Even the trees are confused

It's no use being in denial any longer, it has snowed, it is snowing, it is going to snow .... It does look lovely but it is very inconvenient if you want to get around. Apparently we get a different sort of snow here in the UK which brings (nearly) everything to a standstill. Roll on summer!

Snowed in

I should have been at the Harrogate K & S show today but the weather conspired against it (6 inches of snow and more to come). Instead I thought I'd show you a photo taken of an old railway carriage door and the two images which came from it. I used PSP here as I am still coming to grips with PSE. One of the biggest frustrations is that the files saved as psp images can't be opened in PSE. I haven't been able to find a solution so if you can help ...!

Crazy colour

Now I don't do "Vintage" (although I love the work of bloggers who do) and I don't often do pale and atmospheric (ditto) but I do love vibrant colour and patterns (although I know it's not everyone's cup of tea so to speak). So to show you what I like I took a photo of old railway carrriage connecting doors and played about with it, using selection and move tools, with a bit of glowing edges. displacement and saturation thrown in. One of these days I may even get around to printing it onto fabric and adding stitch. But don't hold your breath ...

Framed!

I'm having a go with Photoshop Elements for the first time - like it a lot but Paint Shop Pro is better for some things. Jury's still out!

Those trains again!

I make no excuse for taking photos in railway museums or preserved railways because I love the sense of storytelling these old steam engines and carriages tell. I think of the pride of the craftsmen and engineers as they made the huge engines and painted them with such care. I imagine the excitement of passengers as they took a journey for the first time and I think of the scores of volunteers often fighting a losing battle to restore and reclaim the magnificent pieces of engineering. That's why I like taking the pics (and I like rust too!)

Autumnal animals

I'm not in the habit of taking photos of animals but these rather splendidly coloured rams were too good to miss as we drove down a deserted track in the Northumberland countryside. They had a good stare before getting bored! I copied and pasted parts of the image, added one of my textures and a frame. Wonder what they were thinking. (Do animals think?)

Trees and a plastic bag

This is the first time I've dyed a plastic bag! Didn't mean to but the fabric which was being dyed was inside it, and it was too good to throw away. Instead I used it as a texture to go with this tree -


- which became this image using this "recipe":
one of my brown textures - overlay 97
plastic bag texture colour 100
copy of tree normal 72




I opened a new page and copied and pasted selections of the image, duplicated the background and moved it, changed a few colours and added a frame, ending up with an abstract image.