Just a quick rose.....

Touching up my skills....

I have been touching up my skills in preparation for a class I'm giving so thought I might try some vintage photographs:

Photoshop Collage

Took some of my pictures from the Royal Holloway visit and made a collage:

Having Fun...

Took one of the backgrounds I created in Sketchpad and added a layer from my Royal Holloway visit and some adjustment layers in Photoshop Elements:

Creative Internet Sites: 4

So this next site is not a painting tool BUT it is a valuable tool for an artist.  The Color Scheme Designer is a great tool if you are looking for colour combinations.

At the top left you have the different kinds of colour harmonies that you can choose from - I have chosen Complementary on the example above.  At the bottom you can select different hues and values/saturation (Adjust Scheme).  You can then see the list of colours that it produces (Color List).  You can enter your own value by changing the RGB value just above the Color List. 

So I took the caramel colour that I used with the flowers in my previous blog and was interested to see that I had pretty much used it's complementary colour without actually realising (the blue):

Most of the people who use this site, do so to pick colour schemes for web sites and if you select Light Page Example or Dark Page Example which is an option at the bottom right, you can see what your web site might look like.  However, I think it's a great tool if you are doing collages to get good colour combinations.

Creative Internet Sites: 3

Sketchpad is a great little online drawing tool which gives you a lot of stuff that you can't find in other tools like this.

It does take a little time to work out and I couldn't find any help but if you persevere you can learn a lot by just experimenting.

Here are some examples to get you a bit interested:

Let me go through the parts which I think are an added bonus and to get you started.

Here is the interface:

The menu on the top right hand side contains the equivalent of Photoshops panels.  So if you click the History option it will show you the History panel.  The Swatch panel enables you to switch between solid colour, gradients and patterns (great fun!).

So let's start by changing the background.  Make sure the colour panel is open and select a colour.  If you want white, drag the first 2 options and the last option to the right and all the rest to the left as shown above.  Now select the bucket tool which is the tool that looks like a bucket!  Click anywhere on the painting area and it will turn the page to white.

Now let's have some fun.  Follow the steps below to create a patterned butterfly:

1. Open the Pattern panel so you can see what pattern is selected.
2. Go to the Swatch panel, click on patterns and then select a pattern.  There is also different pattern 'sheets'.  I have selected the Dinpattern sheet:
   
3. Now go to the Tools panel and select the Stamp Tool which is the 4th tool down on the right.
4. Select the butterfly sheet from the options panel and select a butterfly.
5. Now click on the page and it will create a butterfly in the pattern you have selected.  Each time you click a new butterfly is added.  If you just want one size butterfly go to the diameter option on the option panel and drag the min and max together at the size you want.
6. To save your picture, click the icon on the top right that looks like a disc.  It will bring up a new tab or window.  Right click the picture and select Save Image As..  Then save it to a location on your computer.

Happy Playing!