Photoshop Trick and couple of drawings

Not much new art today. Every now and then life gets in the way of art and that has been what has been happening to me this past week. So above is a small, and I do mean small pen and ink drawing that I added colored pencil to. Not a lot of color, just some blue and yellow. Done on white Stonehenge, size of the center is approx 4 inches square. No opinions on my part for this one, it was just something I did to give me something to do while my mind was distracted by life.

Above is a drawing from my sketchbook of a Great Blue Heron. I believe this will be the center of the border piece I was working on this spring.

Thank heavens for Photoshop. Since I have scans of both the heron drawing and the finished border I can combine the two  in one file (different layers) and using a layer mask on the scan of the borders show off the drawing in the center of the border as it will be in real life. This allows me to play with the size of the drawing as it shows in the center. See the two images below:

Not sure which size of the Heron I prefer, I think the one on the right. Note that I didn't spend a lot of time cleaning the edges with the brush tool, so you can see some areas of paper from the scan of the border which is on top of the drawing scan. 

For those with Adobe Photoshop who want to know what I did, I opened the file, made a copy of the image so the image is on a layer that can be modified. Then I added a Layer Mask to that layer, I used the reveals all option, then switching the color swatches so that black is on top and active I selected the brush tool and proceeded to wipe out the center of the scan. The drawing scan was then copied over into the border file, placed so that it was underneath the border. Then I played with the size of the drawing image until I liked what I saw.  I hold down the shift key while dragging corners, that way the drawing doesn't get distorted. If I had taken more time with the brush tool I could have had totally smooth edges around the border. In this case I don't really care so didn't bother.  

This is a very quick and useful way of combining and modifying photographs.

One last image today:

I spent some time walking to various locations this past week, and when the day is sunny I always haul the camera long. Above is a photograph of some blooming peonies in a neighbors yard. I love the sight and smell of blooming Peonies, we had them in our yard when I was a kid. Don't love the ants that also love them for their sweet sap, but the flowers are beautiful. I think this pink and white combination is esp. lovely.

That is it for today. Per usual comments are always welcome.