Feather Fan

9/10/22

    Oh, I so wanted to date this 9/10/11, but I suppose it’ll be better to stay up to date.

    This time the starting image for PFCC was a pink fluffy feather from Pixabay. I’ve played around making fans before, so decided I wanted to try again. Knowing what I wanted made it much easier to find images to mix together. Rather than find all new images, I wanted to recycle stock that I’d already downloaded. The background is three layers of  textures from Flypaper Taster pack, applied with Adobe Paper Texture Pro  with various blend modes and opacities. I topped it off with a watercolor scene from Pixabay with a multiply blend mode at 75% opacity to allow the textures below to show through.    

    In actuality, I often start with something neutral on the bottom layer and save the background specifics until I have the major components in place. Other times, I start with the background first.    

    The fan base is from vintagescrapbooking.blogspot.com. The hand holding the fan is from clip art collection by my ancient ExpressIt app. The woman in the kimono is from AdobeStock

    I used a step and repeat transform on the feathers to make the fan shape. Here are 2 old tutorials on how to make a Spirograph -- kaleidoscope pattern. You can skip the part about deleting pixels and go to the next part with better masking. I cringed several other times as well, but I guess it only shows I've kept learning since 2016. The first time I saw this technique was from Corey Barker either on the old Photoshop User website or PS TV. I've done some modifications Try this with shapes, too -- use blend modes

http://bit.ly/Step-Transform-1
http://bit.ly/Repeat-transform-2
If you also resize as well as rotate on the second step, you'll get a fractal pattern. I generally start large. This technique will NOT work on smart objects yet.

    I was really pleased with the feather fan. It’s the best fan I’ve made so far.

    Take care and stay well.