Designs on Nature

With Mother's Day coming up why don't you have a go at creating your own gift wrapping paper or greetings card.

The designs in the slide show below were all created from photographs taken of flowers and vegetables in the garden or on the allotment plot.

The original photograph is followed by the designs that have been created from it.

 

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Use the orange arrows on the right to move through the photos - you may need to click twice!

You will need a computer application that will add effects to digital photographs. I have used Colour Magic by Research Machines, and Adobe Photoshop. You may have got a free piece of software, when you bought your camera, that you can use.

 

If you can't take your own photograph the click here. This will take you to Flickr where you can search for an image to use. To get a photo:

• Click in the white box under "Find a photo of" at the bottom left of the screen.
• Type flower and you will have lots of images to choose from.
• Click on the photo that you like and a larger image will open.
• If you still like it then, click the right mouse button over the image.
• Choose "Save picture as" and save the photo onto your computer
• Open up your photograph in the computer application.
• You may need to crop the photograph to get rid of some of the background.
• Find the tools called something like Colour Effects and Image Filters (different applications will have different names for these tools).
• Explore using the tools until you get an effect that you like.

If you are using your own photo:

• First take your photograph. Get up close to the flower or vegetable so that the photograph is detailed. You don't want lots of background.
• Download the photograph onto your computer.
• Open up your photograph in the computer application.
• You may need to crop the photograph to get rid of some of the background.
• Find the tools called something like Colour Effects and Image Filters (different applications will have different names for these tools).
• Explore using the tools until you get an effect that you like.

The tools that I used were, posterise, contrast, hue, emboss. invert, glowing edges and tiling. Play with the effects, adding one effect on top of another. You will need to save your work often because it may be hard to go back later  to an image that you really liked. You can usually use the undo button to go back but some applications only allow you to undo a small number of times. Remember to save your work using a different name or you will overwrite any designs saved earlier.

If you are creating gift wrapping paper you will need to print several copies of your design and stick them together.

 

If you wish to create a greetings card then you may have an application like MS Publisher on your computer that you can use.

If not I have attached a simple Word file at the bottom of this page. Just insert your picture into the box on the right. If you know how, you can change the Word Art and border colours.

 

Have fun!

 

If you create some designs that you are proud of and you want to share them, then please get your parents permission to email it to us. Add your first name, your age, the city that you come from and we will put a selection of photos on the web site.

Do not put your full name or your address on any email if you do not know the person that you are sending the email to. Always get your parents permission before emailing strangers like us! 

 

Adult designs are welcome too!