Overlaying Shapes

More Photoshop fun ... This time overlaying shapes on chosen photographs and playing with opacity. First of all leaf shapes on a black and white image of shadows in a beech wood.

Then, the same trick on a complex black and white photo of machinery, but this time without changing the opacity.

You've guessed it, the Pixeladies are onto shape this week!

Pixeladies 2

I have been so absorbed in the Pixeladies' PSE 3 course I posted about last time that I've hardly been near my blog this week. Also, apologies to all those whose posts I've missed. Once this course is finished in a couple more weeks, I will be back!

So ... an update of images, starting with the next steps for the tree outlines - now filled simply using the paint bucket tool in colour ...

Then, played with further using lots of layers, transparency, opacity and a range of brushes large and small between the original image and the drawn lines (getting the layer order right gave me something to think about!) ...

And, last of all, something different (but still trees!), this time with text and gradients, the latter both on the image and on the text itself (very tricky and involving hours of play). These consist of adding a wash of graded colour over the image - best done subtly!

Next week, we're onto shape. I wonder where that will take us!

Photo Tracing

Photo Tracing of my images in Adobe Photoshop to get the outline is something I've done several times in the past. I've always found the process rather frustrating because I was unable to draw a straight line (hand too wobbly) and didn't know how to get Photoshop to do this automatically.

I began a new course with the Pixeladies last Monday (PSE 3: Digital Designing). Having completed their first and second courses and found them most useful, I was in high expectation that they would solve this and many other issues I didn't even know I had. They have ... and they are ... and I've only just finished week 1 of a four week taught course. If anything, I would say that this course is even better than the first two so I'm delighted!

The first week has focused on line - all in black and white so I've felt really at home. On Day 2, we explored PSE's amazing range of brushes and their settings - very useful but in my case not very photogenic.

Day 3 addressed the photo tracing issue (and the drawing straight lines) and I produced this (without straight lines!):

Which resulted in this:

Which turned into this bit of fun when I used a choice of faux finish brushes (among others) in the negative spaces and then filled the positive spaces with black.

Useful play with a capital P!

PS Writing this post made me go back to my posts of 2015. I think I need to revisit some of those techniques and effects. Where are my handouts that I printed out so carefully?

Sinchie 1

Great Western Embroiderers, the group I stitch with, generally has a group project on the go in which I try to participate. So, from time to time, I find myself producing work which is very different both in technique and in focus from the main work I'm doing at the time.

Now is one of those times.

The choice was made by the group to produce a series of Sinchies (the stitched version, not the Aussie food pouches for children!), one every two months. My offering for this first round today (yet to be finished off, I admit) is shown above. The plan is that these will eventually be joined together in strips to make a larger whole.

Two months ago, two colours were drawn out of a hat and we were asked to produce a small piece 6 ins by 6 ins (hence the name) in whatever style took our fancy. This time the random colours were pink and green and to start us off, we were provided with a small pack of fabric, threads and beads in these colours to use and to which we could add from our own stash.

I added among other things strips of silk sari fabric, together with spun sari offcuts and fibres. I chose to put all these fabrics under the embellisher (needle felting machine) and then to hand stitch over the top. Inevitably, the piece ended up as a landscape as such impromptu pieces generally do. It is my default response when I haven't done any preliminary sketchbook work.

This sort of exercise tends to take me strangely out of my comfort zone as it is usually so different from what I am doing at the time, but it's good for me to think about other things and to work in a different way - to a formula and within boundaries, rather than freely and to my own agenda.

Right now, this formula inevitably involves the use of colour ... so definitely different and therefore probably most beneficial!

More cut-outs and more shadows

Playing further with tree cut-outs and their shadows has thrown up many thoughts and questions. Unusual lighting conditions when photographing produced unexpected results (this first image has not been manipulated for colour in Photoshop) ...

... which gave me scope to play with colour in the Photoshop adjustment layers (there were many colour variations of this image) ...

Both of these seemed to give an extraordinary sense of depth to the image ... interesting what colour can do!

I then cropped another image and converted it into black and white, as I so often do, adjusting the contrast levels in Photoshop.

Doing this for several images gave many opportunities for cropping, rotating and abstracting which gave firstly this ...

... and then this ...

and finally this ...

It was interesting that these last three images did exactly the reverse of the first two, flattening out the images and losing that intense sense of 3D. The reference to trees was lost and the process produced graphic images where shape and black / white / gray contrast mattered the most.

All idle play right now, but may lead somewhere later ...

Nightingales and a cuckoo

On Tuesday evening, we spent a lovely couple of hours on a walk organised by the Cotswold Waterparks Trust at a site near Minety in Wiltshire, close to where we live. The point of the evening was to listen out for the wonderful male Nightingale which sings with such exquisite volume in the evening in the breeding season in late April and May - if you are lucky enough to hear him.

We did indeed hear him, deep in this thorny thicket, hidden from view to all but the most expert of eyes (fortunately supplied out by our guide, Nick), and sitting on the branch indicated by the white arrow. He sang as can be heard on this YouTube clip, intermittently at first. Later in the evening, he had moved to the large ash tree on the left of the photo and as it grew darker he sang continuously with the most extraordinary intensity and volume. The tree was fortunately not in full leaf and with binoculars we could see him clearly, his beak opening and his throat swelling with his song - wonderful!

Nightingales ( Luscinia megarhynchos) are surprisingly small - only slightly larger than our European robins - and are shy birds preferring to hide in thick bushes, and to nest close to the ground in dense brambles. In the UK they are rare and in Wiltshire here we are on the northern edge of their range so it is very unusual to hear them. During the evening we heard at least four different males, some at a distance since their song can carry a surprisingly long way.

So also can the call of the cuckoo. These birds are declining rapidly and only the other day, my husband and I were saying we hadn't heard a cuckoo for several springs and were wondering whether we would hear one this year. As we climbed over the stile at the beginning of the walk, a male called and continued to call throughout our two hours and through binoculars, we saw him perched on top of an isolated dead tree.

There were also many other birds calling in this wild and overgrown spot - including song thrushes (declining in numbers in the UK), blackbirds, warblers, and a whitethroat (the latter identified for us).

It was a wonderful evening. Our thanks to the CWPT for organising it. We will look out again for the dates next year.

* Both bird photos are from the excellent RSPB website.