Take One Painted Background

I mentioned in an earlier post that I photograph all my painted/dyed/embossed papers before I use them in my work. I thought I would show you a very simple process that anyone can do using Paint Shop Pro (or photoshop). You can download a 30 day trial copy of PSP to have a play with photographs or scans of your painted papers here.

This is one of my hand painted papers using Distress Inks

You will remember this painted paper that I did using the distress inks. First of all I made a copy of my original design. It's so easy to get carried away playing with the software so save your originals.

I added the polar co-ordinates effect. I usually add the seamless tiling effect and perhaps another polar co-ordinate. You can do this a few times and get some pretty neat results.
Here it is with a few more polar co-ordinates and seamless tiling effects added. You know when it's time to stop when you start going round in circles.

Another effect and you can see how I am subtly changing the colours of the original design.

Another effect and you can completely change the colour scheme.

A little more manipulation and your design has changed again.

I often use some of the artistic effects in Paint Shop Pro and get really nice results.

You can see how the design and colour is changing. I save at every stage because I get so engrossed in experimenting with the design I forget what filters I have used.

You can also create patterns or kaleidoscopes and add even more filters to change your design.

I think this would make a great fabric postcard which I could embellish with beads.

You can change the colour completely. I used Artistic effects - chrome for this one. Using this effect you can change it to whatever colour you like.

I could play for hours with this one painted paper. As you can see what you can do by simply adding different effects to the original. The possibilities are endless. Imagine what you can do when you start adding layers.

Once you are happy with your design you can print it to paper, fabric, Lazertran, organza. I have playing with printing onto Lutrador using Inkaid with great results and also Inkaid on it's own - now there's a thought. There are no limits to what you can do.