MCP Project 12

I know I am just getting this in under the wire, but January has been a rough month for my family and I.. Between the holidays, and illnesses I am slap wore out! But I really wanted to be apart of this Blog 12 challenge.. For January as always I have so many resolutions, and like most they are not kept! Weather good intentions or not, life is hard and things get in the way! But there is something I am wanting to "resolve"... Learning how to use textures on B&W images! Colored images I find much easier, but black and white?? I don't know why I find them difficult, but to me they never turn out right!! So here is my attempt at a B&W image of my precious son Jason taking after his mothers heart!!! Taking pictures with his camera he got for Christmas... What i used was MCP take the color out, Flora Bella texture action with the texture gesso from Jessica Drossin textures.. I put it on Hard Light at 100% and erased with brush on 50% opacity on the skin. Then dropping the opacity of the brush to go over what was left of the texture at 25%..Next step was running the Flora Bella texture part 2.. I used the sweet sun at 30%, Vignette at 100%, and boosted the rich boost at 33% and towned down the contrast at 15%. Then added the sharpening at 35%. This is what I got after adding my water mark and using PURE presitation for blogs.

I hope to get next months challenge done alot sooner! But would appreciate any suggestions or feedback. Thanks!
Mary Gibson