Playing With Patterns

Day 58: This is what happens when the internet goes down but the power stays on. I had two bobbins of plied "Green Chaos" yarn and one of "Salt and Pepper" ready to wind onto the warping board (a handy way of skeining and measuring yardage). They'd had their rest period and were ready to wrap, so I set up the Lazy Kate (Lazy Cat helping more than I appreciated) and wound them off. I took a couple of pictures, and once I got them onto the computer, decided to play around with some of PaintShop Pro's distortion effects. Top right and lower left were made with the "Kaleidoscope" feature, and the other two with "Patterns." There's quite a bit of latitude in the kaleidoscopic treatment, such as number of repeats, number of petals, angle, etc. Okay, I was bored without all you little people in my computer to keep me company, but this is also productive time. Sometimes when I'm playing around with these virtual techniques, the results inspire me to create weaving or knitting patterns. The upper left looks particularly interesting if translated to card-weaving.

Grape Expectations

Day 326: I am envious of people with phone apps which can turn everyday photos into works of art imitative of the Old Masters. Not having a smartphone, the best I can do is fiddle settings in PaintShop Pro until I come up with something like this. Oh, well. That said, I have great...or should I say grape? expectations for the harvest this year, provided the jays don't get them all before they're fully ripe. The vine is laden with bunches, large and small, and through no effort on my part. I've tried several different pruning methods over the years to no avail, so this last winter, I threw my hands in the air and said, "Do what you will, grape! I'm going to leave you to your own designs." I see so many old grapevines rambling over garage roofs, clambering up fences, each one full of grapes in season: ignored, let go wild, untended, and fruiting like crazy. Maybe that's what Interlaken wanted. Technically, I suppose you'd call it a wine grape, or at least the friend who gave it to me dug it up, 25 years old if it was a day, and about 25' long on both sides when he delivered it only grew grapes with a mind to making wine. The fruit is small and seedless, tastes something like a Concord. The vine is now almost 50 years old and, in its tenure here, I've harvested a respectable crop of grapes only two or three times, missing one opportunity when I thought I'd leave the bunches through one night of light frost, only to discover that the jays prefer grapes a little tart. When I went out in the morning, Tupperware bowl tucked under my arm, there was not a single grape remaining, so thorough had they been in the hours just after dawn. Maybe I should wrap netting around some of the better bunches to preserve them for my own enjoyment. I don't mind sharing part of the harvest, just not all of it.

Accidental Art

Day 114: You can thank a glitch in PaintShop Pro for the unusual demi-frame surrounding Mr. Steller here, a "happy accident," as it were, and one which I probably couldn't repeat if I tried a hundred times. I had made an oval capture and inverted it with the intention of flood-filling the area outside the oval, but PSP took a notion to interpret promotion of the selection to layer to mean that I wanted the new layer to terminate at the branches. It's not the only foible the program has ever exhibited, but it's the first one which ever produced something I felt was artful. As for Mr. Steller, he's getting snowed on today and I am again stuck in the house, wishing I was somewhere else.

Digital Starling

Day 135: Yes, I'm getting a little hard-up for material here. If it ain't up a tree, it's covered in snow.

I envy people who can create "pencil sketch" images with a click of an app on their phones, or with a little more work, with Photoshop's utilities. I use PaintShop Pro for all my post-processing because years ago, it was recommended to me by a friend who was a graphic artist for a magazine, and she assured me that although it was more difficult to work with, it was more versatile. I committed myself to the program and have used it ever since. While it may be more versatile, it is definitely NOT more user-friendly, and many of the quick features available with phone apps can only be achieved by making complex series of individual adjustments to the base image. The user manual is decidedly vague and unhelpful. I've been trying for years to come up with the proper combination to execute a "pencil sketch" (the PSP option listed as "pencil sketch" does nothing more than apply a nearly-opaque layer to a photo), and this is as close as I have come. While I've achieved detail in the flecked feathers of this juvenile Starling, I still feel I still have a long way to go before I'm happy with the end product.

Learn Something New

Day 28: I cannot recall when I heard this piece of advice, but it was a very long time ago and I have sought to live by it ever since. Perhaps it's because my maternal grandmother was a schoolteacher, and instilled in me a desire to inquire into the whys and wherefores of many subjects. "Knowledge," she would say, "is the most valuable thing you can have."

The last ten days have brought me to greater manipulative skills as far as post-processing of photos is concerned. Not only did I learn how to create a "tiny planet" with my PaintShop Pro photo editing suite, I also had a breakthrough with regard to adding curved text to an image. The manual which came with the program was sorely lacking in instructive material for the process, so I resorted to an on-line source which explained how to effect curved text using a much later version of the program. Substantial trial and error and many notes-to-self on a scratch pad finally brought me to a repeatable set of directions for text which followed a circular path. However, I was not content. I wanted to be able to add upright text to the lower portion of the image, as opposed to letters which went upside-down as they marched around the rim of the circle. I was less successful in finding details on line, but having accomplished the first part gave me some clues for achieving my goal.

As you might guess from the photo above, all other projects have been in suspension as I sought to master this skill. Now, if you'll excuse me, I really need to tend to my knitting!