Mastering the Art (NOT!!)

Nothing ventured nothing learnt.. but at what cost? To a complete novice Photoshop has its charms well hidden! Fortunately I have insider help and after some private tuition I'm starting to make headway. Today in college it was a day of playing with Photoshop - some good tips from my tutor, not just techniques but short cuts that make sense. That said she still went too fast most of the time - what little I managed to write down is re doable the rest .. ah well I'm back tomorrow and I'll just have to ask again! Its all about practise practise practise - its a new toy and good fun and probably very useful in the long run but I still feel that it can't really take the place of constructive textile give me a good weaving my time of the day... I know its not - but I cant help thinking its cheating and now when I look at lovely fabric I wonder how much is photoshoped.....

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this - its more about experimenting with what can be achieved which appears at this point to be overwhelmingly endless - and getting used to the different tools and how to apply them best. I would hope that practice will make the difference between basic obvious photoshopping and a more professional finish. Today I've just been messing about with my line drawings, positioning them - playing with colour fill - and hues - resizing - repeat designs and generally cutting and pasting bits and pieces.

I've looked at lots of different designers for inspiration and the traditional designs of Trusthouse Studios have provided the colour palette for the above - while Natalie Ratcliffes wonderful drawn and washed out designs suggested the colours and design below.

using one of the patterns I have already positioned I have experimented with different colour fills and shading, This pattern is inspired by Abigail Borg's simple two colour patterns and next I'm going to try to mimic some of her more ornate patterns

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Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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