It's ALIVE! Turning old photos from a science textbook into abstract art

I love old textbooks. They remind me of elementary school and black-and-white movies -- think Mr. Rogers meets Dr. Frankenstein. 

Recently, I signed up for a postcard swap. I make 10 postcards and send them to 10 other artists. In return, I receive 10 handmade cards.To find inspiration, I flipped through Modern Physical Science, published in the 1950s. It contains 100s of quirky photos. Which ones should I choose?

These two caught my eye.

I like the abstract patterns and slightly sinister mood. The colorization is cool, too. But how to use them? Each on its own is too long and thin to fill a standard postcard. I scanned them and started playing in Photoshop.

Here's what I ended up with.

By duplicating the image and flipping it horizontally, I created mirror images, which I repeated again. The final images remind me of a kaleidoscope. You have to look hard to see the tiny men in the green image.

Here's another tiny man inside a huge metal thing. I tried the same thing with this photo.

I decided to colorize it myself.

From a distance, it looks like paper money from some small South Pacific island country. 

I'll use these images as backgrounds in my postcards. I'll share the final cards here, when they're done. In the meantime, there's still time for you to join me and sign up for the postcard swap!