Colour Storyboards

Beyond Layer challenge for day 49 was to make something Kim calls a colour-storyboard. She offered two tutorials to do this.

Following the first tutorial, I sampled colours from a bouquet I photographed in April. On our way home from celebrating Marjo's birthday, we visited this Home, gardening and interior design fair at Helsinki Exhibition and Convention Centre. One event there was a bouquet auction, and this was one of the bouquets on display.

Bouquet

The processing steps were pretty simple:
1 blurred image: Gaussian blur 26,0 px
2 masked out blur from the bouquet
3 ran action Springtime by NightFateActions
4 enlarged canvas and made swatches
5 applied pattern overlay to swatches

My take on the second tutorial already ended up in use: this photo of a rose turned into a thank-you card for my fb friends after my birthday. I loved the whimsical splatter brushes and thought they brought a nice touch to the otherwise calm photo.

Processing steps:
1 enlarged canvas
2 made colour splatters with brushes by Dustin Schmieding
3 added texture Sunkissed by Kim Klassen at color burn 42%
4 typed text in Finnish, font KG Somebody That I Used to Know by Kimberly Geswein
5 typed text in English, font Janda Elegant Handwriting by Kimberly Geswein
6 flattened image
7 ran framing action Shadow by Chain

Of Travelling and Knitting

The challenge for day 48 at Beyond Layers: to have a loved one photograph you doing something you might consider mundane. This one was meant to made us think about our special gifts, that whatever we create and touch is of value and important. Kim took pictures of her friend Myriam making a salad, peeling and dicing and so on.

Another aspect of the challenge, as I see it, was using our hands, and that made it easy for me to choose how to tackle this one with photos I already had: my knitting. I don't know if I see it as mundane, but I definitely am happy for finding it again, and I suppose it could be considered a gift?

Resources:
- template 25 by myself
- paper Happiest Search 05 by myself
- font SF Arch Rival by ShyFonts
- font Learning Curve Pro by Blue Vinyl Fonts
- brush Stitched Mess by Kim Klassen
- Post it sticker by Akizo

This layout actually meets another challenge demand, too: the photo of me grinning goofily and holding the finished sock was taken by my friend Marjo. The sock was a trial for a bigger project, to test out if I, who had not been knitting socks for the past thirty-five years or so, could knit some pairs of this pattern or not. I had the correct yarn for the pattern at home but not in the correct colours (grey, black and white) but who cares - the purpose was only to try out the pattern, and I had three colours anyway, orange, green and grey. So as we took a train to Helsinki to celebrate Marjo's birthday, I started knitting, and before we arrived back home, the sock was finished. The sock is actually rather crappy, but for a first effort after such a long time I'm mightily pleased with it. But no, I'm not going to knit more of them.

Which sort of brings me to the next layout. I got a new sock pattern to try out from my boss, and I really like it. She said it's a traditional Finnish pattern, and anyway, it's simple and pretty. These pictures were taken when I was celebrating the World Wide Knit in Public Day all by myself, knitting in public but without much more company than some cyclists, joggers, jackdaws, wagtails, thrushes and a heard-but-not-seen pheasant. The weather was wonderful and my knit-in-public days pleasant and relaxing.

Resources:
- template 26 by myself
- brush by Mouritsa
- paper Blue Jean 02 by myself
- font Denigan by Måns Grebäck

Polaroidish

Day 47 at Beyond Layers was called Polaroid Love. I was somewhat suspicious of the theme to start with. We've never had a Polaroid camera in our family, so I really cannot say I'd love Polaroid. I do remember somebody we knew had this cool camera with which you could take these instant photos, but they never were that popular with the people we knew. But then I thought about it from another point of view: what I remember very well are the first colour photos from the 70s that started very soon losing their colours and turning red and faded, especially in the plastic pockets where we used to place them. I shudder to think my Granny's large album with all plastic pages, little pockets full of reddened photos, some almost impossible to make out anymore…

Furthermore, there seem to be these actions for that sort of effect - blur, fading colours - floating around, so I thought perhaps I'd now get to try out some of them within these polaroid frames Kim urged us to download. So I did try out various actions, with pleasing results. Then I dediced to turn them into scrapbooking layouts, and also got the opportunity to use some scrapbooking papers from the Au coin de l'objectif website, which I has been my favourite scrapbooking resource for years. It's a treasure trove, though nowadays I tend to make my own papers.

