Friday, March 27, 2009

A play day....

Plans for today are all pretty much gone by the wayside...it is raining so I can't work in the garden, the windshield wipers on my new car will not turn on so I can't drive anywhere, and the dishwasher leaked water on the kitchen floor this morning so I am now waiting for the repair guy. Good new though - the coffee pot is working just fine.
I played with a new photo editing software this morning. It is called Picnic. It is very fun but be prepared to spend a lot of time playing when you go on it! I took a photo of Brownie and turned it into a pencil sketch. Ya, it is cheating a bit but only if I say I sketched it! I'm just as proud I could figure out the program!This is the original photo of Brownie laying claim to the guest bedroom. First I sharpened the entire photo, then I blurred only the background, then finally, I selected the pencil sketch. Then obviously I did a bit of cropping.

So next step...how could I use this for my quilting? At one point I tried drawing the ink pictures and signatures for my Baltimore album blocks. They didn't come out great. Maybe I could do the pencil technique and ink over it? Or if I printed on a very high quality maybe that would look enough like old ink to call it a day...stay tuned.....

8 comments:

The Calico Cat said...

I heart picnic - but I have never been happy with my "pencil" sketches. Must sketch a cat! (please tell them to cooperate with me & my camera!)

Unknown said...

Fantastic result, no matter how much cheating it required!! I love the pencil sketch result and I adore black and white pictures. How would it be result if you tried with Goldie's pic?

Elaine Adair said...

Clever girl you ... I have a photo editing program, but even to USE it, one still has to have some imagination. This is cool!

Our next "artistic word" at Guild is "Mirror." I could use this type technique by taking a photo of ME in the mirror, and manipulating it with whatever options are on my program! Thanks for the idea/inspiration. 8-))

Loris said...

That is a cool 'sketch' of your cat! Probably should be printed and framed but also could be the steps to a picture quilt.

Tammy said...

Glad the coffee pot was still working, a morning with that broken down would require going back to bed and hiding under the covers for me. I like what you did with the picture, I will have to check that site out. I'll be watching to see what you come up with for quilting in the future with that software.

*karendianne. said...

Oh gosh you know, I just love Brownie. I love what you did with the photo. Very creative of you!

Carissa Holly said...

Hello!
I am a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art and am writing a thesis about quilting and I was wondering if I could interview you. If you are interested you can contact me through my blog (carissa-holly) or by email: carissa_holly@yahoo.com
Thank you!
-Carissa Holly

Magpie Sue said...

We pay to play, don't we? The spice cabinet looks fabulous though, and those strip twist blocks are going to make a fun quilt!