Yet More on Displacement

Well - you all seem to be keen on carrying on with the Displacements. Lovely lot of messages, it’s so encouraging. I have made a resolution to leave more messages on the blogs I visit - don’t always have time.

Marian - I’ll let you know how Clive gets on. He is doing some great abstract landscapes with charcoal at the moment but he won’t let me put a pic up yet.

Had a look at your blog, Susan - loved your animal markings. Pippa - I don’t want to be cited in your divorce papers, so cook him a meal now and then.

Arlee - get loading and Artisue thanks for the good wishes. The gesso piece was just cast paper stuck on cartridge paper, painted with black acrylics and gessod when dry. Then spray painted. Must get back to that - I spent most of yesterday on the phone doing admin and stuff. I also have a great excitement in the wings but I’m keeping quiet until it is finalised, Ooh, I wish I could tell you!

Hi Tom. So sorry about the new nickname. You used to do loads of computer design - do you still do it?

So good to hear from Annabel - love the stuff on your web site and the bit of ‘headology’ relating to it. Clive used to write poetry while I drew and that was quite companionable. He hasn’t done that for ages - I won’t ask why because he’s probably too busy with all the web stuff. My fault.

Sonja - I had forgotten about Arithmetic in PSP7. It is more like Layers than maps as it merges two images using a form of blend mode. Great with a gradient all over a page, as we were doing yesterday.

Jackie - keep on with the fun.

On with today’s Displacement Activity which involves displacing part of the screen only.
Fill a new page with a gradient. I used this one.

Displace with a suitable image. Here’s my Sissinghurst poppy.

This is the result. Save as you go along, by the way.

Open an image containing words to use as a map. The indispensible Clive also does calligraphy and this is a sentence or two of his which I cloned into a ‘manuscript’.

Draw a rectangular selection box around an area of the poppy design. Then go to the displacement map and choose the words image. The changes will only appear in the area contained by the select rectangle.

Use the clone tool and a soft, fuzzy brush to smudge the hard edges around the

text.

Now for more fun.
Go to the layers menu and duplicate twice so you have three layers with the same image. In the layers palette (go to View, Palettes, Layers if you can’t see it) click on the top layer and go to Effects, edges, find all. It will look strange.

Still on the top layer in the Layers menu, reduce the opacity to about 50.
Finally go to Effects, Texture, Sculpture and choose this option.

Now spend a few hours changing the Blend Modes - big fun. The one below shows Difference on the top layer.