November 11, 2001    Woooooo! Isn't this the most insane web set you have ever seen?  I got this idea for this crazy thing from a TV program called Trading spaces on the learning channel. The were painting a Henri Matisse style mural on a cinderblock wall of a basement and it just hit me as the perfect idea for a web set. My version of Matisse  is a bit more thorny and colorful, but I like it just the same (matches my personality). There are 5 pieces to this set including both backgrounds (be sure to get them both) and it's set in a centered table.  How I did it: Here's the fun part... First I created a 400 by 400 white canvas in photoimpact 6 then with the lasso tool I outlined one shape at a time and hit cut. To get the different colors I just changed the background color before each cut. Now, you will need to copy each new piece after you have cut them to color and place the new pieces over top of the cut area in PI so that you can play with layers and get the colors exactly where you want them. It takes a long time to get what you want but it's fairly easy and well worth the work. After I was happy with the outcome I resized the image to 200 by 200 and saved it as .gif. Now, to get the lighter shaded background I opened my original in paint shop pro 7 and used the clone brush set at 30 for opacity then cloned the background onto a new white canvas (be sure to start at exact 0x0 to get all the edges right). For the button banner and line all I did was out line my shapes in paint shop pro 7 and hit inner bevel then cropped them out copy and pasted to a new image and saved them. Oh um be sure you are working with copies of your original because more than once I have messed up and lost really great art by saving the wrong piece after editing it.  That's all I can think of to tell you so, have fun and enjoy! Lots of love,  C. Fly