Archive for the ‘National Association of Photoshop Professionals’ Category

It is so good to be back doing some photography, some Photoshop, and just generally playing around. Hubby and I went for a two-hour stroll through the Tucson Botanical Gardens, since it now is mid-80’s, and you can be out and about and not feel like you’re burning up.

Took the camera and just looked at texture and framing. Color has not been adjusted at all. I did play around a bit with exposure…discovered that on the camera, so had to try it out.

It always amazes me that no matter how many times I go to the Botanical Gardens in Tucson, I always find something new.  Yes, it’s still comparatively green here in the desert, even in mid-October. Take a look, and let me know your favorites. What would you change, which ones do you like, what suggestions do you have for framing?

So what do you think?

Sometimes a piece of marbled fabric just begs to be used more than once – or find rebirth in a new form. That’s how our Digital Marbling (TN) was born. Playing around with the fabric and Photoshop leads to some very interesting effects. One thing I am hoping for with all this playing around is the development of some fabric lines, so I’m working on the idea of repeats right now.

Over the last decade or so there have been several runs of marbled fabric designs among some manufacturers. While the patterns are bold and colorful, I think there is a missing element in designing marbled fabric. A variety of colorways, bolds and subtles, and patterns that look like they would be easy to work with. I know when I started making fabric in 1993 it seemed like I was only comfortable putting the bold colors with blacks and whites. I want more flexibility, and to a certain extent I have found it.

But as I work toward designing fabric, I’m using these new artistic creations as my learning. In our newsletter, I posted a pic of “Alaskan Whales,” a piece my digital partner Suzan and I had entered into a show at the Cordova Historical Museum in Cordova, Alaska. It was our first really successful digital collaboration, and I’m going to pull it apart for you.

Here’s the original piece of fabric. I am amazed at just how blah that piece of fabric was, yet there was something appealing…if just means you have to do a lot of playing around to see what happens.

This is the same fabric with a duplicate copy and some adjustments added.

Now it’s approaching the water effect we were looking for. Then we looked for a graphic to use. We liked the whales, just rotated them a bit. We also added some adjustments: bevel, outer glow, some transparency. It looks like there are extra colors added, but it’s a transparency with some curve adjustments that adds in the extra colors. There are a few more things done to this piece, but I have an old version of Photoshop, so it doesn’t show.

Here’s another version, saved from the layers we chose not to use…never know when you will come across something unusual with stuff you didn’t throw out, but just left “invisible….”

All in all, loads of fun!

Who’s manipulating fabric digitally? I’d love to hear from you!

Don’t forget to become a subscriber and be entered to win some marbled fabrics. Check the box at the top right.

I have always been taken with black and white. When I was a teen, I did a lot of pen and ink (the kind of pen where you had to load the ink). Talk about an unforgiving medium! I am using some Pigma pens for these zentangles, and it feels like it did some many years ago. Granted, it’s just another form of doodling, but I do like the formality of it, the deliberateness…..and I like being able to play with my finished square in Photoshop. This top one is my new attempt today – I obviously like very dense designs, with not a lot of white space. It will be interesting to see if I “lighten up.”

Somehow with this new one, I didn’t want to try gradients – I decided to drop color. Whoa! A whole new way of working!! I could never have done this with pens….and now I am hooked again. What follows above is where I started….

…and where I ended up. I can see all sorts of possibilities with dimension in these, but I must say I love the black and white drawings just as they are.

I was hoping, when I started a regular pattern of blog writings, that I could do some marketing on Saturdays – hence the “Saturday Special.” This has not been my most successful day because I can’t keep up with changing images, especially since Cafe Press isn’t as “intuitive” as I would like it. I did set up a friend’s store – The Edge of the Sea of Cortez – and you will see some really cool sea creatures, many of whom are endangered. Betty Hupp is the co-author of “The Edge of the Sea of Cortez,” a book about the sea creatures you will find tide-walking. Check out the store for an indication of some of her products, with more to come.

I really like this image, created a few months ago, and part of the “Indigenous Images” series I am working on. I put this on a t-shirt for this week – limited time only! I also have this image on a small ornament – looks really cool.

Digital Marbling (TN) is unique – I take a piece of marbled fabric – or two – and manipulate it to other intriguing images. Loads of fun to do. I am learning a lot about photo manipulation – what an amazing field. Were I younger, I think graphic design would have been my career field.

About a year ago I created a great background, and my digital partner Suzan used a shot she had taken of the Grand Canyon – makes for a very dramatic image. You can find this on notecards this week. The image is also available on a small magnet.

Also over a year ago I started my “Fossil” series, again from a traditional marbled stone pattern on fabric. The background has loads of possibilities! It’s available as a small poster this week and as a small mug.

Have fun exploring! If you are interested in Betty’s book on the Sea of Cortez, here’s the Amazon link.

Spring break started today at 1:40 for our school district. Needless to say the kids weren’t particularly interested in the finer points of function notation. I did have to spend some time yesterday reminding them to spell the word “function” correctly – there are two “n’s” in the word…use your imagination!

Going to spend the day in Scottsdale tomorrow, seeing the Chihuly glass exhibit at the Botanical Gardens, as well as working with my digital partner Suzan. We have a show to get ready for, and entries to work on. Our get-togethers are always a great time – lots of inspiration – too bad we are not closer. Thank heavens for the internet!

I finished uploading a few pieces we have worked on so we can access them tomorrow with Wi-Fi. And I need some hints on a few Photoshop tricks so I can begin to organize some of my gallery work.

The piece that starts this entry is something I am trying out. I bought a clip-art book from Dover of art deco images, since Dover is public domain and no worry about copyright. I wanted to have some designs that I could work with putting marbled fabrics into, without having to do the design completely myself. Once I figured out how to paste a pattern into the design, I went to town with ideas. This is really stretching my skills to another level, which is one of the things I want to work on.

The original of this image is left – pretty bland compared to the new changes in the top design. One of the things that I really like about this new image is that it works both from a distance and up close. From a distance you see these wonderful swirling suns, and upon closer inspection you can see the various marbled patterns. Very intriguing close up, and somewhat soothing from a distance.

Over the years we have been able to create a couple of quilted pieces that do the same thing. It’s what we strive for to make the pieces really interesting. It took as quite a while to be ale to actually sell our piece we called The Wave (you can see it at our website The Art of Fabric), but when we were offered enough money, we realized we were ready to sell it! This was one of our first framed pieces, and from a distance it looked like a crashing wave. From up close you were engulfed in the breaking wave along the shore. It remains a great piece.

Ann wrote “Can you describe how you made the part of the image that rests on top of the marbled fabric – are they all layers in Photoshop?”

First, it’s really cool to get comments!

Second, I’m trying to remember all the steps. If any of you are interested in working in detail with Photoshop, look seriously into becoming a member of NAPP – National Association of Photoshop Professionals. There are loads of tutorials on just about anything you can think of, and they are very easy to understand.

This particular piece used marbled fabric for the background from a photo we took. Then I looked for an image in the Photoshop custom shapes. This one appealed – it just seemed like it would work with this particular piece of fabric. The custom shape was on a separate layer. One of the first things you learn in Photoshop is to make sure you do things on different layers, and then you can delete the layers, turn them off, and add more filters and “stuff” to different layers.

I adjusted the photo of the fabric to increase colors, and then I added a gradient layer (I LOVE gradients!). Then the custom image, and I started embossing, adding shadows, and just generally playing around until I had something that really appealed.

One of the things I have discovered is that the lines of the marbling pattern do some very interesting things as they are manipulated. Here’s a piece our foster son called “Ribbon Candy on Crack” – lots of playing around with color and pattern.