Creative Exploring
juliav1 
Today’s assignment for photo101 is to depict Solitude.
My photo shows a solitary tree reaching up through the undergrowth.
Even though there is a lot of nature in this photo, the fact it is the only tree of its kind hopefully depicts the feeling of being in a solitary state.
Day 4 of the Photo101 challenge is to show an image that represents Bliss.
What is your idea of bliss? Is it an image of your family, laughing at the dinner table? A state of total relaxation, while lying on the beach? Your latest painting, drying on the canvas?
In this picture I am relaxing under the palm trees looking over the bay after a cycle – bliss.
WATER – A source of life. A place of recreation. A calming presence, but also a destructive force.
We have different relationships to and stories about water: how it has saved or defeated us. How it reminds us of family vacations, outdoor adventures, or the hot summers of our childhood. How it might also symbolize a place we’ve left behind, or a location we dream to go.
Here are a couple of pictures depicting life on the ocean wave. Being near the water is relaxing, fun and invigorating.
Today’s Photo Challenge is capturing a wider view of a scene with the emphasis on looking at the basic elements in the scene – what will be in the foreground and in the background of the picture.
I think this photo taken at the Bass Museum of Art hits the spot.
Today I’m starting the Photo101 Challenge where you post a photo a day based on a particular topic.
The first topic is HOME.
Home is elusive. When we think about this word, we might picture different physical locations. And while home is often found on a map, it can also be less tangible: a loved one, a state of mind.
This is an interesting one as my birth home is the UK but my new home for the last three years has been the U.S. They are two completely different places but here is a picture showing where home is right now – Miami Beach.
It’s a great place to be!
So how did I take this picture?
Since the introduction of iOS 6 it’s possible to take great panorama photos right inside your iPhone’s native camera app. The panorama feature only works with iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and the latest generation iPod touch, so if you have an older device you have to use another panorama app.
I love the panoramic feature that is available on the iPhone. Sometimes you just want to capture your whole view.
Have you used the Panoramic option on your iPhone yet?
In order to access the panorama feature, open your iPhone’s Camera app, tap on Options, and choose Panorama. This will launch the panorama mode. Once you tap capture, slowly and steadily move your phone from left to right. You will see a guide line – this will help you keep your phone steady and produce a much straighter final result.
If you enjoyed this article you may be interested in finding out more about Miami in the following posts:-
The Best Places to Eat in Miami Beach
The Wild Green Parrots of Miami Beach
Apple’s Pages is their equivalent to Microsoft’s Word and is available on both the iPad and Mac. You may have discovered a few differences on how to achieve the same result or thought that some options are just not available. However, some of the functions in Pages can be accessed a different way depending on what device you are using.
Here are a couple of functions in Pages that are different on the iPad and Mac and how you can still access them by navigating to them a slightly different way.
Sometimes you need to lock or unlock an object such as a photo so that it does not move and stays in a certain area in your document – for example the object moves with text or the text wraps around the object.
I thought I’d try to make some lace in Photoshop and then define it as a brush preset so that I can stroke a path around some material to make a lace edge. I’m using Photoshop CS5.
Open a new Document – File → New Document and set the workspace to 270 x 270 px.
Next, select the Custom Shape Tool
In the options bar, click the Polygon options menu and check smooth corners, star and smooth indents boxes. Change the indent sides by to 10% and the number of sides to 12.
Set the foreground color to black and then drag your mouse so that the polygon shape fits within the document.
Pick the Ellipse tool and ensure that paths is selected on the options bar. Draw an elliptical path inside the polygon shape.
Select the brush tool and pick a hard round brush. Set it’s size to 20 px and its spacing to 180%.
Create a new layer above the polygon layer. Set the foreground color to white. Select the ellipse tool and click on the Paths tab. Drop down the pop out menu and select stroke path. Choose Brush from the menu and the simulate pressure box remains unchecked. Click OK and you should now see the following image.
Check that the ellipse tool is still selected and draw a smaller path in the middle of the polygon. Select the brush tool again and change the size to 7 px. Spacing should be set to 150%. In the preview you should see a smaller chain of dots.
For Sketch Sunday, I have drawn a cartoon looking dog.
I used various pencils – 2H, HB and 2B
It’s official, those numbers have returned…but I lost a day so lets make up for it now!
Yesterday, April 8th 2015, marked Lost Numbers Day…a day when the Lost hatch numbers fell back into alignment.
If you don’t recognize those numbers let me explain.
Lost (2004–2010) was a television series, created by J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, about the aftermath of a plane crash on a mysterious tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific.
So why was April 8th 2015 Lost Number Day?
The first three numbers in the sequence relate to the fourth month (April), the day (8th) and the year (2015) but how do you explain the next three numbers? Well it’s the time 16:23:42 as shown in 24 hour clock mode as the Hour:Minutes:Seconds
The Numbers
In 1988, slightly more than 16 years before the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, Danielle Rousseau’s science team picked up a mysterious short-wave transmission from the island. The transmission was merely six numbers repeated over and over again: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. She wasn’t the only one who heard them. The same transmission was also picked up by a U.S. Navy long wave transmission monitoring station where Leonard Simms and Sam Toomey worked.
I decided to try my hand at making some realistic looking rivets in Photoshop and share the steps here so you can go ahead and make some too.
I’m using Adobe Photoshop CS5. So if you’re ready, open up Photoshop and get ready to learn how to make realistic rivets that can be used on many things.
Start by opening up a new file.
File → New. As this is a test document set the size to the following dimensions:-
Double click the background layer to unlock it.
Fill the space with either a pattern or a style of your choosing.
Add a new layer. Check the color you have set as the foreground and change it to a grey color. I used #a3a0a8.
With the new layer active, select the Ellipse Tool and drag the mouse to make four circles near the edge of your pattern. They will autofill with your selected foreground color. You may want to make a new layer per circle so that you can move them about in your scene, especially if you want to line them up one under each other. To make a perfect circle don’t forget to hold down the shift key as you drag the mouse.
They don’t look much like rivets just yet so we’re going to add some effects to these flat looking circles to make them stand out and add some shine.
