Spring Season

Spring is one of the four temperate seasons,it is the transition period between winter and summer. Spring and "springtime" refer to the season, and broadly to ideas of rebirth, renewal and regrowth.
The specific definition of the exact timing of "spring" varies according to local climate, cultures and customs.
There are  four seasons in many climatic areas: spring, summer, autumn (or fall) and winter.These are demarcated by the values of their average temperatures on a monthly basis, with each season lasting three months. The three warmest months are by definition summer, the three coldest months are winter, and the intervening gaps are spring and autumn.

  
The original picture  

The Photoshop manipulated picture with Mask






In spring, the axis of the Earth is increasing its tilt toward the Sun and the length of daylight rapidly increases for the relevant hemisphere. The hemisphere begins to warm significantly causing new plant growth to "spring forth," giving the season its name .
Snow begins to melt, and streams swell with runoff. Frosts, become less severe. Temperate climates have no snow and rare frosts, the air and ground temperature increases more rapidly. Many flowering plants bloom this time of year, in a long succession sometimes beginning even if snow is still on the ground, continuing into early summer.
Spring is seen as a time of growth, renewal, of new life for both plant and animals being born. The term is also used more generally as a sign of the start of better times.

The new lesson today about Using Mask in Photoshop to chang background .
We are using mask in photoshop to hide parts of the photos instead of deleating it ,so the original photo will not be damaged .

HOW TO APPLY MASK TO A PHOTO ?

Welcome Everybody

Did you visit our learning tips for photoshop and illustrator today?
I hope you will find it useful .I am adding almost everyday new tips in a continuous series .
Just go down the page ,I am always trying to arrange the items to make it like a book .
Please visit also my videos.

    I am waiting for you there .I will be happy to answer any question about my pictures ,designs or illustrator art work and tips contact me with e-mail.  info@artsofphotos.com

Lotus Flowers with Illustrator Card Design, Best Wishes

 Lotus flower has often been described as the most exquisite wishes of the Mother Nature for the mankind. 

The Meaning Of The Word Lotus

My Illustrator  card design

 Lotus flowers have been influential in cultures across the world from ancient times until today,
from ancient Egypt and India to all across Asia. They have been associated with the human soul, gods and goddesses and featured in stories and legends.  

 To the ancient Egyptians, a lotus bud was a symbol of rebirth and fertility. It closes in the evening and falls to the water, but in the morning it opens and is lifted above the surface.Its behaviour emulates that of the sun. Because of this rising and setting, it is also a symbol of death and rebirth.


 The lotus( The blue water lily) was commonly used in art as a symbol of Upper Egypt. It was combined with  the long stems papyrus flower (the symbol of Lower Egypt) as a representation of the unification of the two lands ( Upper and Lower Egypt).It  was shown throughout Egypt in tombs and temples to symbolize the union of Upper and Lower Egypt, but the blue water lily had a much deeper significance to the Egyptian people.


 The god of the blue water lily was Nefertem, a god not just linked to the sun but to beautification and healing.It was he who brought a water lily to the sun god Ra, to help ease the suffering of his aging body. The perfume of this flower was not only pleasing to the Egyptians, but they saw it as healing as well .Scenes show women holding the water lily and people being offered the flower at parties, smelling its divine fragrance. Some people today believe that the Egyptians used this plant as a narcotic both for its healing qualities and as a recreational drug when soaked in wine, though this is a hotly debated topic.

 The blue water lily was possibly also a symbol of sexuality -  the flower "has a sort of Viagra effect". Women were wooed with the blue water lily.
 The flower wasn't just used at parties, but it was used at funerals.Tutankhamen's innermost gold coffin had blue water lily petals scattered over it along with a few other floral tributes.The Egyptians looked forward to their souls coming to life "like a water lily reopening", thinking that the deceased died as the water lily closed awaiting opening with the morning sun. The Book of the Dead has a spell to allow the deceased to transform into one of these flowers.  
 As a general The Lotus flower basically symbolizes the clarity of heart as well as the mind. In other words the Lotus flower represents strength, good luck, long life as well as honor and respect. Some scholars have even talked of the lotus flower being a universal representation of the spiritual presence in human lives. 


The Appearance:
 In Egypt, two native species of lotus grew, the white lotus and the blue lotus. A third type, the pink lotus was introduced to the country from Persia during the Late period. All three species were depicted in Egyptian art the pink lotus showed up in Hellenistic artworks, however the sacred blue lotus was the flower most commonly used and the one depicted in the hieroglyph. 

