Variations on a theme

Two altered images from the rose petal photo - one of these two will be printed onto fabric and stitched (at least that's the intention!). Don't know which I prefer. Hmm ...

New textures

Some of the textures I've made to use with photos. By changing blend modes, hue and sat etc there is an unlimited source of variations. Now to do something with them!

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 ...!

Border

Thought I might share how I made this border. Didn't have a tutorial, just fiddled about till I found this border which I liked! Here goes -
Open your image and blur with Gaussian blur, radius 4, Save this blurred image and open original image again so that you have them side by side. Layer the original (unblurred image) on top of the blurred image and resize the top layer until you have a border of blurriness showing (You can see how technical this is!). On the top layer I then went to effects, 3d effects, chisel, size 11, transparent. Save as merged image. Let me know if this works!!

Quilt?

I'm going to call this a digital quilt. It's not made of fabric but has at least three layers using my photos and a border. Paint Shop Pro was a great help!

I've started, so I'll finish

I'm far from finishing, as I'm still making squares to add to the ones I 've already made. I decided to add a border of sari yarn to each one as the colours go well with the fabric.
In addition I painted a few squares with acrylics on watercolour paper with the help of some scrim ..



which I then photographed and printed out onto fabric adding some wool tops and stitching.



Got a few more ideas to work out!

Summer evening

Layers

I've been playing with layers this week - each image has three or four layers, using my photos although this time I used a background layer from Shadowhouse Creations. I've also decided it's time to start something textile-y so the embellisher has had an airing this afternoon resulting in a broken needle. Too many layers!

PS

A few more images from Crook Hall, the last one I altered in Paint Shop Pro. Just hoping they don't come out too dark as I have been so far unable to make this monitor lighter, so everything is looking darker. Must find out how to put this right.
Enjoyed a GS's beach hut birthday party today in spite of a freezing wind and grey clouds. Typical! just when we had a lovely week of weather!

Vintage card

Quite often you come across vintage-style cards/artwork/textiles on others' blogs so I thought I would have a go at creating one. I used two images - one of a bunch of flowers and another from some script which I typed in and then used the freestyle selection tool instead of tearing up bits of text and sticking them onto card. I'm afraid I didn't keep track of all the effects so hope I can remember what I did if I want to make a similar one.
Some sad news today as we learnt of the deaths of two friends, one very untimely and unexpected and another of a friend in a care home. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families. xx

....and still further

Going further

Many thanks to Mags for reminding me about Spiky Halo! Pop over to her blog and see her digital art. We grans must stick together!

Full circle

This week I dug out a photo taken of one of my C and G projects - one of six squares (vilene, painted and stitched, cut out, the pattern based on the fibonacci series); the squares were then made into a cube. The next two are the image after altering in psp -


The last image was made into a mini-quilt (a quilt consists of any three layers held together with stitching). I might start another "circle" with this one!

Simple pleasures

At a recent Members' Evening at the camera club I took a photo of this eggcup. Thought it would make an interesting image to play with to see what different effects there might be. May try to develop this further, although it won't go into any competitions!

Shades of grey and other colours

I like taking photos of ordinary objects and finding pattern in them. Add some colour and see what happens - the potential in ordinary things - just like us really ..

Seeing with new eyes

Playing with shells

Playing with colour

I've discovered the magic wand tool this week and played about with it . This is an image of a rusty tractor wheel similar to the one in the last entry. These are some of my favourite colours (even though I try to get away from them!) - I'm still working on a way to be able to combine images like this using a transparent background. I expect it's quite easy but it takes me ages to work it out by trial and error but it's fun getting there! As usual, the handbook doesn't go into so much detail ..

Treasures of darkness 5

Treaures 5, created from these two images - harbour nets and scanned textile