How to create a blog background with a scanner and CS4-

OK, here it is...
Step 1- draw funky flower and leaf designs on white paper with Black Staedler India ink pens
Step 2- scan drawings
Step 3- open with Illustrator. Live trace, expand, and clean up all the lines. This creates a pleasing vector line drawing.
Step 4- copy and paste the paths into Photoshop.
Step 5- save each item- flower, leaves, and cherry blossom, as a separate brush.
Step 6- create the drawing, layering flower and leaves. Erase overlaps as necessary.
Step 7- Using the paint bucket and color picker, fill areas with flat color. I chose this method, rather than using gradients, so I would get flat colors that would load more quickly. Remember, online, load time is important when you make a graphic intensive background.
Step 8- finalize the position of the elements. I created a large-ish repeat, my actual background graphic features the big flower with leaves and the cherry blossom 4 times, flipped and rotated so that a repeating background would look seamless and nice.
Step 9- save as a .png with a transparent background. This way, only the black lines and fills will need to be represented, and float over the background color I choose in my CSS. This way, I can actually change the whole color scheme of my blog on the fly- and not have to ever go back into my background graphic again if I don't want to.
That's it! Step 3 is what took the longest. When you convert line drawings into vector art, there can be an awful lot of cleanup involved.

Back from Ireland

I predicted that I would love Ireland...I know myself. I was right.
Not Dublin- it was certainly not the most beautiful foreign city I have seen, and it reminded me of Upstate New York, with older buildings. Cold, rainy, gray. Not a place I want to return to- if given a choice :)

But the rural countryside, that was another matter entirely. I did not know this- but Ireland has no large predators- no large cats, bears, coyotes or wolves. This makes the island country the perfect place for raising livestock of any kind. Sheep and cows wander freely, and are gathered in for yearly shearing and check-ups with the help of dogs. So while you are out driving or hiking, you come across random animals. One sheep even came over to say hi. BAAAAA, really. Interestingly enough, the locals don't seem to be into overfarming and raising absurd amounts of anything (like in America, where the aim is always to maximize) so the cows and sheep appear very content and not overcrowded. The beef and lamb is incredible at restaurants and pubs, because it is all local, grassfed, happy animals that donate it :)

I spent 5 days in a Vagabond tour vehicle with my brother, sisters, spouses, and Dad. It was awesome. We visited mountain passes, we kayaked with harbour seals, we hiked amazing trails that we NEVER would have volunteered for here at home. 45 minutes, uphill at a 45 degree angle with no flat bits? Sure! Give me two, please! Have you ever seen an old movie, where the heroes are captured and driven to a castle on top of a mountain, in a carriage at alarming speeds at the edge of a cliff? We replicated that- take one LandRover, 12 passengers, one luggage trailer, and an old copper-mine road. Add in a couple of passengers who are afraid of heights, and you get one hell of a ride! We drove on another road where 200 meters of it had fallen into the sea 2 years ago, and had to be rebuilt. A very comforting story for our tour-driver to tell while we were driving on the new part of the road. The gents loved Jean on the first 2 days, and all the ladies secretly fell in love with Sam and his accent. We had to change drivers mid-tour, due to the laws for drivers. It was fine, as they are all knowledgeable and fun.

I'll write more about specific moments once I get my pictures ready!

Creative things that I did this week...

I just finished watching Julie & Julia- it's the movie about the blogger who made every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook, and blogged about it, for 365 days. How fun! And ambitious. I know I could never do that, because although I like to cook I simply can't imagine cooking all that food for just me and Rob (without gaining 30 pounds each, anyway.) Plus, it would have to be my only hobby and if you don't know me well, let me tell you- I already have too many. But what a delightful story and life-changing experience for Julia Powell.

As for blogging daily, that would be an adventure too! I still haven't got the gist of this, it's too personal for me to write every day about everything.

I have just discovered the joy of drawing! I decided that I wanted some designs to transfer onto clay and perhaps turn into stamps so I took out some white cardstock, got a folder and some Staedler pens, my stack of Dover reference books, and started to draw. I am now down to about 3 hours for a completed and acceptable drawing. I've done 4. I am enjoying it so much I don't know if I will ever stop. I just bought a new sketchbook and had to get a new purse that can properly hold it! And I'm thinking my blog background might have to change. We'll see.