Designing for Weaving with Image Programs

I’m thrilled to be doing the current Computer Design workshop at the Online Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers with Leigh Tate. I don’t know what I’m looking to achieve so I’m just going to have fun. I’m using Photoshop, mainly because I have it and want to use it more. [I normally use Fireworks for my photo editing here.] However, Leigh has us also using on-line photo editors such as Cellsea or downloading GIMP.

Teaching computer programs to such a diverse group of creatives can’t be easy as there are many different operating systems and set ups on individual computers combined with everyone having different experiences with computers. But Leigh is doing a wonderful job. I’ve jumped in ahead a bit to ‘have a go’ with photoshop but I await Leigh’s further lessons eagerly. Just the filters in photo editing are capable of creating ideas. However, because I work with loom woven textile design I think I may try to create a profile template to overlay on my editing. I especially like the way I can use it for developing Ikat designs. Photoshop also has lots of tools that change the colours instantly which is better than any weaving software I have – at least for loose design ideas.

Here I used a Charcoal and Chalk
filter directly on the above image, cropped the image, then
cut and pasted strips of the image.
I then enlarged the canvas of the image and added other lines and blocks to emulate woven structures. Finally I copied the whole thing ’2 up’ to
create a new textile.