Eyes - Victorian Tea Cup and a Brain with a Hat - PhotoPaint

A Victorian tea cup and saucer, a brain, a hat and some eyes, all on a William Morris floral background. This is what makes up today's image.

I opened Picasa 3 and browsed my folders for some Dover Publications clip art. I opened PhotoPaint and began the piece. I found the tea cup and the brain and decided that it would make a good pairing. I used the eraser to get rid of the portion of the cup and brain to settle them together.

I continued to browse and found a grouping of women's hats and selected one. I resized it to fit the upper brain and again erased what was not needed and sat the hat upon the brain.

I browsed my North Light Clip Art Series book and found a series of eyes and scanned in only one set. I again resized to fit with some overlapping for a winged look.

I copied the background to the clipboard and opened File New From Clipboard and copied and pasted the image of the cup et al. I did use the Tone Curve on the background to lighten it and boosted the saturation by 9. I used the layer property Multiply to lay the design upon the background with transparency.

I made the image the right size for display here and added my signature and a beveled frame to finish it.

Listening --- Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young --- Sweet Judy Blue Eyes

A Bird in the Hand - CorelDRAW - Painter 11 - PhotoPaint

This image began as a piece of Dover Publications Clip Art from their online sampler. The woodcarving of the birds in the bush image I opened in PhotoPaint and resampled to 120dpi to increase it's size to work on it. I used the Tone Curve to give it more depth.

With Filter Forge's Photo Effects I applied a dreamy effect to it and toned it down slightly.

Saving that file I opened in Painter 11 and used Digital Watercolor brushes for painting the color into the image.

I scanned in a image of hands into PhotoPaint, from North Light Clip Art Series, and erased the parts I did not want so I only had one black and white hand image. I inverted the mask I created with the wand and selected only the hand with a Mask Channel.

I copied that to the clipboard and pasted it into the now painted picture in CorelDRAW. Using the typeface Arial Black and Rounded, I used the phrase, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," and cut and adjusted the text.

I set that upon the hand as a group of text. Then grouped the whole image and copied it to the clipboard again. I opened with File New from Clipboard.

I resampled the large file in PhotoPaint and saved it with my signature.

Listening --- The Beatles --- Free as a Bird

Art Deco - Design for Life Series - Digital Collage - CorelDRAW - PhotoPaint

For an Art Deco Design for Life image I chose two differing designs from E. Benedictus' Designs book. I opened CorelDRAW and acquired the first one cropping it in the Canon scanning software.

I rotated it 180 degrees to place it as I chose. Then I did the second design the same way. Placing them in close proximity. Then using Abadi MT Condensed typeface I added the Design for Life phrase, grouping them I duplicated and placed the duplicate upside down on the opposite side.

Next I grouped all the pieces and converted to bitmap, copied to the clipboard and pasted into PhotoPaint as a large file.

I then added the scanned images of the People at Work from North Light's book of the same name. I used the property Multiply for transparency and Color Replace for compatible colors. I placed the clip art and merged with the background. I placed a light blue twenty pixel wide border around the work.

I saved the large file and resampled for display here.

Listening --- The Beatles --- A Day in the Life

Design for Life - Art Deco - Digital Collage - PhotoPaint - CorelDRAW

Another image in my Design for Life series. I used an Art Deco Design from Edouard Benedictus' book of designs. I scanned the image in and cropped it to the size I wanted. I acquired the image in PhotoPaint and cropped there.

I used the Tune Blur to smooth the Art Deco design, with the Directional Smooth. I browsed my Dover Clip Art folder for the Trees, and all three young people colored images.

With the trees I used Multiply to make the white backgrounds transparent. On the young people I used the wand to mask the white and inverted the mask and copied and pasted the images from the clipboard.

I scanned in the Dad and Daughter on the bike from North Light's clip art series People at Work book. I copied and pasted using the property of Multiply for transparency.

I then merged all the objects to one layer and copied that to the clipboard and opened CorelDRAW and pasted the image. I created a rectangle and filled it with tiled colored symbols. Then placed to back to create a frame around the Art Deco image.

I used the font Curlz MT for the Design for Life text and changed it's color to a bright yellow and placed it in the image.

I grouped all object together and converted to a bitmap and copied it to the clipboard. In PhotoPaint I pasted the large piece as New from clipboard. Using the Tone Curve once more I added some depth to the piece. To finalize it I added my signature, saved the large file and then resampled for the web and saved that file.

Listening --- Everclear --- I Will Buy You A New Life

Goal 700 Posts Hit - Art Deco - Urgent - Design for Life

Art Deco is the basis for today's image. I scanned in a design plate from Stephen Calloway's Art Deco Interior and Panel Designs. I started with a very large image which I cropped in PhotoPaint.

I added the URGENT stamp, the stacked In Box, and the Woman Designer as well as the Hand Drawing with a Quill Pen from North Light's Spot Illustrations clip art book. Each one scanned in and then cropped and altered with the object property Multiply for transparency.

The URGENT stamp was black and white and I used the Color Replace tool to make it red. I also cut out the right side border design and added it to the left side by cut and paste to balance out the panel.

I added the text using the font 321Impact. I at first thought of the adage Design or Die but changed that to a positive note of Design for Life.

I boosted the colors with the Tone Curve and added a Filter Forge film frame.

A recent visit to Border's Bookstore and viewing of Art magazines has inspired me to do some of these colorful digital collages. Stampington's Somerset Digital Studio was full of impressive design collages that I really enjoyed reading about.

Listening --- Peter Frampton --- I'm In You

Creativity - Art Nouveau - Collage - PhotoPaint - CorelDRAW

Today's image began with a scan of an Art Nouveau pattern from R. Beauclair's large format book of patterns. I scanned it in as a large file and opened it in PhotoPaint, where I cropped the pattern I wanted. I used the Tune Blur Directional Blur to soften the image for the background.

I next scanned in the woman's thoughtful gaze piece from North Light's Spot Illustrations clip art book and placed it. I used the object (or layer) property of Multiply for transparency.

To add flavor I selected a Victorian Decorative Initial from a Dover clip art series book and scanned that in for the word Creativity. I added the phrase with another font in PhotoPaint.

I also chose another spot illustration from North Light, the hand and the stop watch to give a feeling of the racing thoughts of the creative process that I have when working on a new piece.

I then took the whole piece into CorelDRAW and added the color filled right hand border, filling the rectangles with sky and color. This added a more up to date feel to the piece. I used the black line to outline the image.

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