One of the things we teach in our Photoshop Elements Essentials classes is how to transform a photograph into a cartoon, or abstracted image that you can use as a pattern for creating a quilt or other collage. When you create a quilt pattern, separating the colors into shades of dark, medium, and light helps to create recognizable images. Most of the time, we will turn the photo into a gray scale image first. It’s easier to see the values (darks to lights) when hue (color) isn’t distracting you. The kitten example above – that’s Fred II as a kitten – shows the process we use demonstrating with Fred II when he was a kitten. Why simplify? Because we want to create a version of Fred II in fabric.
The VW Example
We use this technique for all sorts of images. In 2014 we created this small quilt, V is or Volkswagen using an abstracted image.
In this case we used the cartoon as the pattern for our collage out of snippets of magazine and newspaper text. We demonstrated the process on Series 2300 of Quilting Arts TV .
The Deb Example
Deb also used the process for creating her quilted self-portrait, #Selfie, for the group Cloth in Common.
Try It, It’s Fun!
We love abstracting all kinds of images. You just never know what you will come up with when you combine your imagination with Photoshop Elements. Take a look at this photo taken from a plane. Smoggy, bland. Not very interesting. But just play a bit with creating an abstract, and you might hit upon something much more interesting!
Why don’t you join our class? Register now at https://pixeladies.com/classes. The first class begins Feb 1, 2021.
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