More than papering over the cracks

Other than buying diamonds for Goddesses I'm also in the process of learning Photoshop in my spare time. An easy occupation you would think, and yet the more I do the more I see there is to learn. I've always been interested in photography but only as an aide to producing a painting. I'll see a scene I like and capture it on film (or digitally, now) with the bare thought that it would make a good painting at some point. I might be aware that the lighting is right and the scene is fine, but would be better without the guy on the scooter, or the roadsign next to the little cottage. But that doesn't really matter because I'd just take them out of the painting. Well now I'm finding out through Photoshop that minor things like roadsigns, men on scooters or even cars can be removed totally from the photo itself to improve it.

And this weeks lesson was even more interesting for me - as I delved back into history to find some well beloved images that hadn't quite stood the test of time. Well, to be more exact, some old photos that were torn, scratched and had had indefinable liquids spilt on them at some point in the past,  infact, the word "knackered" would describe them perfectly!!! LOL

The one of the puppy was the easiest to deal with. The labrador puppy was the dog I grew up with and the photo was really cute, but at some point the black and white photo had acquired some bright pink felt-tip pen on it, and the edges were torn and ripped. So it was just a case of scanning it as a black and white image (shown here) that deleted the pink and then re-building the grass and adjusting the contrast a bit to make the picture whole again. Perfect, and still verrry cute!

The picture with the people in it (all the women in it are related to me but only the youngest one is still alive and she's in her 70's now) was really interesting to do as it was in such a bad state to start with. But bit by bit I got rid of the scratches and creases, the tears and the discolouring. And this is where the "artist" gets to work. Because its very like painting a picture - you have to choose the size of the "brush" and the "tone" and "texture" and  "opacity" of all of that, and apply them in the right place to hide whatever needs hiding. All very specialised and difficult, and long winded, even for me, and I'm used to doing it when I paint a picture. Fascinating work though, to see it building up and then to see the whole picture complete again. I'm delighted with the end result and can see that all my hard work has paid off for the end result. The picture took hours to complete as there are a myriad tiny little scratches in it. It's a bit like rebuilding time!

Now all of this is great, and I'm really loving learning Photoshop, BUT its not the same as painting a picture at all. It doesn't capture the essence in the same way. I love photos but a painting picks up more of the feel of the image I think.  My way forward is still as an artist.

Back to the Goddesses now.........

Beginnings

If Samuel hadn't had a daughter called Sophia in 1793 whose sons were blacksmiths

If Mary (born 1796), and a widow at 26, hadn't gone on to marry James and had a son called Eli

If James and Mary hadn't had an 8th child, a daughter called Sarah, born in 1798

If Samuel and Elizabeth hadn't had a son John in 1799

If Stephen hadn't married Hannah (born 1785) in 1805 and had six children

If William and Ann hadn't had a son called John in 1806

If John hadn't married Kitty (born 1814) who worked in a cotton mill from the age of 7, and had a daughter called Ann

If John and Sarah hadn't had a daughter Rebecca in 1824

If Jemima (born 1801) hadn't married John in 1825 and had a daughter called Elizabeth

If Joseph (born 1805) hadn't married Mary, a cotton spinner, (born 1801) and had a son Ralph in 1835

If John hadn't married Sarah in 1826 and had a daughter called Sarah

If Sarah hadn't married William in 1847

If Eli hadn't married Rebecca in 1848 and had 7 children, the 4th a son, John

If Frederick and Elizabeth hadn't had a daughter called Rosa in 1859

If Rosa hadn't married John and had a son Alfred who fought in the Boer War

If Sarah Jane hadn't run a pub and had a daughter called Millicent who was a dressmaker

If Alfred and Millicent hadn't married and had 13 children
 
 
 
I wouldn't have been born.

That's awesome............................ isn't it?

I'm only on this planet because of all these people and what they did in their lives. Without any one of them, I wouldn't exist.

And neither would my art.

I find that somehow very humbling............................