fiona cook

Day 2 I needed to look up how to make parts of the template into masks but did so in the end for the photos. That same thing-'practice makes perfect!' I didn't need to do a trail of where we had been as my journey was from England to Oludeniz, Turkey however I must admit I likewise found the instruction to layer the routes difficult to understand should I have wanted to do trails here and there. This is when a video of how it's done comes in handy. I think it's just me though, not grasping the idea, not your instructions, Carole!

Day 1. I'm a little late starting mine but am focusing on a holiday to southern Turkey this year. Should have used the same map for my background and to make my Turkey overlay as they are slightly different in perspective. The examples shown so far from you all look inspiring. I have used a gradient fill for my main shape and added the shadow.

For the last 3 weeks I have been glued to The Tour de France (except for when I attended the workshop!) so now the Men's race is over I thought I would make an image for it practicing some of the vector workshop skills. I used one of Cassel's Picture Tubes trying to represent the polka dot jersey but I was fascinated by the accidental effect I created so left it at that; The background colours show through the transparent bubbles. Coolio! I think my French here is correct.

I have had another look at my gold' Cook' and have been inspired by others using cutouts so I have made another version. I made an outline of the text with no fill as the basis. Duped the layer & filled to make a cut out using Selections From Vector Object. Then created the Picture Tube, bevel outline & shadow effects.

Thank you Carole for a very creative workshop with all your valuable help (and for everyone's inspirational and varied ideas and comments). The Picture Tube reminded me of embossing so I tried to make my surname look like it was made of gold metal. I presume that the VectorTube script knows to run with the settings for the last selected Picture Tube. Is that correct?

Royanne, for this one did you make the cut out images for the text first, before you created the paths?

Thank you Michele. It is effective and you are good to experiment.

This is getting lovely and creative now. I took the image of the heart from Digital Scrapbook and drew a path around it. Then ran the Cupid Arrows Picture Tube with the VectorTube Script. Would there have been an easier way of converting the original heart to a vector in order to convert to a path?

Beautiful cat indeed. The text swaggers too.

Same here Michelle, retaining it all. Copious notes and summarising as well as finding the time to practice. How did you make your steam from the cups?

Thank you Carole for the link to the tips on the PDF. They are very useful so helped me to adjust my text. I've only just got around to it so quite a bit later than your comments. I made an additional adjustment to my image as the white text on the bottom of the circle didn't show up enough. I used the Lighten/Darken brush and right clicked to darken the image under the text.

Clever. The medium is the message. I think I would like to copy your graphic and add it to my notes to remind me.

Lesson 5 Text around Circle. There is something odd with the balance of the centred top and bottom texts as the top one is too high on the left and the bottom one starts too low on the left. The first font didn't work too well so I changed it. When you convert the circle to a path at the start is it the Elipse tool you are in or the Text tool? I tried the Text tool and it didn't work so then had to go back to the elipse tool on the circle layer. Definitely getting trickier but the effects are worth it.

Lesson 5 Text on a path. First attempt the font distorted too much as I had too wobbly a path. Carole did warn us to start with about that but I found I could go back to the path with the pen tool & Edit/Merge to get remove some of the nodes that were distorting the text.

As these techniques are quite tricky, I have found it easier to do my first examples at the same time as watching Carole's video so I use the same image as in the video. (My version had finger grips for the handle only by accident!). I haven't had the time to do other ones yet but have taken notes and tried to summarise the main stages. I have a question on the CRAC and Paste stage. Should the Pen Tool be still in the drawing mode or Edit mode?

I have managed to export my design OK to the Pre-shape but the shape is a little rough!

Good questions Susan and I think Carole's answers are clear so thank you both. I have used undo quite a lot in this process.

This is marvellous. The script really fits the subject matter. I love all those colours too. Striking.

Image3 - This one worked and I was able to draw the preshape and change its colour. Image2 - After drawing the objects how best is it to move to reposition them? I used the pic tool. With my star shape I wanted to remove 2 of the points that extended past the green rectangle. I made selections of the areas to delete but it deleted the whole star layer! StarImage - The image saved as a preset and looked the same as my original (centre of picture) in the Pre-sets list but when I drew the presets the rounded nodes of the central star did not appear rounded. If I changed the colours in my materials palette and drew the preset I got the effects that you see here. And something I discovered when drawing the preset, don't have the original vector layer active or it draws into that layer. Select the raster layer first then draw and a new vector layer is created.

I quite like the 'weirdy pointy point'. It has an elegance. Bet I can't replicate it.

I know what you mean Suzy and Julie. I hid my chewed up hearts and wonky arrows. It helped to do a little summary of the stages. One of which, like said before, to select the Pen Tool !

Hi, I find manipulating the nodes awkward too so as some of us are saying, practice is the way forward. My first attempts produced more of a biological shape than the love icon but then I found having the guidelines active made it easier for positioning. Still not fully clear on the difference between the nodes so will have to go over the tute again.

Ann, I saw Snow Leopards a few years back in a wildlife park in Hertfordshire, UK. It has charity status for endangered species I think. You can get quite close to them. I took this photo.

Striking image and beautifully balanced picture. You are very clever.

So funny. Thank you for explaining how you made this. I love the little spider perched on the top as well.