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— part one may be seen here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/29419-ap-•-early-morning-birds-at-the-marsh/ • Having a boring corporative Christmas event to shoot that day at 10:30, and since I was up and ready quite early, I went to the close by marsh to see the sunrise. I had a good (but too short) time with the light and the birds though most foliage is down. Cold, crisp, clean air granted me some cool light conditions. As always, 600mm ƒ4 @ ƒ8 on D810 combo. Have a look, have a good time! C&C welcomed… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 I was very moved by this scene of the little boy sharing for a moment his grandpa's passion for wildlife 10 This will need some words. That little fellow (swift like nothing else) was hunting at +/- 290m from my position. So this image is no more than 6% of the original frame… but I could'n resist!!!

• — following and completing this thread: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/27639-no-ap-•-first-snow-—picture-heavy/ … ​ Very heavy clouds and fog were not helping me in this but the equation remains and should be completed: I got the gear + here is the challenge = I'm gonna do what? By law (physics laws that is!), birds will fly at the same speed (flight is flight!) in good or bad lighting conditions. I should try to get good results and the solution resides in tweaking the shooting settings accordingly, accepting to compromise here and/or there: higher ISO, same ƒ stop, and, when possible, slower SS. Every time it is different and, today, some Great Egrets really outperformed all the others birds show wise. The light was alien somehow but that did not bother the birds. Have a look, have a good time… C&C welcomed! 1 2 3 4 5 It was also breakfast time for what we call a "Blue Heron"! 6 7 8 This Great Egret is getting dangerously close to the Heron which is a much stronger bird. 9 This hybrid Goose (Greylag + ???) brought a rather modest contribution to the show! 10 "Clear the runway, here I come"!

8I just wrote a story today, about how Crystal Frost learned to fly. and i just finished her illustration with the baby bird... hope you like the image and enjoy the read.. some day i hope to be a professional artist and a story teller... o doodle on I pad using sketch club, when it comes to the rest all done on Affinity Design I learned a lot on cool new ways experiment... so easy and my work flow sonic speed.. Crystals dragon Father refuses to teach his daughter to fly, he needs her to stay out of sight to be safe. Not teaching her to fly keeps her grounded and gives him less to worry about... While her fathers is away catching their dinner Crystal wanders off into the woods. The warmth of the sun shining bright, the beautiful new smell of the clean forest, after a lovely small light shower, Crystal walks into the thick forest,, she hears chirping sound coming from a very tall tree, Curious on what it is, she tries to climb the tree, after many falls and a few bruises, being stubborn refusing to give up. She finally reaches the branch. The chirping sound chattery grew loud, coming from a nest. On a think branch on the tree Baby birds. Five baby birds. Overjoyed and happy to see the creatures. She lays down on the branch to watch the baby birds, being very still and quite hoping not to scare them off.. Flap flap flap, the baby birds in excitement quickly flocked to the bigger bird, the bird open its beak to feed her baby birds, crystals expression quickly changed from a happy smile, to a gross look. Yuck... How can they eat that stuff... However the baby birds seem to like it.. She was relieved she was not a baby bird... The big bird flies off, while the baby birds continue to chatter and chirp.. Worried that the baby birds might fall and get hurt, she stays behind to keep an eye on the baby birds.. Growl, feeling hungry, she looks around for some food. up above her head she sees a big shiny red apple. She slowly and quietly stand up on her hine hoofs trying not to make a sound, grabs at the apple with her mouth, quickly yet quietly goes back to laying down on the branch.. .Munch, munch munch, crunch, eating her snack. she looks back at the nest, one two three four...! Where is the fifth baby bird, looking quickly past the nest she finds the missing baby bird on the edge of the branch, tiny wings spread out, chipping happily, bobbing up and down, Freaking out and not thinking she quickly spings into action to catch the baby bird, only to find herself falling from the tree, afraid she closes her eyes, however suddenly her wings spread open and she find her self flying in the breeze, and coming to a Crash landing in a blueberry bush. Covered in small leaves, broken bush branches, and squished blueberries. She quickly scrambles up, looks in the sky for the baby bird. Tweet Tweet Tweet that sound familiar.. She quickly turns to see the baby bird perched on the broken bush, eating blue berries with her beak.. still hungry, She joins in eating the blueberries... Muzzle covered in blue, full and content, she watches the baby bird, The baby bird lifts his little wings flaps and flies.. Crystal realizing her wings can do the same thing, desides to spend the rest of the day following the baby bird, imitating the birds wing movements , and in the ends learns to fly Excited about what she just learned, she quickly rushes home. the bird perched on a branch watches as she fades off into the deep forest. just getting back , with his catch in a old cloth, crystal cries look what i can do.. she spreads out her wings, flaps them and takes to the sky, does a loop, glides, and lands on her rock.. feeling happy and proud at what she achieved. Seeing his daughter fly for the first time, he frowns, fearful and angary, he lashed out in anger, scolds her for wandering off and tells his Daughter never EVER to fly ever again.. tearful feeling she did something very wrong she promises never to fly again.

• Having a boring corporative Christmas event to shoot that day at 10:30, and since I was up and ready quite early, I went to the close by marsh to see the sunrise. I had a good (but too short) time with the light and the birds though most foliage is down. Cold, crisp, clean air granted me some cool light conditions. As always, 600mm ƒ4 @ ƒ8 on D810 combo. Have a look, have a good time! C&C welcomed… Part 2 is here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/29470-ap-•-early-morning-birds-at-the-marsh-•-part-2/ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 AP was used to clean up debris from the water surface!

Ha-ha! Yes, hodgepodge. What a great word from the past. You don't hear it used now. 'Hodge Podge' would be a great name for a character in a children's book 😊... I like to experiment with the brushes in Affinity Photo, creating image brushes using random sections of images that I consider will make really interesting textures, images like the underside of a toadstool, lichen on a tree branch, rust, peeling paint, tarnished gold, folds in an old sheet, satin, silks, mist, clouds, the texture on an old man's cap. Then I test the brush settings, spacing, rotation, change the colours (or re-do the brush if I'm not happy with it, changing the colour, cutting bits off. etc). Then I export little sections of random bits of a texture as .png files, then re-import them into the brush as variants to rotate, set specing, etc. You get some great brushes by experimenting... I have done some interesting 'Nature' scenes using the photobashing technique and matte painting scenes using my 'Nature' and 'Atmosphere' brushes. I study the colours in a sunset or dawn, sometimes create a colour palette or LUTs from it and create the background gradient and then paint the trees, rocks, background mountains using the brushes I created, grabbing sections of buildings from various sources, re-colouring. Applying textures to change them, build onto them, add lighting to the windows, etc. I am always experimenting. Perspective and distance is challenging, but 'Practice, Perseverance and Patience' usually pays off. It's a lot of fun...

@G-F-H beautiful birds! Always amazing to learn how many varieties there still exist in this world.

Actually, the birds going one way and the deer the other, for me, capture in the image the panic. Unlike people in a workplace they will not have been taught what to do in a fire situation nor will they have participated in a fire drill and been informed of the gathering point after evacuation and there will not be signs on the trees indicating which way to go in the event of a fire. And although when staff in a human workpace all behave in an orderly manner in a previously announced fire drill, who knows what will happen if there is a real fire. The animals may not know which is the route to safety. They may not be aware that there is anywhere outside the wood, or they may have previously stood at the edge of the wood gazing at the open meadow beyond yet never ventured there. William

Ha-ha! Well spotted! While I was putting it together I did wonder whether, if the fire is raging rapidly through the woodland in all directions, leaping from tree to tree and setting alight to the undergrowth, do the animals, in their terror, follow the same route to safety as the birds or do they tear through the woodland in a blind panic, avoiding the fire and smoke as they come across it... And I agree with you: I don't see any similarity between Piero di Cosimo's wonderful painting in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and my own, but it was a great compliment to receive from William. But did you notice that one of the deer and wild boars in Piero di Cosimo's painting have men's heads?

Re: your original 'Fire in the Wood' paintings, I am intrigued that the deer and the birds seem to be fleeing from the fire in opposite directions! Artistic licence? I find that the painting from the Ashmolean does not connect in any way for me with your painting. John

Recent edit .. The Zwin Nature Reserve

Hi, I have been trying to create some atmosphere in a concept art piece of two towers rising up out of the mist in a valley filled with lush vegetation. I used Affinity Photo to create it, painting much of it with the free 'Atmosphere' and 'Nature' brushes I uploaded on the Affinity Forum (plus some other brushes) to create it (links below). I am fascinated by the matte painting technique used by digital artists for all the main film studios to create a visualisation of important scenes that will go into the finished film. Films and series like Vikings, Alien, Dune, Mary Poppins, Ghostbusters, Titanic, Raiders of the Lost Ark, King Kong, the Jurassic Park series of films... and the new 'Rendezvous with Rama' that is (hopefully) in production. All of 'em, really... This is from Wikipedia: "A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that is not present at the filming location." If you are interested in matte painting or concept art check out the following links. There are lots of tutorials too: https://conceptartempire.com/concept-art-tutorials/ https://conceptartworld.com/category/training/ Introduction to Matte Painting Free 'Nature' brushes link (also includes a Word document on how to create your own brushes): Free 'Atmosphere' brushes link:

Free 'Nature' and 'Atmosphere' brushes for Affinity Photo (in one place). Even though I uploaded them, I still have trouble finding them on the forum so I thought I'd put them in one place... I am attaching the 'step-by-step' guide on how I created my 'Nature' image brushes in Affinity Photo. Its a MS Word document and explains how to create a 'Butterfly' brush in Affinity Photo using multiple images. The process is the same for any image(s) whether butterfly, rock, stones, tree, shrub, moss, lichen. At the end of the tutorial I explain another process to create a 'moss' image brush which uses simple selections that you export individually. There may be other and easier ways to do this, but this is the way I have done it because it is a method I use to create them in Corel Painter. I am not so experienced in Affinity Photo, so I don't yet know where one saves seamless textures that you create to re-use; in Corel Painter, you save them in the 'Patterns' Library. The 'step-by-step' tutorial explains... 1. How to Create a Brush Category 2. How to Remove the Background from an Image 3. How to Save the Butterfly as a .PNG (Transparent Background) Image 4. How to Create a ‘Butterfly’ Brush (Multiple Butterfly Images) 5. How to Duplicate a Brush 6. How to Rename a Brush 7. How to Create a ‘Moss’ Brush using Multiple PNGs ...which are the steps you must take to create your first image brush. You can create an image brush just by selecting a single layer, but you need to convert it to a Pixel layer first. I wanted to explain how to create one by selecting it and extracting it from its background. More complicated, but once you have done it once, you can use the same process to create any image brush. I would advise you to experiment and test out all the different brush settings. To load the brush category in Affinity Photo Save the DelN's Free Brushes.afbrushes file Locate the location where you saved the file Open Affinity Photo Double-click the DelN's Free Brushes.afbrushes file. An 'Import Brushes' message will be displayed 'Brushes Imported Successfully' Click OK Click 'Brushes' tab Locate new DelN's Free Brushes Start using the brushes I also attach several images of the brush strokes and their brush names in my DelN's Free Brushes.afbrushes. Enjoy! DelN's Free Brushes Pt1.afbrushes DelN's Free Brushes Pt2.afbrushes DelN's Free Brushes Pt3_Atmosphere Dust & Smoke Brushes.afbrushes DelN's Free Brushes Pt4_Atmosphere Dust & Smoke Brushes.afbrushes How to Create a Butterfly Brush_Multiple Butterfly Images.docx

That's why photography is such a inspiring Hobby. Also on Google+ : See the link below

Every easter I make a puzzle withy cryptographic images. This year the theme was 'Birds'. Easter has of course long since past, but I just realized I didn't share my work here. I'd love to hear feedback if you have any. Everything was made in Affinity Designer! https://matth-ijs.nl/paaspuzzel/2022/

Yes, This is great! I had a Dachshund too and, as dannyg9 says, it captures their spirit so well, their inquisitive nature, theit beautiful faces so full of fun and mischief. The BEST dogs...

• Introduction. Since some 10 days, I'm going around (not fast nor far!) with a set of crutches after a severe fall in an icy outdoor stairway that twisted my left ankle. —"That 's a good one"… said the surgeon, "No need to operate though that will nail or slow you down for some time, I'm afraid!" Yesterday, I couldn't stand it anymore. I asked a friend to help me put the wildlife gear in the car and drive me to the marsh for a couple of hours. Do you remember this girl (young female Mandarin duck) who grabbed my heart in the middle of December? Though I was hooked in a rather platonic affair, she broke my heart… but I'm happy for her… I had the feeling that this romance had no future. Followed in the next post…

A buzzard and a crow over City of Hamburg / Eppendorf Canon EOS 80D Sigma EF 150-600 at 600 1/1600s Handheld Sky smoothed with denoise and bilateral blur Birds treated with mild tone map (20% / 20%) and clarity

@DelNI would love to have your instructions and also the Nature brushes you are willing to share. I am trying to draw terrariums and similar setups. Nature brushes would be great thanks

A little test based on an illustration from a cereal box. Playing around and getting use to the pen tool and shapes...

@SrPx: Thank you for your comment. The explanation of the two arts is correct and I agree it is more Art Nouveau than Art Deco, even if some elements reflect the latter. I believe Gaudi was also influenced by Art Nouveau, which probably is the reason why the work on the Sagrada Familia is pain staking and time consuming. Mimicking the organic works of nature is a huge challenge.

