spacealien_vamp: (Default)
[personal profile] spacealien_vamp
I've been reading some Photoshop references over the past couple of days, figuring that it could come in handy, what with my drawing/painting/icon designing/embroidery pattern designing obsessions addictions hobbies. I had fiddled around and done things by trial and error, but there's a limit to how much can be figured out that way. (The pen tool, for example, always confused the heck out of me. Every time I tried to draw with it like the pencil or brush, it spit out warped lines everywhere.)

Now I know what the pen tool is supposed to do, as well as blending levels and layer masks. Many of the filters (like emboss and difference clouds) that previously seemed useless because they screwed up the colors are now making more sense.

Coincidentally, one of my team teachers asked me to design the cover for the booklet that's being put together as a project in one of my senior classes. Each student is writing a two-page spread, in English, describing some aspect of Japan or Japanese culture. She said I could just copy one of the flower paintings that I've already done in my sketchbook if I wanted to...but all the flowers I've painted so far are extremely tiny, so I didn't think they'd make a good cover graphic.

Instead, I've spent a number of hours playing around with layers and filters and masks and blending and gradients. The "tea" image is an example of one of the logos I came up with (one of the students wrote about the tea ceremony). I'll show my results to my team teacher tomorrow and see what she thinks.

Other than that, I haven't done much since Friday, save the usual shopping/cleaning/reading. I did get my hair cut today, which was the most excitement of the weekend. (It's HARD to keep up a conversation in a foreign language with a hair dryer blowing in your ears, I'll tell you.)

Beautiful, beautiful...

Date: 2005-07-10 05:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] megory.livejournal.com
The Tea image is very nice.

The booklet sounds like such a great idea. You'll have a very useful product afterwords. I hope they think about sharing with their sister city. Could I put in an order for one to use as a reference for the pen pal project? Maybe it will help give the students ideas of things to write about. Let me know what it might cost.

Photoshop sounds like an awesome program to be able to use completely. Maybe if I learned to use it, it wouldn't matter that I have absolutely no artistic talent. But I'll bet you really have to have a good eye for art anyway to be able to decide what to do. I think I'm just out of luck.

Re: Beautiful, beautiful...

Date: 2005-07-10 05:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] spacealien-vamp.livejournal.com
Could I put in an order for one to use as a reference for the pen pal project?

I could certainly ask.

But I'll bet you really have to have a good eye for art anyway to be able to decide what to do.

The nice thing is, you can just play around with different colors and fonts and effects...and if you don't like the result, you can hit "undo." (I love the "undo" function SO MUCH.)

Re: Beautiful, beautiful...

Date: 2005-07-10 05:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] megory.livejournal.com
Oh, yes, I forgot about "undo." I love it, too. That *does* give me some hope.

Profile

spacealien_vamp: (Default)
spacealien_vamp

October 2025

S M T W T F S
   1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
2627282930 31 

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Apr. 9th, 2026 06:39 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios