Susan Ewart

19 minutes ago, Sue Thomas said:

Corrie, another  lovely  fungi page.  I'm delighted to have  given you the idea for the framing. I've been doing that kind of framing for years, along with adding fonts and brushes to the frames, and lifting the corners of photos over the frame.  It adds a really nice touch to any  page.  If my memory serves me well  Susan Ewart, Carole did a master class several months back, I think it's called dynamic frames, where Carole demonstrates how to create  the over and under frames, and other cool frames.

Thank you Sue, Carole did mention that.  So hard to remember all the masterclasses and what was in each one.  I'm glad the rest of you have a much better memory than I do.

2 hours ago, Julie Magerka said:

Day 5: I spent the most time trying to get the text on a curve! That always gives me trouble, but I finally realized what I was doing wrong. Used a background paper with an overlay blended with soft light. The pic is mine from a cold, snowy day. It's costing me a small fortune to keep all the critters fed in the cold weather. But I can't say no.

You have great neighbours too.  This one looks like he's/she's wrapped up in a mink coat.  Really plush looking.  I know what you mean about a small fortune feeding them.  They give me great pleasure (along with the birds).  Cheaper than therapy too.

8 minutes ago, sharon thompson said:

I now have a profound respect for people who make those ornate masks as it certainly isn't easy. I couldn't quite get what I was going for in this lesson but attempt 5 was better than its predecessors. The bottom text is not fully centered as I prefer to offset text a bit if I am using elements in only one corner. I probably should have stayed with a watercolor brush for the dog and just kept the snowflake brushes for the corner as the dog was on a dark background. Anyway, I compensated a bit by adding a white drop shadow to the masked image. The paper is from Rawpixel, and the font is Cotton Candies. The "Magical Snowflakes" brush set is by Papercaptain on Deviant Art and is still available for a free download of anyone wants them.  

 

AWESOME Sharon, just awesome!

Day 3 Diamond Extra.  I call this new baby of 2022 Spider Squirrely, the second.  Because after some trial-be-panic learning it became adept at scampering along the rock/glass chip siding of the garage. Remember that stuff from the 60-70's, hurt like crazy if you scraped yourself on it?  Turns out, it's great for Squirrels and birds to cling to.  I came up from the basement and looked out the window to see the neighbours cat chasing it, and up the wall it went.  You could see it was rocky.  I was banging on the window and hubby was out the door to yell at the cat.  It's only the second squirrel we've seen do that.  If I had been able to take a front shot it would have been Super Squirrel as he is in the super hero pose.  As it might turn out, he could be a she.  The one in our feeder right now looks pudgy, so might have some babies (in our closed-in shed off the garage - there's been several families in there over the years). 

I think I tried every wrong way to isolate the brackets of the mask and finally remembered about Preset Vector shapes (yay for all the master classes, Q&A's and tutorials - I remember about the preset shapes!).  Once I did that I could add a bevel to that shape that I intended to do right from seeing the mask.  This layout is similar to other Day layout, they are a set, since it's the same squirrel on the same day.  I did the same type of thing for the Kaleidoscope background.  Black layer below it, then lower the kaleidoscope layers opacity.  this was also set to a small size and I think I did 30% angle.

7 hours ago, Anja Pelzer said:

here is now day 4 

with my Sister and my Daughter in 1988 visiting our zoo in Aachen

paper made with the same brushes I used for the mask

strips made from the paper

I agree with Ann, this is the kind of brush work I will strive to do.  I love that there is layers of color in the different strokes.  It's beautiful Anja.

40 minutes ago, Julie Magerka said:

Just got a chance to work on Day 4 project. Photo is a wee foster dog I had for the last two years of her life. She lived, barked, and loved with the pack here. Masking the photo is a good way to use a pic with a cluttered background to soften it.

 

Oh, Julie, this is so sweet.  Giving her the best life at the end of hers, what a gift.

33 minutes ago, Mary Solaas said:

This is certainly a busy workshop.  So good!!!!

