Wednesday 20 April 2011

Acoustic image transfer

After taking a multitude of photos at Ightham Mote  (see previous post) I was then faced with the inevitable problem of what to do with them all.

First I dumped them all onto the PC.
Then I made a collage in Picasa.

Then I thought I would like to have print outs of the patterns, as it was the patterns that caught my eye and I wanted to record them - which is why I took over 100 photos - but printing out photos of dark wood carvings would use up all the printer ink, which as we all know is one of the most expensive liquids on Earth.

So I transferred a photo to Photoshop and tried to invert it, so the dark became light and vice versa, thinking I would then just be able to print the "lines" of the design.  But it just looked like a plaster cast and I knew it wouldn't print.

So in the end there was nothing for it but to reach for a piece of paper from the scrap paper tray, and the first writing/drawing implement to hand, which happened to be a black rollerball, and transfer the images acoustically.  By hand.  Drawing.



And I think I'm quite pleased with the result.  Not brilliant, but not too bad.

It also dawned on me that this is precisely what "everyone" tells you to do - draw from the original.  And wouldn't you know it, they're all right.  And it only took 5 minutes to do these scrappy little sketches, so I could well have just plonked myself down on the floor of Ightham Mote and drawn them there and then (ten year olds and short attention spans permitting). 

For some reason I was reminded of my first summer at college when one afternoon I drank the best part of a bottle of wine whilst sunbathing on the roof of the halls of residence, and suffered the inevitable consequences*.  Sometimes you just have to find these things out for yourself, often the hard way.


*I didn't fall off the roof, but it felt very much as if I had. 

3 comments:

  1. Thank you for commenting on my blog!

    I remember going to Ightam Mote about 15yrs ago.
    Those sketches are beautiful and probably nicer than photoshopped ones. If you still want to try though you could use the 'find edges' under filters menu and then adjust contrast. We have to do similar for our colouring pages on our school resources site. Might work:-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nothing like a bit of pen & paper but photos are wonderful if you don't have time to draw EVERYthing (& your hand feels like it's falling off & you aren't ambidextrous ;)You can delete some photos once you've blown them up for details but you can keep your lovely sketches for always.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great pattern sketches! there is something special about using yourself to produce them isn't there. Good fun and not technoed to death. Love them. Penny

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for reading! I love reading your comments, and always reply personally if I can.