So tonights late night doodle is dedicated to the special lady in my life... Ok maybe this was an excuse to play with creating my own custom brushes. I am building a nice little collection of brushes. So tonight was about brushes and mixing up some vectors with some pixels all in one image. You work in this application long enough you start jumping between the pixel and Draw Persona and you dont even think twice. I love to know what everyone interpretation of the story is in this image. (Squirrel) ohh did I mention I say Big Hero 6 the movie today? Go see it !!! It is worth every bit of the coin. Anyway enjoy.

Okay, one more OT item on Cormorants; just came across this while reading (yeah, a real book, for cryin' out loud)... From The Wonder of Birds by Jim Robbins. 'Some birds can count. ... In the 1970s, biologist Pamela Egremont watched as Chinese fishermen on the Li River used cormorants to catch fish. The fishermen place a neck ring on the birds, which cinches their throats tightly so they can't swallow, and they are then trained to return with a fish in their mouth. The birds are allowed, however, to eat every eighth fish. When they return to the fishermen after the seventh fish, Egremont wrote in a journal article, they "stubbornly refuse to move again until their neck ring is loosened" so they can eat the eighth fish as usual. "They ignore an order to dive and even resist a rough push or a knock, sitting glum or motionless on their perches. One is forced to conclude that these highly intelligent birds can count up to seven."' This is in the 10th chapter, Bird Brain - Human Brain, where it explains that in the last 10 years scientists have re-evaluated brains in birds and now conclude they are much smarter than previously thought. The old description bird-brain no longer applies.

Only Mother Nature could make an image like this. I am still messing around with the new release of Affintiy Photo. Once again this is one of my macro photos of a small cut and polished stone. The RAW file was processed through AP with only slight adjustments to bring out the color. It is still a little rough and needs further work but AP makes it easy. I hope you like it as much as I.

Hello all. This is a mockup for a YouTube channel I am working on every so often. Green is representative of nature along with some other things which is the reason for the color. If you would like to see more logos and branding I have done, they can be seen here https://www.behance.net/Statement-Design

The linked page includes the following. > ---- The Alphabet Synthesis Machine is an interactive art work at http://alphabet.tmema.org on the web, created for Art21 and PBS by Golan Levin with Jonathan Feinberg and Cassidy Curtis. There are available for free download from this present webspace a number of fonts. These fonts, produced by William Overington using the Alphabet Synthesis Machine, are available for free download from this webspace by kind permission of Mr Golan Levin. All of these fonts contain abstract characters which can be accessed using the letters A to Z and a to z. Each font also contains digits and punctuation, which are the same for every font produced using The Alphabet Synthesis Machine. ---- Later on the same page is the following. > LADY_M_G.TTF, Lady_M_greets_the_horse_L If one tries these in WordPad in blue at a 300 point size, the sequence ML produces the painting "Lady M greets the horse L" and the sequence WZ produces the painting "Lady reading haiku to an elephant" on the screen. ---- There are various items about the Alphabet Synthesis Machine on the web. http://www.flong.com/archive/projects/alphabet/index.html I learned of the Alphabet Synthesis Machine from the following mailing list post https://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2002-m02/0541.html I posted in the thread. https://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2002-m03/0128.html The link in that post no longer exists, yet the Pools of glass in ceramic font is available from the following web page. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/font0100.htm (By the way, please do not use the email address from which I wrote that post. It still exists but is typically full of spam so a message would be very unlikely to get through.) To use the Alphabet Synthesis Machine an end user would first draw on screen a shape. So it could be a circle, or a square and so on, and then the machine could be run and it iterated 52 glyphs influenced by that glyph and some user set controls if I remember correctly. The end user can stop the machine whenever and inspect the glyphs. The end user can then save the font, giving it a name. So i used to look at the glyphs and decide upon a name for the font. Sometimes the glyphs produced just looked like abstract designs, yet sometimes the image seemed to have the look of something. Such as the lady, as if reading a book. But what was in the book? Maybe haiku. Another glyph had a part that reminded me of the trunk of an elephant. Then a lady as if extending her hand for it to be kissed in a greeting. Then that glyph reminded me of a horse. In one font, the look of the glyph encoded as a letter G looked to me like two cranes, as in cranes that are birds. But what else? The part at the left reminded me of a decorative arch in a Japanese garden. And behind the cranes, a roundish shape. Maybe the moon. Yet not circular, so maybe a gibbous moon. Cranes before a gibbous moon That is an image that I produced in 2021. I got it printed as a 7 inch by 5 inch portrait format greetings card using the Papier online facility and after I received it I framed it in a large oak effect frame, sold as for a 10 inch by 8 inch photograph, that I had gotten delivered by Tesco with my grocery. I was looking at the web yesterday evening and apparently there is a name for the general phenomenon of imagining patterns in random data, and another name as a subset where the data is an image. William