The Card Design. 
This is Illustrator design.

Assign new colors to selected artwork in Illustrator

 Assigning new colors to selected artwork in Illustrator is very easy.

I found that lesson very nice and easy so I like to share it with you now, I could not wait to post it in different place. 

• Open a new illustrator document .
• Open the Symbols Panel  select the symbol you like and drag it to the document .
•  open the Swatches Panle and from the Satches Library Menu select the one you like[ selest the group of colores by clicking the icon of file at the left of the group in the menu].
•  Select the artwork you like to change its color and go to the Edit Menu then Edit Colors - then Recolor artwork . Recolor Artwrk dialog box will open ,select the group you like just click any square in the group you like,at once the group of colors will change completly.
• Save your work .

Thanks 

Manal Raafat

Ancient Egyptian Gods and Goddesses

The Spirits of Life

for the Ancient Egyptians 

The Nile Valley was split up into about forty self ruling areas later became provinces where the ruling tribes had their own deities.
From the dualism of all gods it's clear that animals were the first to get divine status and by time got human form.
Because of this all gods had two things in common - they were family members with counterparts from the opposite sex and manifested themselves on earth through animals. 
Thus the local wild fauna of birds, crocodiles, snakes, turtles, frogs, plus cattle, dogs, cats and other domesticated animals were considered to be the living images of a particular god or goddess and a natural and indestructible part of the environment in which people lived.
All parts of life were covered and there were gods for - beer, plants, digestion, the high seas, female sexuality, gardens, partying etc. Many of them had lots of duties and were with time combined with each other in a great number of ways.
Some of them could appear in an unusual forms like a goddess (curious even by Egyptian standards) having a head of a bee and body from a hippopotamus. 
Different towns struggled to have just their local gods at top of the state religion and thus we have many different religious legends over the years depending upon which town had the greatest politi-cal influence during the period. 


That was a short introduction .


Here are some important Gods and Goddesses


Amun - King of the Gods 


His other names : Amen, Ammon, Amon, Amoun 
Among the Egyptian gods and goddesses, Amun is considered the most important. He was a creator god, and generations of pharaohs adopted him as their patron deity. His name even appears in the names of pharaohs, such as Tutankhamun. 


Amun, whose name means "Hidden", was originally worshipped locally in Thebes. When Thebes conquered neighboring states, Amun grew to become a national deity throughout Egypt.


As Amun's importance grew, he was declared to be King of the Gods, and many temples were built in his name in places such as Karnak and Luxor.

At one point, he was also combined with the sun god Ra to form Amun-Ra, the almighty god of the sun and creation.
 
Anubis - God of the Dead
He is represented as a man with the head of a jackal.  


Bes - God of Protection, and the goddess Bastet
Bes was a unique god. Unlike the other Egyptian gods and goddesses, who were depicted in noble positions and likenesses, Bes was usually pictured to be a dwarf with a large head, stumpy legs and a generally ugly look.
Like the goddess Bastet, Bes was also the patron god of music and dancing, and was associated with other feminine aspects such as childbirth.
Bes also had a protective aspect, and statues of him could be seen in homes, guarding the family against evil spirits and animals.


Geb - God of Earth 
Other names : Keb, Seb
His parents were Shu, god of the air, and Tefnet, goddess of the rain. His sister and wife was Nut, goddess of the sky.


Hapi - God of the Nile 
He had green-skinned and with a woman's breasts, representing the fertility and life-giving resources of the river.


Hathor - Goddess of Life  
Other names : Athyr, Het Hert.
She is often depicted as a cow, or a woman with a cow's head, or a woman with the horns of a cow and a solar disc on her head.The majority of records describe her as the goddess of women, childbirth, happiness and anything to do with the joy of life, and also the protector of Horus [ considered the mother of Horus, and by extension the mother of the pharaoh.].
However, as the influence of the goddess Isis grew, Hathor's role as Horus' mother was absorbed by Isis, as were the roles of other Egyptian goddesses.


Horus - The Falcon God 
Other names :Heru, Hor 
Horus is one of the more important Egyptian gods. He is usually depicted as a man with the head of a falcon , or sometimes as a falcon as well. He is also depicted as a falcon encircling the head of the pharaoh with his wings.


