Downton Abbey season 2

This wallpaper has taken me ages!!!!!! But it was worth the effort - by far. I don’t know how long exactly, yet trying to find images of the characters from the waist up in good quality is not easy. I ended up going through four episodes and ‘print screening’ characters… but that didn’t work. Thankfully, I found a Downton Abbey fan-site (Downton online) which stocked many images I used.

My main objective for this piece was to have the characters on the same line to enforce the action that during this time, the class systems came together to help one another. I also didn’t want to have any of the characters looking at the viewer – as it being wartime, everyone is looking at everyone else. Some characters do look like they are, but not quite.

My first season background was basically black and white, and I was going to have this in the pure sepia tone… but it was too brown, I felt it needed a bit of colour. Yes, the lighting on all the characters is different and does look a little random, but hopefully it’s looking good.

Once I made a black grunge effect around the edge, it truly brought out the image and gave it more dynamics. A few weeks ago I downloaded some watercolour brushes when I was looking for something else, and I adore them. This is what I used to create the colour. In the background is a rose pattern, and this pattern is from the book “A Rose for the ANZAC Boys” by Jackie French – and I used it on my first background as well.

I am very pleased with the result of this and I hope you like it too.