Photoshop, Photos and Inkwash

During a trip to the book store back in May I came across a British Photoshop magazine. I picked it up because of the main article, (recreating Art Noveux effects) but it was another article that ended up catching my attention. This article was a "how to article" on creating a ink and wash effect. Ink and wash is usually a piece with strong ink lines and a watercolor like "wash" using ink instead of watercolors.

The process in photoshop uses the "photocopy" filter on a scanned photograph to create the strong lines (the black and white of the piece) then add the wash effect using brushes with the opacity turned down. I realise that this may not make sense to non-photoshop users and I'm planning on posting a walk through of the process at a later date.

The first piece I did was my Christmas card this year. We bought some unbreakable ornaments and I liked the effect of all the shinies in a box together. The photo was kind of blah though so I tried this process on it.

The next piece is a photo I took while out on the coast one day. Depot Bay is a tourist area and I was interested in the way the shapes of the buildings interacted with the natural settings. I added an element to this piece by using different photoshop brushes to create the illusion of texture. It is hard to see on these small versions but I'm unable at the moment to link to the full size ones.



Having now worked with a man made shapes I thought I'd give landscape a try. I wasn't as successful with this photo. It looks too much like the original and having the large space with nothing in it was difficult to work with. Again I tried to add texture as well as color to piece.






My most recent attempt used a very blurry photo of an antique photograph. The original is of my great grandfather taken while he was in the merchant marines. I believe it was taken in Japan but I'm not sure. This was a real challenge because the original photo was in sepia tones and my photo of it is out of focus. (and on a tilt)

Part of what I was trying to do was add color to photo on which I had no color or historical color information. The blurriness of the photo made it hard to pick details in the background as well. Over all I'm happy with it though there are a few things I want to work on, such as toning down the colors a bit more.



So far the experiments I've been doing has been successful enough that I will keep it up.

Discworld Swap- Long with lots of pictures

Recently I took part in a swap on Ravelry. The Ankh-Morpork Knitter's Guild ( a group for fans of Terry Pratchett's books) ran a swap with the theme "I'm just sending this box so my partner can have cardboard for their boots and I was guilted into putting stuff in it". (Trust me it makes sense if you've read his books). In a swap you are partnered with another person and you each send a box of stuff to each other.

Because I have experience with shipping over seas, I was partnered with Cat (Cattitude on Ravelry) who is from the Netherlands. The pictures below show the stuff I sent her.


Now to the fun part; What she sent me :-)

These great fingerless gloves have the symbols of Discworld's DEATH a common character in the books.

Cat also knitted these comfy socks to which she added 2 pins. One of Rincwind and one of a feagle.


Next she included a print of the Knitters guild coat of arms, a cute sheep and a wooden shoe. Also in the paper category are some cards with Discworld art and stamps from Going Postal.


Cat added several types of tea and candy from the Netherlands. The licorice is the good stuff not the weaker American version.


I'm going to have to come up with something cool to knit with the yarn she sent. The yarn is from Uberwald (Germany) and Genua (Italy)



Now for the Last and most awesome thing Cat sent. A knitted Granny Doll!!! I now have Granny sitting over my desk watching me work and design.



You can't really see it in these pictures but she a small yarn and knitting needle charm hanging from her belt as well.

All in all this was a wonderful experience and I love what Cat sent me. She was quite generous and thoughtful with her box and I can't thank her enough.

I'm defiantly doing this again.

Second Sock LAL

January 2008: Plushy Slipper Socks

These are the house socks I knitted as part of the Loom-a-long on Ravelry.com. I didn't have the recommended yarn so I used some acyrlic yarn I had in my stash. These were knitted using the blue (24peg) Knifty Knitter loom.

Since the Knifty Knitter looms are the easiest to get most the Loom-a-long (LAL for short*) projects use them for the patterns. This means they all have large gauges and you have to use bulky yarn. I find for some projects this means the items come out too big or loose. I love the KK looms for simple hats, blankets and scarves but no so much for detailed projects. So the socks? Way too big.

*For those who don't know the LAL group is dedicated to teaching looming techniques.

First Pair of Socks.

So I am finally getting around to blogging my projects. Today's post is about the "first pair of socks". I knitted these on a 40 peg fine gauge loom from DA looms. The top one was knitted "cuff down" while the bottom one was knitted "toe up"; both used the twisted (e-wrap) knit stitch.

These where an experiment to see which method I preferred to use. Cuff down won, so in future I will looking for cuff down patterns. I find it much easier to bind off the toe then the cuff.

I believe I will need another sock loom as well. While the loom is the correct size for a person with 7 1/2 feet, my feet are wider then standard. This causes the pattern to stretch unattractively. Also longer cuffs for "short" socks will be needed.

As part of the learning process I discovered that one should always have 2 skiens of yarn for the main body of the project. That's why the socks are reverse color, I didn't have enough yarn to make them the same. Of course I like the effect so I will make mismatching matching socks again sometime.

Finally

Well after much mucking around I got the blog looking the way I want. Now I need to start writing about (and showing) what I have been doing. I have several pictures done and a few knitting projects. Just need to figure out where I want to store the photos and I'll upload them.
I'm debating whether to use space on the biz site, Flicker or Deviant Art. All of them have some pros and cons.