Reggimented Saturday

Studiomate, Ben Dover, tries his hand at the assignment

This weekend is another Reggie weekend so I will be up to my elbows in gouache, ink, and gold.

One of our homework assignments had to do with spacing. Spacing can effect mood. During class, we cut out letters from Hermann Zapf's typeface, Palatino. We had our choice of two words. Calligraphy or Languidly. I chose languidly. Our assignment was to create an image with tight spacing and then with wide spacing on an interesting background.

I chose languidly because I have a picture of Ink taking a nap on our old chair in the sunroom. It was hot that day, and Ink had just melted into the cushion. I thought this was the perfect definition of languidly and used tight spacing.

For wide spacing, I thought languidly on an ocean background would work. While trolling images, I found one of a string of seagulls dipping and swooping over the ocean. Through the magic of Paint Shop Pro, I replaced the seagulls with the letters to spell languidly. I tipped the L and added a dot to represent a person just floating languidly in the ocean. Using the clone tool, I added water splashing over the letters and a drop shadow so the letters would look like they were in the picture and not just on the surface. The shadow effect looked better in my head, but the gist is there.

I liked this assignment. It was one of the few assignments I approached with confidence. I enjoy playing around with images in Paint Shop Pro so I could have some fun and enjoyment with this assignment.