Some describe the Egyptian god Horus as the dutiful son of Osiris and Isis. When the evil god Set murdered Osiris, Horus avenged his father and killed Set.


Isis - The Mother Goddess 
The Egyptian goddess Isis, commonly described as the sister and wife of Osiris and mother of Horus, is the most important of the Egyptian goddesses. Her cult was the biggest, spreading the farthest among all the Egyptian gods, as far as Europe and Persia.
Isis is commonly depicted as a seated queen suckling and cradling the baby Horus.Isis was considered the mother goddess, watching over the pharaoh and the throne. As her influence and following grew over the centuries, Isis' portfolio grew to include many other attributes, such as goddess of magic, queen of the underworld and goddess of agriculture.


Nut - The Sky Goddess 
Nut was the daughter of Shu, the Egyptian god of air, and Tefnut, goddess of water. She was also the sister and wife of Geb, god of the earth.
Nut's domain was the sky, and she was commonly pictured as a naked woman arching over the earth, with her hands and feet touching the ground. Her body is usually sky-colored and filled with stars. She is also sometimes depicted as a cow. Some stories tell of Nut swallowing the sun in the evening, and giving birth to it in the morning.
Nut is famous for being the mother of some of the most important egyptian gods: Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys. The story of Ra mentions the sun god Ra forbidding Nut to bear any children, for fear of them taking his throne from him. But Nut sought the help of the wise god Thoth, and managed to give birth to her four children.


Osiris - The Egyptian God of the Underworld
Osiris is among the most important Egyptian gods, having a cult following that grew beyond Egypt's borders. Modern-day Egypt still celebrates festivals dedicated to him. Osiris is usually depicted as a mummy wearing the Atef crown with a crook and flail in his hands.
Osiris is said to be the Egyptian god that brought civilization and agriculture to Egypt. It was he who taught the people how to farm and harvest grain. As such, he was worshipped as a god of agriculture.


Ra - The Sun God 
Other names : Re 
Another of the most important Egyptian gods, Ra represented the creative force of the sun. 
Many myths credit Ra to be the first of the gods, creating the world from a watery chaos. 


 
Set - God of Chaos
The Egyptian god Set is most commonly portrayed as a man with a demonic head, resembling that of an aardvark [ pig]. 




There are many Gods and Goddesses still but it will be very long for the post .
There are Thoth - God of Wisdom ,Ma'at - Goddess of Truth,Nekhebet - Goddess of Upper Egypt ,and Nephthys - Mistress of the Dead and others.


I had colected some in on board in a simple way to be easy to remember . I hope you will like it.


HOW TO DESIDN THAT COLLECTION ?
 The new today in how to apply gradient overlay .

Tadmur, Syria

Tadmur or Palmyra  
Tadmur or Tudmur (which means "the town that repels" in Amorite and "the indomitable town" in Aramaic.
About Palmyra some believe it was related to the palm trees in the area. 

 It is recorded in Babylonian tablets found in Mari was an ancient city in Syria. In the age of antiquity, it was an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus. It had long been a vital caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian desert and was known as the Bride of the Desert.
Though the ancient site fell into disuse after the 16th century, it is still known as Tadmor in Arabic, and there is a newer town next to the ruins of the same name. 
The Palmyrenes constructed a series of large-scale monuments containing funerary art such as limestone slabs with human busts representing the deceased.

 

THE ORIGINAL PHOTO OF A BUST OF A PALMYRAL WOMAN  

 

 THE PHOTO-SHOP MANIPULATED PHOTO. 

The Culture of Palmyra 
Palmyrans were of Arab ethnicity,they bore Arabic names, and worshipped Arabic deities such as: Hubal, Ruda, Ma'nu, Allat, Baal, and Munaf. Palmyrans were originally speakers of a North Arabian dialect; then they adopted Aramaic as an official language thus becoming bilingual, but later shifted from Aramaic into Latin. In the time of the Islamic conquests Palmyra was inhabited by several Arab tribes, primarily Qada'ah and Kalb among others.

Its History 
The history of that town path through many historical eras[ periods] Here are some notes for that periods.

Ancient period   
There had been a temple at Palmyra for 2000 years before the Romans ever saw it.
Greco-Roman periods  
Palmyra was made part of the Roman province of Syria during the reign of Tiberius (14 –37 AD). It steadily grew in importance as a trade route linking Persia, India, China, and the Roman empire. 
Islamic rule  
The city was captured by the Muslim Arabs under Khalid ibn Walid in 634. Palmyra was kept intact. After the year 800 and the civil wars which followed the fall of the Umayyad caliphs, people started abandoning the city. 

