Blue Screens, Business, and Buzzing… and a Tutorial for Creating a Vellum Overlay in Inkscape
Posted: September 19, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: clip feature, drop shadow, edit a photo, eliminating background, extensions, filters, Inkscape tutorial, overlay, photo, sketch, vellum Leave a comment
Today is a wonderfully dreary, rainy, autumn day; it’s another guilt-free craft room day. I intended to sit here and do some blogging. Actually, I wanted to write a tutorial for some of the ideas I’ve been playing around with in Inkscape. However, nothing seems to be coming together for me. My PC has locked up a couple of times … oh the dreaded “blue screen”, I am getting interruptions from hubby who needs to talk over some business with me, and my iPhone is buzzing with incoming texts keeping me abreast of workplace “drama”. On top of that, I just can’t seem to focus. So instead of writing a new tutorial, I thought I’d tweak one that I have previously posted on the Inkscape Cutting Design forum.
I ended up making some changes to the original tutorial. I had originally used Inkscape’s Clip Feature to eliminate the background from the photo. This is the method I used in my tutorial titled Using Inkscape’s Clip Feature to Edit a Photo. I decided to use an alternative method this time which I think works a little better.
The picture you see here is from a photo of my precious “princess #1” that was taken a couple of years ago. I used Inkscape to change it to a sketch, then added a drop shadow (for more on creating drop shadows, check out Papasue’s tutorial ) and my Black-eyed Susans for color. The same sketch was used for a scrapbook page which is illustrated in this tutorial. In addition to learning how to eliminate the background, you’ll have a chance to practice using Filters and Extensions. Take a look; I think you’ll find it interesting.
Keep drawing!
Laurianne
Vinyl Wall Art…. I Hope…
Posted: June 17, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art, Craft Robo, draw, flowers, free downloads, Inkscape, Inkscape Cutting Design, La.La. Studio, pen tool, photo, Photography, silhouette, vinyl, wall art, water 1 Comment
I recently took this picture while traveling along the Pacific coast. I like the color of the water and the way the dried flowers are silhouetted against it. I love stuff like that! Anyway, it inspired me to try something I’ve been wanting to do for a while but haven’t gotten around to.
Today I’m designing some wall art by tracing the flowers in the picture using the Inkscape pen tool. I’ll have to modify it some because the flowers are too dainty for cutting. I’m not sure how thin I can cut the vinyl with my Craft Robo without it tearing or stretching when I apply it to the wall. I’ve posted this question on the Inscape Cutting Design forum. I’ll bet someone there will be able to give me some tips as I go along with the project.
I can’t wait to see how this turns out!
Oh… by the way… for those of you that have personal cutting machines, La.La.Studio has some really nice free downloads right now. You might want to take a look.
Happy drawing!
Laurianne
Who’s the Boss?
Posted: June 16, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: child, children, clip, dandelion, edit, Inkscape, photo, tutorial 2 Comments
She stood her ground. All three and a half feet of her….. those cute three-year-old cheeks flushed and her big blue eyes locked on mine. I had just asked my granddaughter, my precious, perfect princess #2, to put something away in the kitchen. After ignoring my repeated request she firmly stated, “I’m not going to. You’re not my boss, Mommy is.” I explained to her that when Mommy is not home and Grandma is taking care of her, Grandma is her “boss”. She listened and contemplated, but I could see she was not fully convinced. I decided I might need to adjust my strategy. Knowing that her daddy and papa where upstairs doing drywall work, I continued, “If you would like we can go upstairs and talk to Daddy about it.” I watched her as she took only a second to think through her options. “I don’t need to talk to Daddy”, she stated. “I’ll put it away”, as she quickly headed to the kitchen.
I think the idea of “Who’s the Boss” must have been something she was putting a lot of thought into because the subject came up once more that day. She asked, “Grandma, who’s the boss at your house?” I might have stuttered just a tiny little bit as I answered, “Papa”…….. of course… 😉
I love being a grandma, I love my grandchildren, and I love taking pictures of them. The picture shown here is of the above-mentioned granddaughter. Isn’t she a cutie!
I was a little disappointed in this picture because the dandelion puff did not catch the light the way I wanted it too. But I remembered that I had been practicing using various settings on my new camera and had taken a few pictures of dandelions. Aha! I knew I could cheat a little by using the Clip feature in Inkscape to “cut out” the puff from from another picture and paste it into this one. You can see how much more the dandelion shows up in the picture below. I’m sure a trained eye will know it has been edited, but for my purposes, I was pleased with the results.
I’ve written a tutorial to show how I did this simple photo edit. Click here to take a look.
Happy drawing!
Laurianne
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