AEDM-Day 18, Another Bird (Surprise!?), and Photoshop Fun

I am trying to sketch a different bird each day, and am trying to do the ones that I see in my own backyard before venturing on to more exotic species. Today I have a sketch of one of my favorites - the Grosbeak. I really need to start trying to color these after I have sketched them. Maybe when life slows down a bit (does that ever happen?) I will. For now I have a pencil sketch. I hope you like him:

I didn't get much time to myself yesterday between having the 2 year old and having two high school students over for Algebra tutoring, but I did spend some time last evening playing with Photoshop before retiring for the night. Here are the results:

I decided to play a bit more with brushes and chose the leaf brush that comes standard with Photoshop and adjusted the settings as to color and hue and used a gradient for the background. It is pretty basic as far as a picture goes, but it was fun and I thought you might like to see it.

Then I played a bit with stroking a path with a "stitching brush" to see what I could do. This may be my next tutorial. I was just going to stroke the path and show you that, but I couldn't help myself I kept playing until I got a "picture". I hope you like it.

And lastly, I played a bit with text on a path. I find that this doesn't work so well on really complicated outlines, but is great for more simple outlines. I really enjoyed this and if this is also something I should do a tutorial for, just let me know.

Well the SIL is arriving this afternoon for a several day stay, so I really must help the hubster clean the house and I am supposed to be working on a clipboard project for UHU and really should get to that today. My Algebra students are coming around dinner time, so don't know exactly when I am going to get some "art" time, but I will do my best.

I have participated in AEDM for 18 days in a row; I don't want to spoil that record now.

See you later!

Digital Art and The UHU Project

I didn't get a chance to play with Photoshop until after the girls were picked up around 7 pm.  I really wanted to play so I grabbed the pen tool and began to draw. I tried to draw a game bird. He is not necessarily a copy of an actual bird, but this is what was in my mind at the time. When he was done, I decided I didn't want to just put him on a colorful background, but I wanted to put him into a believable habitat. I found a picture I really liked of a favorite spot in the woods, applied a couple of filters on it to make it look like a painting and "transplanted" him there.

I was notified yesterday by UHU that they liked my project, but that I hadn't been chosen as a new UHU gluer. You can see my project as well as two others who were finalists, but not chosen to be gluers at the official UHU project website. Tomorrow they will showcase the two projects whose designers were chosen to be gluers. I can't wait to see what the winners made.

I'm hoping to get the puzzle pieces finished today and work on my post cards so that I can send them out. I don't know yet if I have the girls today and that SO makes a difference in how much time I can spend in my art room.

Gotta go get my first mug of coffee and read the blogs I subscribe to (150 total, 46 new posts so far this morning), then decide what I am going to work on first.

My house is in need of a good cleaning, but I am not willing to give up all my free time to clean it. I am going to try what the "experts" suggest and do one room a day. I think today it will be the living room as that is the most visible room. The huge shelving unit that takes up one wall is in desperate need of a good dusting, but dusting is such a waste. You remove everything, load up a soft cloth with Pledge, dust the shelves and the "stuff" that adorn the shelves, and put it all back together only to find at the end of the day that the dust is beginning to settle there already.

I'm getting depressed just thinking about it, so I am going to think  of other things for awhile and get my good mood back.

Bye!