my first hand at photoshop -- self portrait

The flowers are supposed to be representational of the women in my blood line, specifically myself, my mom, my grandma on my fathers side and my grandma on my mothers side. These are the flowers I grew up around, the ones I vividly remember them having growing while I was there. The sunflower is for myself and the purple dahlia for my mom. In this instance, the only reason for the sunflower is because I like them and again, I remember growing them. 

This is loosely based off of an idea I had for a tattoo in a couple of years.

I used the polygonal lasso tool to cut out the flowers, and an oil paint filter for each of the flowers on a different scale. I used the burn tool on the hands and downloaded a couple of brushes for the tree effect at the top. The only way I managed to stitch the clouds together was by blurring and creating what I could of a distraction, which ended up looking a little like a storm cloud or rain cloud (to me). 

I played with the water surface a lot as well to get it to not be so shiny. A lot of blurring was used here (and everywhere).

I think I could've figured out another way to arrange the flowers, but it would take more time.