In the Womb of the Rose

For my example I am using an image made by Dorothy Hardy based on the goddess Eastre - who has many similarities with the Celtic Sheela Na Gig.
Here is what Dorothy said about Eastre.

The inspiration for this collage was John Duncan Fergusson’s bronze bust of Eastre, Hymn to the Sun. This is in the McKellan gallery in Glasgow. It was a very difficult task to select any figure representing God at all, as this is not normally an area in which I am at all interested. But the placid face of Eastre, sharply defined in bronze, gave some glimmer of inspiration. The resulting collage gives only a hint of this deep peacefulness. It comes across more as quite a comic representation of egg-bound womanhood. The small scale necessary for the work proved one of the most exacting constraints. The goddess’s legs had to be tucked up in order to fit her whole body onto an A4 sheet whilst keeping any detail in the features on that scale. My figure drawing was pushed beyond its limits, so a repeated use of eggs to make up enveloping shapes seemed the best way forward. This also gave a good hint as to Eastre’s name and function as a fertility goddess. She is green simply because this was the next colour in the spectrum after the bright sun colours in the background. This left the darker blues and purples to show something of the depth within.

Click here for a guide to PhotoShop -

If you do not need this then move on to the next page - Workshop Guidelines

This is an example - not necessarily an improvement!

	This image is very strong - particularly around the face- but needs work on the integration of the background. The rays in the background of the image are too strong in red and yellow and detract from the central image. To see the image in black and white rollover the pointer:
	1. Adjust the colours – make sure they work on screen where the luminosity of the design will show you which areas are most prominent. The background should not be more dominant than the figure however bright the colour. Here I have altered the hue of the image and changed the colour of the yellow background stripes to green to make them more of a contrast to the egg surrounding the main figure.
	2. Clear space - This gives light to the design and allows bright colours breathing space. You might not think you need it but try and see what the difference might be. In stained glass the clear glass shows up as the brightest as it allows light to pass straight through the image - as such it outlines the colours and gives the main areas emphasis - Put it in as a thick white paint line. On another layer I have added some white to signify clear glass
	3. Features - Put in some preliminary lines for lead and face. Draw on your features for faces hands and special images but do not do it in black - choose a dark gray/brown and a small brush - Here some of the detail for the face is done in white.
	4. Lastly add different thickness for Lead line - You can draw in the main lead lines that will support the image - to separate the colours but do not put too many - and do not make them all the same weight or thickness. To check the gray scale now run the cursor over the image
	Now get the template you want from the wombrose website. Put it into a Photo Shop layer on top of your last image as a new layer. It should be transparent in the centre but if not you can cut out the centre by selecting it with the magic wand/eraser. Then you should see see your design underneath. You can alter the size of the image to fit in the circle.
	Now you can draw in more lines and fill the colour between the lines with the fill tool by selecting the space and then using an eye dropper to put in colour.
	You might make an entirely new background
	2. Borders - Always do borders last - they are meant to focus your eyes on the centre panel so do not make them to strong - small areas of bright colour rather than large ones. An easy way to do a border is to make a design for part of one (say 1/8th of the circle) and then copy and paste it into the space provided)
	The satellite panels can be added now or sketched in later. Remember to save this file as a new name. Once you have finished you can send your design to the Gallery via the web page - remember to send some details about the image as well - the name of the character - a brief outline of the character’s story and the meaning any significant 'attributes' involved. You can check the gray-scale again - once you are finished. Run the cursor over the image to try it Flatten - When you have finished your design to your satisfaction you can save it as a psd file for yourself but it will be too big to upload. But if you flatten it (In Layer – Flatten) it will be much smaller as you will lose the separate layers) Make it a tiff file in Save As (name/your intials3.tif). then change the dpi to 72 and save a jpg to send to the workshop.