Sometimes I find inspiration from other photographers and artists. This piece is a result of an enhanced portrait I saw online on a photo studio's web site. It looked nothing like my image, but there were some lines, a girl's face and some grungy textures. I used two paintings for the colorful background and pulled and stretched them in Photoshop until they were totally unrecognizable. After all I was only interested in that particular color mix. Then I took a photo of my daughter and put it in the middle. I added a bunch of elements from a family vacation in USA and worked my way from there. It took me 3 months to complete it with all the 22 layers I ended up with. Matching them together and finding the best opacity for each layer so they would blend in well, was quite a challenge. Having too many choices was another. The only thing I was certain about was that I wanted a huge canvas print on my living room wall with lots of bright colors to brighten an otherwise neutral colored room. I wanted a real focal point. I'm very happy with the result, and I get a lot of compliments for it, but it's too personal for selling. That lead me to another project, "A Piece of America" which is shown here. I took out the family portraits and added some more Americana stuff. I hope you enjoy it! See if you can spot my eye!