I'm finally finished with Project 3 (yes, I know I'm slow).  I played and played and played with the Reflection effects for this one.  I do like Kalaidescope and this time I made several patterns and chose this one for my background.  I also played with the reflective pattern.  The frame I made (I can't believe it is so simple to make a frame)! Oh, the font is Barna from CF.

I know, right...about the frame.  For so long I wanted to know how people did that.  It wasnt until I did the Greeting Card workshop that I learned how.  Now to figure out how Sue does the intertwined frames!  Your background is really nice with that photo, which is beautiful by the way.  I would love to walk there.

Day 3.  I call this "Most Muscular".  As this wee babe looks like he's doing the "most muscular" pose at a bodybuilding contest.  Or could it be that he's just showing the Magpies and Blue Jay he's not afraid of them.  I had to go outside several times in the day as the larger birds were picking on this fearless baby.  He scampered around the ground and all over the lawn furniture and since he couldnt get into the bird baths (it was hot) he lapped up the water off the pavement.  

I think I played around for almost an hour with kaleidoscope random pattern.  This one is at size 25 or 30.  I tried a number of sizes and it looks like it's at a 45 degree angle but it's at zero.  Again I put a black layer under the background layer and lowered the opacity to get a darker result.  I find I can control density better than using Brightness/contrast and I can go back and change it later if I want to.  The frames were added on separate layers with an inner bevel. 

5 minutes ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

Another mushroom for day 4. I placed my photo to the left because the mushrooms came out of a tree at its base. When taking that shot I had to be carefull because that tree was on the very edge of a busy road, so I had almost no option but take it this way. It is a funny sight to see these mushrooms coming out of a hole in a still living tree. In the end they will destroy the tree. The background is mad with 3 layers, one a light green blended with a layer with some texture and on top of that an overlay with light leakes set to blendmode soft light. There were a lot of dry leaves around that tree so I put a borders with leaves made with a brush to the rightside, just as an embellishment. Font is Balerina with a bevel.

Corrie, your background is so nice.  all those techniques really add up to an interesting and unique background.

1 minute ago, Susan Ewart said:

Masks Workshop Day 2 Diamond Extra. This is baby Squirrely White Tail. Her's (or His) dad used to frequent our feeder. Sadly he had a run in with a transformer and did not make it. I'm glad to see he has passed down his white markings.  I know, I know, never point the subject out of the frame....but, in my defence, there are TWO ends to this little creature and one of them is surely pointed inward right at you. ? It's all about the base, 'bout the base, no treble (with apologies to the singer of that song).

Fonts used: A: Quentara. Tale: Amnestia Normal. Of A: Allicia. Tail: Audiciti. All from Creative Fabrica. Photos: min. I used the plaid at 45 degrees and as large as you can make it (250 I think), with a black layer below and a reduced opacity on the plaid layer.

I changed the sizes of the small masks (before they were masks).  I remembered learning that if it's in a group I can resize all the group at once so before I made a mask I made a group of the black square and the frame, resized it, ungrouped it and made the mask of the black square.  I also bring my photo into the layout and lower the opacity a lot to see the size against the raster layer (before it's a mask) to get the sizing.  Once i'm happy with the size of the photo and soon-to-be mask I can then go ahead and make the mask and drag the photo in.  It might be a long way but I found before I'd bring in the image and I always wished it was either a bit bigger or small or wider or taller. This takes all that away and I can make the best decision before I make the mask.  

Love all the layouts, you are all so creative.  I'm learning a lot from you. 

Ugh! I already see that I need to fix the shadow on TAIL.  And when I fixed the kerning on TALE I didnt get it lined up with TAIL.  I feel like I'm chasing my tail!

Masks Workshop Day 2 Diamond Extra. This is baby Squirrely White Tail. Her's (or His) dad used to frequent our feeder. Sadly he had a run in with a transformer and did not make it. I'm glad to see he has passed down his white markings.  I know, I know, never point the subject out of the frame....but, in my defence, there are TWO ends to this little creature and one of them is surely pointed inward right at you. ? It's all about the base, 'bout the base, no treble (with apologies to the singer of that song).

