Friday 21 December 2007

A Christmas Rose

Carole - emulsion paint is water-based so I'm not sure about the latex. It is the very basic stuff, a superior form of whitewash, that we paint on plain walls. It does only seem to work on white, or very light shades. That's when you get the lovely grey tones. I'll investigate the garage later to see the ingredients.

Penny's piece was a Gaudi image, Sharon - one that I took in Barcelona. Not manipulated but his architecture looks as though it has been, I agree.

I envy you Kangaroo island, Penny. It is still on my to-do list for next year. Have a great time. We have a family birthday today, too, as Fiona is 21 again. We are having a family party at Frankie and Benny's restaurant. Fiona's daughter, Sophie, has insisted that her big cousin Lauren comes too. Isn't that sweet? Poor Lauren has to go to the dentist first but we shall fit it all in and I'm really looking forward to it.

Kate - I do hope that your back is better soon. Backs are horrid.

I photographed some icy images yesterday. The frost was very heavy and stayed most of the day. Here's a poor little rosebud, all rimed with frost.



Lets play with the Layers option and see what we can do with it. Paint Shop Pro only, I'm afraid, but easy to work it out in Elements, too.

Make sure you can see the Layers Palette. If not go to the View menu, then palettes and layers.
Go to the Layers menu and click Duplicate. Note what happens in the Layers palette.




Repeat this step and you should have a palette that looks like this.




Now click on the middle layer - click the bit that says 'Copy of background'. Go to the Adjust menu and Colour Balance. Click negative as shown, below.





The image won't look any different. Now go to part of the palette that says 'normal'. This is the Blend Mode. Change the top layer to Difference.




You should get a pic like this. Very Christmassy.



.
Try changing the Blend Modes of the top two layers. Endless fun. Here's a sample.






This exercise was based on PSP9 but you should be able to find the commands easily in your version.

I am off to start that article I have been threatening to do all week.

6 comments:

artisbliss said...

Oh, marvelous work with the rose Maggie. You are an incredible inspiration. I'd almost be willing to forego some of the Christmas festivities in order to have more studio time to play around with fibers right now!

artisbliss said...

I'd always wanted to know what emulsion paint was, too. Maybe it's closer to the kind we use for faux finishes over here. I know it is water based.

Carole said...

Maggie: I echo Artisbliss' comments..wht a beautiful rose and you are so good at capturing the moment. I need to open my eyes a little more to what nature has to offer. Lovely work.

I hope to save you a trip to the garage..Latex is water based paint and we use it for interior painting of walls, ceiling etc. When you mentioned that you use emulsion paint to paint on "plain walls" I wondered if it was the paint we would use when painting a brand new wall (put on before we actually paint with our final colour.) It is called a "primer" and is always white. I'm thinking that may be it..surprising our terminology is so different isn't it.

Happy Birthday to Fiona.

Thank you again for such a wonderful inspiring blog. It is fun to get to know you and your family and you always send me off in new directions.

Carole

sharon young said...

Hi Maggie
What a great job you did with the rose. I use PS CS, and often wondered about PSP. I think it's a more paint friendly app if I'm not mistaken, but the adjustment menu looks very similar. Do you use it exclusively? or do you use PS elements as well?

hippopip said...

Thankyou Maggie this is the first time I have managed to use layers successfuly, it was great to be able to do it using your easy to follow instructions, many thanks.

Anonymous said...

If you like Hellebores especially the Christmas Rose - You have to see the Heronswood Nursery collection.