Taking A Break

For me taking a break means doing all the tasks that I've been avoiding while working on my 'real' tasks. These 'relaxing' tasks are : filling the bird feeders, watering the garden, taking one or two items off of Jean's (my wife) To Do list, and in this case this week I shot a few photos of the garden which I haven't done yet this year.

The image to the left is a typical close up of some Tiger Lilies. Not too impressive. So I took the image into Photoshop and used the Topaz Simplify filter on it and then added some Gaussian noise to it and come up with something that looks a lot like the texture and smooth feel of a glass powder painting (see image below). It would be interesting to try to do a photo realistic powder painting based on this image. You can see a large version of the image here.

In the larger version you really get the sense of the sandy texture that is the hallmark of a glass powder painting. It is a model to use if trying to simulate powder painting before committing a design to glass. Just amazing what you can do in Photoshop. With this Photoshop technique I could shoot a series of photos and run them through the Photoshop filters, change the composition, contrast, colors, etc and have a digitally worked out study done in twenty minutes or so. Bullseye glass is expensive so you want a worked out study before attempting it for real in glass.

Well enough play for today. Tomorrow I have to commit to getting the MAEP proposal printed. My new HP B8550 printer could probably do the job, but sitting around and doing 48 prints on an ink jet isn't my idea of fun, especially since White House Custom Color has a sale on 8x10s this week.

On another note, the folks at Sculptural Pursuit magazine encouraged me to create my web page on their site. At 3AM I wrapped that up and you can see it at this link. If you've been to my site then there is no need to go to that page however, because there aren't any new images to see there. The page is mainly for their readers who want to know more about the artists which appear in the publication.

Eh gads... going onto 4AM. Jean will be getting up soon and I'll just be getting to bed. That's not uncommon actually. Two ships passing in the night.