The Art Of Drawing And Creating Patterns

[Gill]

A number of people have mentioned that they would like to produce scroll saw patterns but they're not very good at drawing. I always regarded myself as a rotten artist too but that didn't deter me from producing patterns! I found that I could use free programs such as the Gimp and Inkscape to adapt photographs, whilst paid-for programs such as CorelDraw could make simple patterns in the style of Steve Good. Heck, I've even used the likes of Open Office and Microsoft Office to produce simple patterns. I didn't buy a full version of CorelDraw; I bought a graphics tablet that was on sale at Aldi and had a lite version of CorelDraw bundled in with the software. That version is perfectly adequate for my needs, so my advice is to be on the lookout for these sorts of bargains. You don't need high-end graphics software to produce patterns. What you do need is patience to learn how to use them.

Still, it's handy if you can draw and adapt your drawings to make scroll saw patterns. As I've already said, I couldn't draw either, but then my attention was drawn to a book by Dr Betty Edwards called Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain. She has a website here and her book is available through Amazon UK too. It wouldn't be fair of me to give away the secrets of her technique but it certainly worked for me and I recommend it whole-heartedly to anyone who would like to learn how to draw but thinks they can't.

It's about time this forum had a new thread about how to create your own scroll saw patterns. I suspect there's a lot of useful knowledge we can share here .

 

[Gary Morris]

Thanks Gill - I'm up for that, if I can produce my own originals, then copyright doesn't matter, plus I wont feel like I've plagerised someone, I'll read the link too. "Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain" does it involve surgery?

Gary

 

[Gill]

"Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain" does it involve surgery?

:lol:

If it does, then I've been doing it wrong all these years! Dr Edwards reckons most of us are predisposed to use the left hemisphere of our brain in our daily lives because this is the part of the brain which copes best with symbols, such as words and numbers. It's our right hemisphere which is best suited to dealing with shapes and shadows but many of us haven't developed it. As children we are trained to see symbols instead of what is really there, so a child will use the left side of its brain to represent a man as a series of lines or circles because that is how other people will most easily be able to recognise what has been drawn. Another example is a Christmas tree being drawn as a series of connected triangles.

What Dr Edwards does is present her students with exercises that confound the left side of the brain and bring the right side into play. It's a bit like making an inept car mechanic stop trying to repair a punctured tyre by bashing it with a tyre lever and making him use the lever to prise the tyre over the wheel rim instead.

 

[Gary Morris]

It does sound interesting, and will be interesting to explore.

 

[ColeyS1]

Ive recently finished making a lightbox. Ive wanted one for years but didnt like the thought of parting with my money. Cant wait to give it a try. Im thinking I'll print out a photo then trace the outlines then decide what bits to shade in. Ive had limited success doing it the software way but I think that was partly to do with not having a nice shadowy picture to start with. Thanks for the info Gill Im always keen to try learning new things.

 

[boysie39]

Jeez Gill ,just when I thought I had this scrolling thing almost sussed out you had to go and throw in a hugh wobbler . :shock: :shock: It's always the same for me , just when I had come to terms with the mobile phone ,the went and stuck a camera in it ,then they added text which I still can not use :evil: then bluetooth :? and the devil knows what else :roll: :roll: . I have three computers and none of them will do what I want them to do :roll: :roll: . and now you think that Dr . Betty can find another part in me brain that she can develop into something useful !!! :shock: :shock: .Oh Woven Death indeed . :lol: :lol: :lol:

Seriously Gill , what you have posted is a fantastic help for the new scrollers starting off in their new hobby , ( there are probably some of the established ones who might find it of interest as well ) It will move them forward in their hobby and save them a lot of researching , Me , I will suss out what I can but I won't hold out much hope for DR Betty .

Gill , thank you for taking the time to pass on your very helpful tips ,these can only make the world of the scroller that much easier ,

Take care , God Bless.

 

[Gill]

Oh Woven Death indeed . :lol: :lol: :lol:

As Dobby the house elf would say, "It's a clue, Harry Potter". Mind, my signature block has nothing to do with Harry Potter, just as Dobby's clue was so bizarre as to be unfathomable.

Eugene, you're making great strides with your scrolling and it does your inquiring mind credit that you want to explore every facet of the craft. But it's like being in a football team - some players can run fast and score goals, other players have vision to control play and others jump about between posts catching the ball. You don't have to produce patterns to be a successful scroller - just be happy and proud of what you do best and make sure you keep posting the piccies .

Good luck with the light box, Mr ColeyS1 . I've heard a lot of claims about how useful they can be, although I've never tried one myself. I should imagine that its effectiveness will depend a lot on the suitability of the source photograph to be converted into a scroll saw pattern. When I consider making a pattern from a photograph, my first thought is how much contrast it has. Over the years I've seen some wonderfully subtle family photographs converted into ghastly line drawings of subjects that are barely recognisable as humans! I particularly remember one renowned woodcarver arrogantly imply she could make a scroll saw pattern from any photograph, so somebody posted a photograph of a forest snowscape for her to convert :twisted: . We never heard from her again .

 

[Chippygeoff]

I love designing plaques, for me it is the only way forward. Most weeks I get one or several orders for one off plaques. I use a variety of programs for this including photoshop and fireworks but the one I use the most is microsoft word. It is so easy to make a basic plaque using the shapes provided. I can bring up an oval shape and then another for the stand. I then use word art for the text and this can be virtually anything from "one in a million mum," to a wedding plaque.