All these photos were taken on 1 May on the now already traditional Mayday orienteering event in town. It's a lot of fun. The local orienteering club places these about 20 check points around the town, the map with the points is published in the local paper, and people go around punching the checkcards also published in the newspaper at the check points. You can find as many points as you wish and in the order you wish, but if you punch your card at at least six points, you can return your checkcard and take part in a draw of some little prize. Some people take it as a sports event, running or jogging the whole route, but for many it's either a nice walk or a family cycling tour. We take a walk with the dogs and of course I take the camera along, since there's always something nice to see. I thought these pictures were well suited to this challenge, because they were sort of timeless, places that certainly had been there in the seventies. And now I'm even happier to have taken and played with the pictures, because two of the photos couldn't be taken anymore - the buildings have been pulled down this summer.

Resources:
- action Vanilla Peach by NightFateActions
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo
- paper from Bruissements d'un premier anniversaire by Au coin de l'objectif
- font Tusch Touch 1 by Måns Grebäck
- font Underwood Champion

Resources:
- action Dusty Haze by Sarah Lynn Cornish
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo
- paper from Bruissements de rentrée des classes by Au coin de l'objectif

- font Tusch Touch 2 by Måns Grebäck

- font Underwood Champion

Resources:
- action Vintage by  NightFateActions
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo

- paper from Bruissements de rentrée des classes by Au coin de l'objectif

- font Tusch Touch 4 by Måns Grebäck

- font Underwood Champion

Resources:
- action Seventies by The Pioneer Woman
- Polaroid frame by Fuzzimo

- paper from Bruissements de rentrée des classes by Au coin de l'objectif

- font Tusch Touch 3 by Måns Grebäck

- font Underwood Champion

Doesn't look too bad. Perhaps I'll do something like this later on, too.

Cups

Wow. Posting day 46 of Beyond Layers already. This time the challenge was to capture some cups during the week. I didn't use a week for this though - just one day.

First I thought I'd browse my archive, because I know there are some cups there, but then again, why not shoot some? So I grabbed the camera and went to my new small "studio" with a pile of mugs and started shooting. Taking many pictures of course meant I was going to scrapbook the results. Not to make the pictures tiny, I ended up making three layouts with the cups. Silly? Perhaps, but fun.  I was also rather self-sufficient this time, using my own resources, which makes me even more pleased with the results.

The first set was our dog-themed mugs, included are the Dandie Dinmont Terrier ones and some from special occasions: one from The European Winner Show in Helsinki 2006 and two from Helsinki Winner Show 2012.

Resources:
- texture Mute Light 01 by myself
- papers Cloudbusting 03, 04, 05 & 06 by myself
- template 22 by myself
- fonts Love Ya Like A Sister  &  KG Call Me Maybe by Kimberly Geswein

The second layout starts with unique handmade mugs made by a colleague of mine, a teacher of pottery. Then there is our wooden mug-stand, which I absolutely love, with yellow Teema mugs by Arabia. There are also our two Moomin mugs, my Little My and Better Half's Stinky, our plastic mugs for travelling and Glühwein mugs I got as a present from my German students.

Resources:
- papers Mellow Yellow 03 & 04 by myself
- stitches by Gunhild Storeide
- font Lavanderia by James T. Edmondson
- template 23 by myself

The third layout includes out two Russian tea sets and some rarer mugs, such as the hand-painted one in top-left corner.

Resources:
- papers Lemonade Stand 03, 04 & 06 by myself
- font Simply Glamorous by Brittney Murphy
- font Seaside Resort NF by Nick's Fonts
- template 24 by myself

That was a nice bit of work for a rainy day in July, in between typing dog show critiques.  It's only apt that I post it after the most rainy day I've ever experienced... it doesn't often rain here without a single break the whole day through, but it did yesterday.

Will be posting a pile of other challenges today as well, some of which have been sitting on the computer since July.

Kim's Lilacs and our Dog

I'm posting days 44 and 45 of Beyond Layers here. In the day 44 challenge I was to process a photo by Kim to my liking. It was a pretty bunch of lilacs, and Kim seemed to have desaturated and toned down the original. I took another way and added more contrast and sharpness. This seems to be my way: adding clarity where I can, using bright colours. With a few exceptions, I don't seem to be too good at creating dreaminess or toning down - perhaps it just isn't my thing.

Here are both of the images side by side.

Here's the steps I took:
1 added texture 294 by Sirius-sdz
2 blurred the texture: Gaussian Blur 8 px
3 changed blending mode to soft light 100%
4 ran action Fresh & Colourful by The Pioneer Woman
5 changed action group opacity to 34%
6 added texture Now by Kim Klassen at Colour Burn 76%
7 added frame
8 resized image

Next I'll be off to see Kim's recipe to how she processed her own photo, I guess.

