Arnside Icebergs

COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON AND ALL THE BEST FOR THE NEW YEAR TO  MY VIEWERS.

Freezing weather continues. Burst water pipes necessitated moving the washing machine to the other side of the garage, and investing  in an electric heater to put behind the machine.

Christmas presents and a case of good wines from The Wine Society ordered on the Internet many days ago did not arrive until today saving the need for contingency plans.

City Link have been the most tardy. Royal Mail managed better. The wine arrived by the Society's own van.

The photos were taken today and show real mini icebergs. This is part of Morecambe Bay, which is of course salt water.

The crag in the background is Whitbarrow which has been the subject of some previous posts - it  extends a couple of miles or so to the north of this southern edge of its escarpment.

This one is looking west towards the full extent of Morecambe Bay. The railway viaduct leading to Grange over Sands can just be made out.

Once again all the best to everybody.

Photoshop painting - Land Rover

A new picture is underway. This is the embryo stage. I trace the outline from a photo through a semitransparent layer and then return that layer to light grey opaque. The sketch remains visible. Painting proceeds and the photo is only used as a visual reference thereafter (I have a full screen version alongside on my laptop screen). The initial outline is only used for rough orientation and becomes obliterated in the painting process. I have started some painting on the roof.

My photos folder on the computer contains a file called “relics”. On my travels I snap anything that qualifies for that description. The new painting shows an abandoned Land Rover in a farmyard seen on a walk not far from my home.

Photoshop Elements painting

Here is the completed picture (previous posts refer to its subject). The fencing in the bottom righthand corner was a final addition involving exploration of the Line Tool. This facilitates drawing straight lines. The fence includes cross-wires, and after merrily drawing away I found that the creation was not embedded with the original layer so that If I moved that layer the fence stayed put. When I switched on the layers palette I found that the fence had been created by automatic production of 129 new layers! After some experimentation I found that by using the shift key and selecting the first and last of these layers they were all selected and then I was able to "merge layers", and then merge the merged 129 with the original. There is always something new to learn in Photoshop.

The picture will now be taken to my tame printer on a pen drive and he will print it onto good quality  paper at a size a bit larger than A4. The result looks  convincingly like an acrylic painting with discernible brush strokes and much more detail than is apparent on this small reproduction.

The template for my blog does not allow me to use "extra large" format for my photos. I know it is possible to change the template, and it is also possible to save a copy of the blog in case of disaster, but I am still reluctant to try in case I loose the whole thing. Has anybody else out there tried anything similar?

Photoshop painting and Arnside in the snow

Here is another update on the painting. There is still work to do. The tree behind the houses has to be detailed and various other bits of fine tuning.

Arising from my comments on the last post here are two pics taken today from Arnside Knott. Normally we can see the full range of Lake District hills but today it looked as though snow was blowing from that direction.