More Art Rage and Photoshop

I tried another bird with Art Rage and am not very happy with it, but I am going to post it hoping someone who is better with this software will offer me some tips to get more out of it. I could not get his legs to work at all, so I put him on a nest. Also I added the "tree" background and some of the texture in Photoshop CS3.

I haven't yet gotten a chance to finish the fabric book I started at the Quilts at the Marshall House with Tina Hamilton last Saturday because I have been out of town since then, but here is a picture of the front cover.

If you are a lover of fabric and such, and you live anywhere near Marshall, Michigan, you really must check out this shop. I was enthralled and spent much of my time there looking drooling. Meanwhile, the class was wonderful. I am not sure I know anyone who has as many art techniques in her repertoire as Tina does. I sat with Puff and Terri, two of the people who I rode to Muskegon with in September, and they also are very knowledgeable and arty. I had to leave early as I was having overnight company and leaving for a two day trip to Leelanau early the next day. My recommendation to you is this: if you every get a chance to take a class with Tina Hamilton (whether it is in person or online) jump at the chance!

Meanwhile, if you can stand it, I have a couple more backgrounds for you:

For this one, I made the giraffe pattern and then used a clipping mask to fill in a girafffe template.

I used a brush and the Offset filter on this one.

And fishes. This is the letter r in the font Children.

In the case of this one and the fish one from the other day, I didn't use the offset filter. I typed the letter using the text tool and transformed it to fit one fourth of the canvas. I positioned it in the upper left corner and then made a copy and held down the shift key to constrain it to a straight line while I dragged it to the right. I then used the transform command to flip it horizontally. I then merged those two layers together and then made a copy and used the shift key again to constrain movement to a straight line and dragged it to the bottom of the canvas. I then flipped it vertically. Then all I had to do was to Edit > Define patttern.

That's all I have today, but I am planning to do more playing this evening and am sure to have something for tomorrow.

Bye!