******

As I anticipated, on day 45 Kim shared how she processed her lilac image herself. But I have to say, I was astonished to realize she was sharing with us a technique I had just used in my own processing of her image! I swear I didn't have a peek at the video beforehand, just ended up using Gaussian blur on the texture on my own.

Anyway I decided to have another go according to Kim's suggestions. I picked up a photo taken of our youngest Dandie Justiina, taken on 29 May this year, when she was a bit over a year and a half. She's like many Dandies we've had in that she'll often stare right at you and the camera when you're taking a picture. Often, that is. Usually not when you'd absolutely want her to.

Here I kept the added noise Kim suggested at a minimum, added Gaussian blur to the first texture so that it only gave me the lighting and none of the actual texture, then added another texture for a painterly effect.

Resources used:
- texture Cool Grunge by Kim Klassen at soft light 100%
- texture Paint on Canvas II by Kerstin Franck at overlay 77%
- framing action Double by Chain

What I didn't do here was adding type and then adding gradient to the text, that'll have to wait for some other time, perhaps when I do some scrapbooking?

Flowers and Bugs

Still playing catch up. Day 43 challenge of Beyond Layers was to view two of Kim's recipes and use Kim's texture Peony in a photo. For the first task, I chose a picture that I took of one of the last tulips to blossom this summer in our garden. They were still in bloom on 19 June when I took this photo.  Here I followed Kim's first recipe very closely, the biggest difference was that I used layer masks to keep the background suitably desaturated and not too dark or too light  or contrasty. I even used the same font Kim used for her original photo of her book spine poetry, since I found it was one with European characters and therefore worth downloading to me.

Last of the Tulips

Resources used:
- font KG Somebody That I Used To Know by Kimberly Geswein
- framing action Shadow by Chain

The next photo was taken on a warm day in our garden, when me and Better Half were doing some gardening, and suddenly noticed this pair of very spectacular looking bugs mating on the blossoms of a Meadowsweet bush. They were obviously some kind of long-horned beetles (which in Finnish seems to be, delightfully, sarvijäärä or even more hilariously, hapsenkakkiainen). Anyway, they obligingly stayed there long enough for me to rush for the camera and I even managed to get a few quite tolerable shots of them.  To process, I followed Kim's second recipe, this time with a lot more deviation from hers, though.

Mating on Meadowsweet

Resources:
- texture Framed by Kim Klassen
- framing action Double by Chain

The third challenge was to use Kim's pink texture called Peony. Since it was pink, I thought I'd dig up one of the photos I took in April of all the bouquets me and Better Half received at the end of the term. For this I had a brainwave: instead of going through all adjustments step by step I could try what the adjustments of the previous photo would do to this. So I duplicated the adjustment group of Mating on Meadowsweet, found it looked just fine, I just turned down the opacity another 10% and that was it. This made me a very happy camper indeed. So I just placed the texture there, added the frame and was pleased with the result.

Pink Bouquet

The workflow:
- duplicated adjustment group from Mating on Meadowsweet, turned down group opacity to 70%
- added texture Peony by Kim Klassen at multiply 33%
- flattened image
- added frame: framing action Double by Chain

Linking to Texture Tuesday.

Bookspine Poem

A quick post to catch up again, before I dash off.  Tuesdays are my busy days this autumn, but decided to post another picture, which I actually took and processed already in July, so that I can move it to my Done! folder.

Day 42 of BL was a challenge to create "bookspine poetry", that is, stack books so that their titles would make a "poem". You are supposed to read the book titles only, not the author's names.

In July, I took a quick look at our bookcases, dug up some books in English and piled them on our garden love seat. It was a 10-minute project, processing the photo took a bit longer, perhaps a quarter of an hour. I'm amazed I can make quick work of something!

Steps taken:
1 did some levels adjustment
2 added texture Pour Vous by Kim Klassen at hard light 45%
3 added frame: framing action White Frame V4 from Photographer's Toolkit 2 by WallStorm

Oh, and I read the "poem" with the following punctuation, but feel free to substitute your own.

Picture this
complete nonsense:
The hippopotamus,
birds, beasts and relatives
inside the Victorian home
discovering heraldry.
Through a glass, clearly
tears of the giraffe.

Yes, I meant it to be complete nonsense, but to me it sounded fine and made me giggle. I leave it to the reader to decide whether the poor giraffe was crying behind a window for not being included in the party or whether the whole merry bunch was raising glasses, realizing they were filled with giraffe tears. A sad story anyway, isn't it? ˆ--˜

Now off.  Must wake up the snoring dogs, kick them out and pack my stuff and dash for lessons.