I have been working in my sketchbook intermittently. I showed you the weeping birch sketch but thought I would play around with it in Photoshop to see if I could color the background. But I couldn’t figure out how to do that easily. I always forget how to use all the features and the complexity of the program always discourages me from trying much. But I can add filters to see the different effects.
Here’s the original.
This is the bas relief filter. So it does give the effect of a colored background somewhat.
This filter is called glowing edge. Essentially just reverses the colors in this sketch.
And this one is called palette knife. I think I could use this to carve a lino cut stamp. I might give it a try if I can get it transferred clearly enough.
This is a recent sketch that I drew from a photo from my Hawaii trip. The scanner just didn’t pick up the shadows and the highlights on the flower very well. Maybe a photo of it would work better. Hope you have a good weekend. Thanks for stopping by.
Ruth Lane Art 
Wow, I love the bad relief filter effect, the result is impressively 3 dimensional. Will have to remember that one…
Thanks Teri – yes, I like that one too. You can also change the foreground and background colors with that to get different effects as well.
I’ve long since given up on Photoshop – to be fair I didn’t try very hard with it but I just feel it’s all too much for me to learn. I just stick with a free programme that lets me crop and straighten my images.
I would print off a copy of the silver birch sketch, cut the trees out, then lay the cut-out on different coloured pieces of paper.
Yes Lyn, giving up on Photoshop seems like a viable option. It is more than I can remember for sure. Someone suggested that I print out the sketch on good paper and then color the background. So I’d have two sketches that way.
I like the original. Clean smart lines.
Thanks Marilyn!
I like the original, though the bas relief is my favourite of the effects. I gave up on Photoshop too and, like Lyn just use a very simple free app.
Thanks Judith, I use one of those free apps too a lot of the time. But I keep trying on Photoshop even though I can’t remember half of what it does.
That is a beautiful sketch of the birch trees and always fun to see it with the different filters. Photoshop is hard when you start using it especially when you don’t use it regularly. I used to use illustrater, but would struggle now. What also frustrates me is when I start to get somewhere with a program the update and change it!
I totally agree. Not sure why software programmers think updates are a good thing.
Another vote for the bas relief filter – looks like a frosty day.
As others have said, the more regularly you use a program, the easier it becomes, though I think Photoshop is quite complicated.
Thanks Kim, yes, if you don’t use it you lose it 🙂