Funerary art 
Outside the ancient walls, the Palmyrenes constructed a series of large-scale funerary monuments, which now form the so-called Valley of the Tombs, a 1 km long necropolis, with a series of large structures with rich decorations. These tombs, some of which were below ground, had interior walls that were cut away or constructed to form burial compartments in which the deceased, extended at full length, were placed. Limestone slabs with human busts in high relief sealed the rectangular openings of the compartments. 


As I was so fond of the history of that town and  Queen Zenobia  I had manipulate the photo of the bust of a palmyral woman with photoshop ,and that is  


HOW TO MANIPULATE THE PHOTO .

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians[ Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt.] that contained a combination of logographic[ A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word , known also as "ideograms" which represent ideas directly rather than words ] and alphabetic elements. 
Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood [ such as the Book of the Dead.]. Less formal variations of the script, called hieratic and demotic, are technically not hieroglyphs. 


Egyptian hieroglyphs  was a hard language .I had tried to collect some symbols in one artwork designed with photo-shop to show you some letters .

    
History of Egyptian hieroglyphs 
Hieroglyphs emerged from the preliterate artistic traditions of Egypt.For many years the earliest known hieroglyphic inscription was the Narmer Palette, but on 1998 they discover at Abydos the first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far .No definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt. 


Hieroglyphs consist of three kinds of glyphs: phonetic glyphs, including single-consonant characters that function like an alphabet; logographs, representing morphemes; and determinatives, which narrow down the meaning of logographic or phonetic words.
As writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed,resulting in the hieratic (priestly) and demotic (popular) scripts.

Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule , and after Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Macedonian and Roman periods .Some believe that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish 'true Egyptians' from some of the foreign conquerors.By the 4th century, few Egyptians were capable of reading hieroglyphs, and the myth of allegorical hieroglyphs was ascendant.


Writing system 
Visually hieroglyphs are all more or less figurative: they represent real or illusional elements.However, the same sign can, according to context, be interpreted in diverse ways: as a phonogram (phonetic reading), as a logogram, or as an ideogram (semagram; "determinative") (semantic reading). 


Doubling The doubling of a sign indicates its dual; the tripling of a sign indicates its plural.


Grammatical signs The vertical stroke, indicating the sign is an ideogram;
The two strokes of the "dual" and the three strokes of the "plural";
The direct notation of flexional endings.


There are more items to write about Egyptian hieroglyphs , but it will be so long ,so I tried to simplify it . I hope it was useful 


HOW TO DESIGN ? [ The new item today is the use of the Line Tool]

Smoke ... How to Design It with Photoshop with illustrations?

What is smoke ?


Smoke is a colloid and comprises a collection of airborne solid and liquid particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion [ the process of burning] or pyrolysis [ is a thermo-chemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures in the absence of oxygen ,occurs under pressure and high temperature] ,together with the quantity of air.

  

It is commonly an unwanted by-product of fires (including stoves, candles, oil lamps, and fireplaces).It is also caused by smoking, and ,cooking. Smoke is sometimes used as a flavouring agent, and preservative for various food stuffs.

Smoke inhalation is the primary cause of death in victims of indoor fires. The smoke kills by a combination of thermal damage, poisoning and pulmonary irritation caused by carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide and other combustion products.

Smoke particles are an aerosol of solid particles and liquid droplets ,a smoke cloud does not obstruct an image, but thoroughly scrambles it.

The composition of smoke depends on the nature of the burning fuel and the conditions of combustion.

Visible and invisible particles of combustion 
Depending on particle size, smoke can be visible or invisible to the naked eye.Smoke from a typical house fire contains hundreds of different chemicals and fumes. As a result, the damage caused by the smoke can often exceed that caused by the actual heat of the fire.

Dangers of smoke   
Many compounds of smoke from fires are highly toxic and/or irritating. The most dangerous is carbon monoxide leading to carbon monoxide poisoning. 
Cigarette smoke is a major modifiable risk factor for lung disease, heart disease, and many cancers.
I had tried to draw smoke with photo-shop to use different tools and ways which is new today in that post. I had selected two different colors for the smoke .
Please continue reading to know HOW TO DESIGN THE SMOKE  with Photoshop with illustrations, and drawings.