Huge collection of free nature & science images & poster tutorial

The Biodiversity Heritage Library provide free access to their recourses, including thousands of scanned copies of books which are no longer under copyright. I've collected a few of my favourite images from the site below. As always, double check the links to make sure that the images are still copyright free when you come to use them in your projects. Scroll down to see how I used one of them to mock up a simple poster design.

Click here

Click here

Click here

Click here

Click here

Poster Tutorial

Open a new A4 document in Photoshop and paste in a copy of the fox image.

Hit M to select the Marquee tool and draw a rectangle around the brown edge. Hit delete to remove it.

 Right click on the Marquee tool and select Eliptical Marquee. Type 10 in the Feather box, this will create a soft, feathered edge to the shape.

Draw an ellipse around the fox and press CTRL C and CTRL V to copy paste it. Toggle the eye on the original fox layer to hide it for now.

Hit I to select the Eyedropper tool, click somewhere on the sandy part of the image to select that colour (try to pick the bit that seems to form the majority of the background colour).

Select the background layer and press Shift F5 to open the fill tool. Select foreground colour and press ok.

Create a new layer behind the fox layer and press B to select the Brush tool. Using a watercolour brush (you can download some for free here) we can start to extend the painting. Use the Eyedropper tool to select the appropriate colours.

Work your way around the edge of the fox image, adding splashes of watercolour where you feel appropriate. Experiment with the different brushes and layering the colours until you are happy with the effect.

Click on the fox image layer and select the clone stamp tool. Holding down the Alt key, click on part of the creamy background colour, next to the Fox 1/3 wording near the bottom. A bullseye will appear.

Hold down the left mouse button and drag the circle over the wording. Keep clicking and dragging until the wording has disappeared. You can find a tutorial on using the clone stamp here.

Type in the details for your poster. I used fonts AdornsS Condensed and Hummingbird.

Tada!

Competition Time!

It's high time we had another competition. Make sure you've subscribed to the blog (the button is on the front page) then head over to our Facebook page and comment done on the pinned post for an entry into the giveaway. Like and share the post for an extra chance to win.

We'll announce the winner around midday on Saturday 25 November.

Good luck!

Tiny driftwood weaving

I haven't been weaving very long but it's quite addictive. There are tons of good tutorials on the internet but I particularly like Weave With Pat and The Weaving Loom for their easy to follow guides and examples of the different techniques. 

I fell in love with The Weaving Loom's stick weaving tutorial and decided to give it a go. Visit her tutorial here for a much better example of how to do this, or read on for the half-arsed version. 

You will need:
A Y shaped stick (I used some driftwood). Make sure it's strong enough to withstand some tension.
Embroidery threads, wool, roving and whatever else you feel like weaving with.
A darning needle (the blunt with a big hole kind of needle).

Get yourself a good stick. This is not a good stick. It's very small and fiddly.

Tie some thread to the stick. This will be your warp (the vertical threads)

Wrap the thread around the upper stick (where you knotted it) and then bring it over the lower stick and wrap once.

The thread will cross in the middle. Repeat till you run out of stick.

Tie off the end. You want it to be tight but not super tight. Bouncy but not loose.

Thread a needle with contrasting embroidery floss. This will be your weft.

Bring the floss over the first warp and under the second.

Repeat until you reach the end.

Bring the thread around the last warp and repeat in the other direction.

This line of weft should be opposite to the one above (so under then over)

Use the needle to push the woven threads together. Add another line or two of weft.

Cut the thread leaving a tail a few inches long (You can weave it in later).

The picture isn't upside down. I started weaving upside down. It happens. Add a new line of warp. See here to learn how to do this stitch (it's called Soumak)

Push your lines of weft together and admire it at a jaunty angle.

Repeat the Soumak steps in the opposite direction. It looks like teeny arrows. :-D

Add some more rows of regular stitches. Like the first step. They probably have a name.

Add some wool roving. Regret this bitterly because it's too bloody fiddly in miniature.

Fill the rest of space with fat stitches because you've tired of the tiny weaving experiment.

Use the needle to weave the ends in to the back of the weaving. Do a better job than this hot mess.

Ta Da. Behold your tiny messy woven stick thing.