Fonts used: A: Quentara. Tale: Amnestia Normal. Of A: Allicia. Tail: Audiciti. All from Creative Fabrica. Photos: min. I used the plaid at 45 degrees and as large as you can make it (250 I think), with a black layer below and a reduced opacity on the plaid layer.

I changed the sizes of the small masks (before they were masks).  I remembered learning that if it's in a group I can resize all the group at once so before I made a mask I made a group of the black square and the frame, resized it, ungrouped it and made the mask of the black square.  I also bring my photo into the layout and lower the opacity a lot to see the size against the raster layer (before it's a mask) to get the sizing.  Once i'm happy with the size of the photo and soon-to-be mask I can then go ahead and make the mask and drag the photo in.  It might be a long way but I found before I'd bring in the image and I always wished it was either a bit bigger or small or wider or taller. This takes all that away and I can make the best decision before I make the mask.  

Love all the layouts, you are all so creative.  I'm learning a lot from you. 

11 minutes ago, Anja Pelzer said:

@Ann Seeber I work on 3600x3600 pspimage in my projects and I often save,

when ready I save export as  Jpg. close and open this again, then resize to 600x600 and sharpen the image, export as jpg again

some detail goes away without sharpen after resizing.

hop this helps

I'm going to try this.  

41 minutes ago, Ann Seeber said:

Tried the experiment with flattening the pspimage file but the jpg conversion created the texture again. Oh well, it's probably that particular gradient. 

Is it possible you are getting the texture "because" it's a jpg.  Which is a lossy file as opposed to a png which is lossless file ( bigger and retains more pixel information).  Make two file at the largest size, 1 - jpg and 1- png and compare them, there is a difference, look especially at the shadows, you'll see more detail in the png than in the jpg.

Mary, WOW!  love your layout and your Kaleidescope images are so cool.

Love this one Anne.  So sweet.

Day 2 Winter theme.  Monochromatic with a little button (Janet Scott, Brown Button 2, Digital Scrapbook) to warm it up a bit. I'd forgotten how fun making plaids can be.  I changed big mask for quite some time to fit what I wanted. And I had to (on the mask layer) take a brush and blot out (using black) some of the mask that extended beyond the photo edges.  I duplicated the image of the bottom square and put it in the upper mask to fit the top of the tree in.  Font is Adinda Sayang (Creative Fabrica).  Slowly, I'm getting through.  Time seems to be elusive right now, and there is no reason for it (except maybe my bad management of it).  

57 minutes ago, Sue Thomas said:

Thank you so much Susan. I will be doing another page tomorrow on Heligan. 

What an interesting story.  I loved the part about "veteran plant specimens uncovered".  Does that mean they were still living?  Unreal.  I have always loved historical places that have been preserved, along with train/transportation museums.  When my friend went to Scotland last year and send back photo's at various castles it humbled me to think 300+ yrs ago people were right there in the same spot she was standing.  What were they doing, how busy was it, who lived there, who worked there.  So interesting, all of it.  

1 minute ago, Sue Thomas said:

I knew what I was going to do for today's page last night.  I had already chosen the photos. I started last night by trying to replicate the label on the poster,  Using  a font bracket, and got as close  as I could to replicating the font used.   Used a slightly different font, and  font dingbats for the Love label.   We were frequent visitors to  Heligan,  which is in Cornwall. The estate owned by the same family for 400 yrs.  In the 1970's the house was converted to flats, The gardens were neglected,  then  in 1990 this sleeping beauty was discovered and re-awakened.  Becoming Europe's largest garden restoration.  A truly magical place for  the young and old.  

Oustanding Sue!  The label with the curl and the shadows are really awesome.  What a neat place to go.  

15 minutes ago, Tonimarie said:

Here's my 6 year old Amiya. She loves her photo taken ?

