Day 222 of 365 Day Challenge

Went for a walk along my road today specifically to take pictures. I love taking macro photos. I just marvel at what insects actually look like up close and I was hoping to strike it lucky today and I did. There was a long line of ants along one of the walls. The secret was getting a photo of them as they scurried along. They are biting ants so I was a little apprehensive of them crawling onto the phone but fortunately they didn't. I got a lot of photos where only part of the ant was clear and usually not the head but this one was ok. I put a faint outline around them in SketchClub to sharpen them a little bit more.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed, iColorama, SketchClub

Day 221 of 365 Day Challenge

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed, Retouch, Repix, SketchClub, iColorama

Day 220 of 365 Day Challenge

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed, iColorama

Day 219 of 365 Day Challenge

I've been trying to find texture sheets or cutters for my new pursuit of mixed media and decided that my best bet was the cake icing industry. Well online I found a cake shop in Yau Ma Tei called I Love Cakes so off I went on yet another art supply mission. The cake shop was rather disappointing but the shops around it weren't! The shop next door was excellent and the one up the road even better. All the shops on both sides of this section of the road were cooking utensil shops and I spent a fortune and could easily have spent more. They don't have the high tech stuff you can get in this industry like extremely fine and delicate lace moulds but they had a massive selection of cutters and some plainer but great silicone moulds. Also, they are much cheaper than you would pay at serious cake shops in the UK.

The congregation of similar very specialised shops is typical of Hong Kong. Great when you find them but a real mission. Still trying to find acid free tissue paper...

Anyhow, one of the shops where I parted with much well earned cash (no cards accepted of course), had this wonderful cat perched on a counter. Ha, love it!

Apps: Hipstamatic and Snapseed

Day 218 of 365 Day Challenge

Back to making collage papers. They are doing construction on my usual walk through the park to get to the MTR (subway) so I had to take a different route and came across an unusual plant that I just had to photograph. I got some great manipulations from this plant, one of which I have included plus the original plant.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed, iColorama and Repix

Day 217 of 365 Day Challenge

Many of the Mainland Chinese come to Hong Kong to shop and there are often some interestingly dressed people. I knew it would take a long time to extract these two people from the hectic background but it had to be done.

Process: 

Painstakingly cut out in Superimpose and export as a mask (choose a plain white or coloured background when cutting out).

Take original into iColorama and blur using Effects>Blur>2 reducing opacity then apply.

Choose Effects>Blend and bring in cut out. I kept some of the pavement they were standing on so to create a smoother transition of the pavement I choose the brush mask and masked out some of the cut out background.

I then took it into Stackables and grunged it up a bit but didn't want to lose the details.

App: Hipstamatic, Superimpose, iColorama, Stackables 

Original