A cold week followed by Bacon

This week, I have mostly been suffering from a cold.   It's been exhausting, I've wanted to play on Photoshop as the next issue of PSC came in, plus I'd realised Freewebs were being idiots so needed to switch web hosts which meant I wanted to sit on the computer trying to iron out more things on the site.  None  of this happened, as by the time I got home I pretty much flopped into the couch with a blanket to rest.

Yesterday was a little different, and involved a trip to the Tate Britain with friends to see the Francis Bacon exhibition.  This did the job and inspired me to get myself in gear, and so lots of money was spent on a Bacon book and another Design book to pour over. 

Been spending the morning uploading photos, so no progress on PS or the web site yet, but I did manage to make a very messy mess with oil pastels on canvas, resulting in a self portrait that isn't really anything like me, but I like it anyway.

One step closer to mastering CSS

Well I read the chapters, made notes from the book.. but never actually put it into the current site. UNTIL NOW! I worked out how to detach my CSS stuff and make it just attach to the pages instead of being within it, and then cleaned it all up by renaming the default style settings to things which made sense to me and updating links.

After a couple of hours of scratching my head, huffing and tapping away at the keyboard, I've managed to complete that stage of the project and the resulting webpage looks absolutely no different to before.  This is annoying.  I did add a link to this blog, but it hardly sums up the amount of effort I put into it - hey ho.

Next I need to work out the layout and make it more visually appealling. Oh, and add content. That'd be nice too.

Life 1, Photoshop 0

Bah. I've not had the chance to really get down to some PS for a few days now.  Destractions have included creative endevours of a regular type (pen and paper... the shock!) as well as a large dose of life getting in the way, but it's not been forgotten.

The artwork 'offline' counts, I think.  I'm trying to do a taster diploma course in Graphic Design to get a feel for the whole thing, see if I'm comfortable following it further in life or if PS should remain as more of an enjoyable hobby.  I'm hoping the former, but we'll see. Long way to go yet.  My first "homework" is to practise quick drawing by making sketches from a TV programme.... at least 5-8 in an episode.  Am therefore trying to find something that lasts longer than 30mins and doesn't always show people on screen... my most awkward of sketching moments!  I've so far got it to about 3, I get distracted by the show and the realisation that my sketch looks absolutely awful and requires a heck of a lot of cross hatching to cover up the imperfections.  Still, I'm going to try and keep it all whether it's good or bad so hopefully I'll see progress soon.

Be free, my Minis...

I turned the logo into birdies.

Not bad...

Today didn't go as planned

I had high hopes. An entire Sunday, with no plans. After yesterday being quite a successful PS day I thought today that would continue.

FAIL!

I watched a lot of bad TV, and in my defense I did install some new brushes and plugins onto both laptop and computer, but no actual creating has been done. Which is why I've sat down at 9:00pm in the hope of one glimmer of inspiration... and so far all I have is this:



I call it "The Monotony of the Everyday" in honour of today. I think the lightbulb fits quite nicely....

Fat Cats

Nearly forgot, I did have some more positive Photoshopping today - following on from a past PSC forum contest entry I did, where I edited a pic of my kitty Joey looking a bit "plump" (top) I gave it a go on another pic of a podgy puddy-tat. Results in the bottom pic.

One day, I'll look back on all this and laugh...

That's the hope anyway.  Some point in the future I want to be something.  Something better than what there is now... and to do that, I'm entering as many competitions and practising as much as I possibly can!

It's still not anywhere near as much as I want to, but as long as I get a few hours a week and create a couple of designs then I'm happy.

Recently having acquired some new plug-ins for Photoshop, it's a struggle creating anything when the mystery of new buttons and filters must be explored.  Not to mention brushes... I'm not sure I'll ever get my head round it all.

To start off, my current Photoshop projects are as follows:

• Design tickets for Motocross Presentation Dinner
  
• Enter MiniSpace competition
  
• Set up portfolio website (also learn CSS... ah..)
  
• Enter the September PSC forum challenge (theme: Movies)
  

Motocross tickets is going quite well, leaving it to my usual last minute before needing a first draft I put together 7 designs with slightly different elements, all based around the clipart I'd been given.  Colours and tweaks will be done when I get more back from Penny and the motocross organisers.

MiniSpace... now this is where things are looking up.  Having spotted a design competition on this as an advert on Facebook a while ago I spent a long while kicking myself when I remembered to go back to look, and found I'd missed the deadline by one day. ONE day! ARGHH!!!  Then weeks later I saw the advert again, and this time there was a new competion - design a background wallpaper for their website.  It's a nice site, looks like it will continue competitions for designers.  You can preview entries and if you're registered, vote for them.   The top 3 win prizes.  I very much doubt I'll even get in the top 100 - but that's why I need lots of practise like this.  My profile is here.  I've started trying to get ideas but it's going to be a long process...