I think I'm doing something wrong ? lol

Everything looks kind of see-through ishhhh 

Going to do the next project and maybe re try this one again 

BUT! How cool to learn the plaid trick!

Amazing Cant wait to see what new backgrounds I can do with that! Thank you ?

 

Tonimarie, did you change those layers to black first.  If you made it a mask while still grey you will get that haze.  Cassel will probably explain it better to you.  

Day 1 - Diamond Extra.  This one is for Ann Seeber.  You wanted a photo of me...here is me and my whole family (sibs and parents).  ? My parents (Bob and Audrey - represented here by Western Salsify), are lovingly embraced while looking down towards us 4 kids.  What? you say, how can that be, surely we kids, with those stunning hair-do's cant be from Western Salsify.  You are quite right; we siblings are represented by Clematis Terniflora, which is another way to say, we are all Adopted!  In the bigger of the small masks is my oldest brother and my older sister and in the lower smaller mask is my other older brother and lastly me (with the crazy hair).  Incidently my older sister and the oldest brother are actually full blood brother and sister, but 2 years apart.  Ann, I will try and get a picture up soon, even if it's not a great one, I'm on a mission for you.

The important stuff:  Font is NS Blackbooks Victorian (Creative Fabrica, I think), and back ground is Brook Gazarek - Crisp Fall Air (Digital Scrapbook) that I darkened and desaturated.  Photo's are mine, photographed separately and composited using a blend mode (lighten).   

1 hour ago, Cassel said:

That is a good observation and you got me to recheck things. However, the Deselect will do the trick. If using the Defloat, the selection would stay and it would require the extra step of deselecting. 

I had wondered about that.  I was going to ask it in the Q&A.  Is it still a better practice to Defloat, then Deselect.  

57 minutes ago, Tonimarie said:

Day 1

I made a Valentine's Day card for my husband. It took me a few times to get the hang of this. I kept messing up. I'm going to try again later to see if I get it down. This was amazing to learn!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

It took me a long time too.  I had to write the instructions down and follow them every time...still do.  But I noticed this time it's feeling more familiar.  Sue Thomas is right, only LOTS of practice will make this something I can do without refering to instructions.  Keep going.

Late getting started.  Hopefully more from Day 1 tomorrow.  I enlarged the mask quite a bit because I wanted the little star and bell from the fence to show.  Fonts are Moma Love and Mama from Creative Fabrica.  I textured the background but likely doesnt show here, it's a frosty sort of look.  Photo's are mind from a quick drive around the neighbourhood Dec 23, 2022.

I am really loving everyones mask layouts. I'm finding myself thinking, that's awesome, why didnt I think of that.  

Where did all the extras come from?   Oops, I'm a dumby, I just found it, helps to scrool ALL the way to the bottom.  yeesh.

1 hour ago, Cassel said:

Maybe I'll change my plans and do a Shadow box tutorial for the March lab module. Or maybe a Master class instead? Hum...

I would love that.  And everyone can watch the master class which will reach a wider audience for this technique.  Your samples were outstanding.  I wouldnt have gotten there on my own, especially the shadow part.  

40 minutes ago, Rene Marker said:

Based on the question about 3D extreme shadows for the Q&A, I have played with doing this. I saw it done at The Lily Pad in 2021. They included basic instructions for PS and PSE on how to do this but since the way PSP does shadows is different, I struggled with the shadow portion of it. Last night I played around and found a method that worked and looked a lot like the examples they had. 

Carole showed a different way of doing it in the Q&A. I had done an actual layout earlier today using my method. After the Q&A, I recreated the basic layout using Carole's method. The main difference is that I used a cut out file for my shape instead of a vector object.

I used papers and elements from a kit called "50 States Ohio" sold at Sweet Shoppe Designs. The cut out shape of Ohio came from Scrapping With Liz's Ohio Cutouts sold at The Lily Pad.

 

This is very cool Rene.  The Q&A was fabulous.  It's cool to know there is different routes to the same destination.