Thank You Mutsie

I was at Brusheezy the other night. As you may or may not know, you can load new brushes into Elements or PS. Brusheezy is a good place to start. You can also make your own brushes. If you make some, you can post them there as well. I found some great ones there by Mutsi, so I made some Mutsi backgrounds for ATCs for people to share. Also I just like the sound of her name, Mutsi. So it gives me the opportunity to say it a lot. Here's a few of the backgrounds.

 

 

I made a couple of cards with the backgrounds and Kathleen Holley made one that she lent me for this post.

© 2010 NeonSun Studios

© 2010 Kathleen Holley

So as you can see the love keeps spreading. 

Thank you Mutsi. Love that name.

http://www.brusheezy.com/Brushes/1601-Banner-Brushes#

When photoshop Becomes a Verb

I joined a Yahoo group the other day called, we_love_digital_art. They are so nice that I really feel bad about writing a certain previous post. But one can evolve. Today I got some help from them for a tricky problem. How to remove something from a photo and how to make it look somewhat natural. Here's the original photo.

I cut out a graphic of a small child laying on a dog. I deleted the dog with the magic wand, but couldn't get rid of the leg. One of the nice people in the group suggested 

that I duplicate the image (in case something went wrong).

select the image->pick the colour of the dress with the eyedropper-> choose a small brush and paint it out. 

It looked a bit unnatural (sic), so I selected the plain clone tool->then I cloned a crease in the dress by option-clicking, then extented the crease into the painted area. Next, I selected a plain part of the dress with the clone tool and filled in the remaining painted area. So I photoshopped the leg out of the photo. Now I can work for the National  E----------- making Martians for their front page. Here's the end result.

I also duplicated the background so I could do some other fixes with the background.

Background, bird, bucket wolf:

www.flickr.com/photos/rubyblossom/
Child:
www.flickr.com/photos/paperscraps/

© 2010 NeonSun Studios

Please Mr. Postman

It's been a busy month. In the last month I:

- joined an ATC Trading group on Yahoo

-  set up a Flickr account for Trading cards (100 views on one set)

- made a website

- started to work with photoshop

- started a blog

- participated in 3 swaps

- made 15 private trades

- made 45 ATCs

- Got to know the guy at Canada Post.

So, suddenly I show up at Canada Post to mail a bulky envelope to another country. Then the next day the same thing; and on it goes. Maybe it was me, but I couldn't help feeling he was becoming suspicous. Then (because we're Canadian) there were polite enquires about the nature of the bulky envelopes. Perhaps he'd taken a workshop at Canada Post titled, "Why middle aged women smuggle drugs through the mail". I would politely (because I'm Canadian) provide him with small scraps of information on the contents of the envelopes. I wasn't trying to be elusive; I just didn't want to hold up the line because...

Yesterday, I tried to explain what I was doing. He looked perplexed. The woman in line holding a small baby cleared her throat in a meaningful way. I left.

Today I brought some ATCs for him to look at. No one was there, so it was perfect. I elaborated and explained how it all worked. Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed to be relieved. At last the cloud of suspicion was being lifted. It was going so well.

Then, behind me I heard someone politely cough.

And what About the ATCs?

Most of the work I do, is making Artist Trading Cards. I like to keep a good mix of handmade and digital. Someone asked me yesterday where my handmade one were. While compiling them I realized that I was suffering a severe shortage. So today I made a few more. I'll show you a few here. If you want to see scads of them, proceed to the website listed below. It looks as if that might be my home for ATCS.

http://sites.google.com/site/randomatcs/home

In the end I couldn't resist going into PS; while there, I made this.

                                   The Seagulls are up and squawking. Time to go to sleep.

© 2010 NeonSun Studios

Eraser

Moving on from the magic wand to the magic eraser. I like that it makes some decayed edges. Now that I'm comfortable with LAYERS I'm stacking them up like crazy and erasing into the lower layers. Starting to understand the functionality of the layers and the control it provides.

Font: F-Rotten

Backgrounds and photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27805557@N08/3350901545/
2010 copyright NeonSun Studios

Go Ask Google

For some odd reason there has been a rash of emails asking me how to use photoshop. Having only been working with Elements7 for a month, I'm probably NOT the place to come to for advice. I know what I know.
Having said that; there are literally thousands of tutorials on YouTube and Flickr.
Do what I did google it.

The Magic Wand

I only remember one thing in my last foray into photoshop. I loved the magic wand. I didn't remember why; just thst I loved it. The love affair has resumed. It's perfect for selecting and deleting the white backgrounds on clipart.  It's so handy for deleting similiar colours. Below are two pics. One piece has the background. The other, I used the magic wand to select the background. Then used the paint bucket to replace the backgroun with colour to make the graphic pop.
Backgrounds: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27805557@N08/
Tree Brushes: http://shadowhousecreations.blogspot.com/
Copyright 2010 NeonSun Studios

The Next Step

Exploring the LAYERS palette.

Backgrounds:http://www.flickr.com/photos/27805557@N08/
2010 Copyright NeonSun Studios

Last Night

Playing with LAYERS in Adobe Elements. 

Here's a couple of pieces I did last night.

Background: http://www.flickr.com/photos/playingwithpsp/4643454652/

The font is: Bleeding Cowboys

I love this font and use it a lot in a wide variety of pieces.
©2010 NeonSun Studios 

Smiling Animals

This month's 'Bizarre Gadget'
Honestly.

Absurd Gadgets

While making this blog I've come across some strange Gadgets. I think I'll add an, 'Absurd Gadget' of the month.

Welcome to my Blog

Hi. Come on in. I could use the company. It's lonely and bare in here. New homes are always that way at first. I'm going to try it out and if I like it, I'll move my website here. Feel free to leave a comment. I think you can do that.
This is a place to showcase my art and Artist Trading cards; do some trades and learn more about digital art. As I do I can share it with you. Here.
Neon Sunshine? I inhabit the night and explore the internet; do art. The internet never sleeps; it;s my 24 hour digital cafe.
Anyways enough of that. I'm going to add some art, because after all, isn't that why we're all here?