I have just started using a light box with 2 spotlights and the results are out of this world.

 

[Wilder]

I have just looked into getting Gimp on my computer, but am finding even the download instructions difficult. The site talks about windows XP, but does anyone know if it will work on windows vista? If it does, how can I find out what CPU my laptop has, because the site says it will only work with certain ones.

Confused from France

 

[CHJ]

Download GIMP 2.8.2 – Installer for Windows XP SP3 or later

It should run fine.

 

[Wilder]

Thank you CHJ. I wasn't sure if Vista counted as being later than XP or if it was different. Anyway, you said it should work, and it did! =D>

Now I just have to figure out how the hell to use it!

Chris

 

[Gary Morris]

Wilder, when you find out, let me know! I've just about got the basics of InkScape, but have been told by several people that Gimp is by far a better program, let us know how you get on, I'm going to go over to Gimp, should be fun.

Gary

 

[CHJ]

In the latest versions Gimp defaults to .xcf file format for saves. (used to be able to select differing extensions in the save dialog)

To save as JPG or GIF you now need to use the Export function.
Very powerfull program if you care to delve into its capabilities but simple to use if you just want the basics.

 

[Gill]

Although they are both graphics programs, Inkscape and the Gimp work differently. The Gimp is a traditional graphics program which works on pixels, rather like Paint and Photoshop. Inkscape, however, uses vector graphics and is more like CorelDraw. Both have their uses. I tend to use the Gimp when I'm adapting photographs to make patterns, whereas I use Inkscape to make patterns such as those Steve Good makes. It's usually not a good idea to start a pattern with the one program and try to switch to the other half way through!

 

[AndyT]

I like the idea of Gimp - free, open-source and powerful - but I've never used it much and so whenever I do it's all a bit bewildering. For anyone who has got to know Photoshop at all, it might be worth having a look at Gimpshop. It's an alternative user interface for Gimp, which is supposed to make it look a lot more like Photoshop, which for a lot of people is more 'normal'. I've not used it myself, but it could be worth a try!

http://www.gimpshop.com/

 

[JakeS]

For anyone who has got to know Photoshop at all, it might be worth having a look at Gimpshop. It's an alternative user interface for Gimp, which is supposed to make it look a lot more like Photoshop, which for a lot of people is more 'normal'. I've not used it myself, but it could be worth a try!

As a long-time Photoshop (Elements) user, I found GimpShop just as unusable as The GIMP when I last tried it - but to be fair, I last tried it a long time ago. The GIMP does seem to almost go out of its way to be different in some regards, which doesn't help people learn it when they're used to other, more common image programs.

My recommendation for anyone on a Windows machine who wants a free alternative raster-graphics (bitmaps, JPEGs etc.) image program is Paint.NET, which works quite a bit like Photoshop and other mainstream image programs do. I'd second the recommendation for Inkscape as a pretty good free vector program.

 

[Wilder]

I am trying to plough through the Gimp tutorials on Scrollsaw Village at the moment, but it isn't easy because the videos were done in 2009, so the version I have is not quite the same. I did try following some YouTube videos, but had the same problem and came to the conclusion that the Gimp hates me! Not giving up just yet, though.

I have downloaded Inkscape, but since what I want to do is turn photos into silhouettes I think Gimp might be more suitable. I will have to be persistent though, because I never did get the hang of photoshop either. My problem is that I learn much better when I have someone to show me what to do - online user manuals always seem to speak in a language I don't understand.

 

[Webby]

I am trying to plough through the Gimp tutorials on Scrollsaw Village at the moment, but it isn't easy because the videos were done in 2009, so the version I have is not quite the same. I did try following some YouTube videos, but had the same problem and came to the conclusion that the Gimp hates me! Not giving up just yet, though.

I have downloaded Inkscape, but since what I want to do is turn photos into silhouettes I think Gimp might be more suitable. I will have to be persistent though, because I never did get the hang of photoshop either. My problem is that I learn much better when I have someone to show me what to do - online user manuals always seem to speak in a language I don't understand.

i will second that quote .....

 

[Clockie]

I don't know how to help without insulting somebody. If you where living locally you are welcome to call in.
Decide which one you want and stick with that until you are confident. Learning both at the same time is a recipe for disaster. The open source programs are more difficult to learn than commercial programs. Commercial programs have hundreds of programers on a full time bases where as open source is a disperse network of professionals and amateurs. The bought programs are usually slicker and better presented. All of them have bugs and limitations.
To get the best out of your chosen program you must keep in mind the principle of how it functions. That is for Photshop. Gimp you are always dealing with individual pixels. You can do lots of things to them move, delete, change colour - abit or a lot. The programs deal with the how you do this.
Inkscape, Coreldraw, Illustrator only deal with lines and how to manipulate them.
I use Coreldraw for my projects and print the plans out in red lines with a grey background.

One major difference between pixel and lines is that when you start to enlarge them , the lines will always remain sharp where as the pixels squares will become visible. Also because of where open source comes from there is a greater tendency to use the keyboard rather than the mouse. After a while you will find that the keyboard is much quicker.

I don't think this gets us much further really.

 

[Clockie]

I should have mentioned Autocad. Just don't go there. If the others are giving you headache this will give you major neuro- surgery, if only the cost. There are people making a living using Autocad who do not know the difference between model space and paper space.
To get you started "The idiots guide to " It will start you very slowly but it will not go into the bowels of the program. Learning these programs will take a few months.