we not?

Nicholas as cupid. Above is Stephen's card to me. Valentinian Arithmetic. Who says Stephen is a Scrooge when it comes to Valentine's Day?

And below, mine.

There he is. Not only Nicholas as cupid again, but we used the very same Nicholas picture. I used two, but still. Here's the detail:

 [here's the

cherub whose

accoutrements

I usurped

for nicholas'

wardrobe.]



 Up close, you can see the various parts of the piece have different textures, but I tried my best to get something close to the original image I was playing with, which was a vintage, Victorian-era valentine. I tried like mad to find a texture for Nicholas that would emulate the card, but ah well - this was as good as I could come up with, and for a small, printed card it was good enough.

I kind of love that in the vintage valentine, it looks like the gentleman is groping his fair lady's breast...

Here's the original. I tried to find a picture of Stephen that was close enough that I could keep the moustache, but alas. Biggest part of the job was slowly recreating sky at the top and sides of the piece so I had room for my doggy cupids. All the extra sky came from those tiny bits of blue bordering the flowers, so it was a painstaking process.

I should mention that Stephen's just as obsessive about this stuff as I. The shadows around Nicholas on the satin sheet? All recreated by Stephen via Photopaint.