Fooling Around

Here are two of the pictures I started off with and have been fooling around with.

For the sunset, I primarily worked with the smudge tool. I started off by filling the bottom half of the piece with the dark blue you see at nearest the horizon. I then kept adding lighter shades until you get to that closest to you. I did some circular smudging to incorporate the colors into each other and then horizontal smudging to even it out. For the sun, I used the paintbrush to draw a rough half circle. I then kept progressively adding colors, such as pinks, blues, purples, and oranges using different brushes to make sure the colors were not too concentrated. I then smudged around the sun horizontally, making the sun a little hazy.

With Michael, I found a picture of him swimming on Google images and put it into a Gimp image. I then used the Foreground Select Tool to cut him out of the water and put him into another Gimp image. The original picture had a clear reflection of him in the water below him, but I wanted mine to look more smudged so the water wouldn't look as tranquil. I took the same image I had used for him, flipped it, and sized it, and put it below him. I then used the color picker tool to take some of the colors from the original and use them in mine, smudging them as I went. I smudged horizontally. I am still not sure what to use as a background. The original just had water behind him, but since I wanted to make it appear as if he was coming out of the water, I didn't think that would work. Suggestions welcome!