The Remembrance Poppy. (How-to tips)

A few tips on how to make a Remembrance Poppy in iWork Pages. (See a short video below with added images.)

1. Import an Oval.

2. Change the default colour in Graphic Inspector. Click in the colour well and choose a colour from the Colours Viewer. Or mix a colour yourself. Here the red has these CMYK readings.

3. Make the shape editable: Format > Shape > Make editable. Besides the white square handles the oval shape will show red dots - editing points.

4. Drag the white squares to resize the shape.

5. Click on a red editing point and drag to change the shape of the oval.

6. When a red editing point is selected, it shows propeller-like handles. Click on the round tip of the propeller and drag to change the curves of the oval.  

7.  Finally, tilt the petal of the poppy slightly. Press Command, and drag a white square. 

8. To make the second petal, duplicate the first. Press Command and type D. Edit the second petal in the same way as the first. Move them together to form the Poppy.

9. Add another oval to the document. In Graphic Inspector, give it a black colour. 

Resize to the dimensions of the central button. To stop the oval losing its round shape, press Shift while dragging the white square handles. This constrains proportions of the shape.

10. Draw the leaf and the stalk with the Draw Tool. It activates when you choose the last option in the Shapes menu in the Toolbar, or Insert > Shape >Draw a Shape.

Click to make the first point of a shape. When you click again and the second point will be connected to the first with a line. 

Click several times to make a rough outline of the leaf and then click on the first point to ‘close’ - finish the shape. Change default colour to the one you want, for example Asparagus in the box of crayons in Colors Viewer (Inspector).

11. Make the rough shape rounded: Format > Shape > Smooth Path. Next, edit the rough shape by moving the red editing points (click and drag, or type on the keyboard arrows) and dragging propellers. 

Each rounded point of the shape can be made ‘spiky’ again. Select the editing point and double-click on it.

12. The poppy stalk can be made with the Draw Tool, or by inserting a Rectangle from the Shapes menu and editing it – Format > Shape > Make editable.

I’ve added the curved text ‘Poppy Appeal’ to the button here. There is no easy way to curve the text in Pages. So I made it in Comic Life and then pasted into the Pages project.

When the poppy is ready, you can use it in your iWork Remembrance Day project, or make a screenshot, export to PDF and use it anywhere in other projects. 

You can remove the white background in Preview. Use the Alpha tool there to ‘rub out’ the white. 

All images in this post are created by A.Anichkin, the publisher of I Work in Pages. I waive any copyright claims to them. Please feel free to reuse them in honour of the veterans and the war dead.

Click on the Remembrance Poppy label to see other posts with the Remembrance theme on I Work in Pages.

Put Remembrance Poppy on Your Photo

Finished photo with a Poppy

Here is a simple how-to:

- Drop a photo of yourself into a Pages document;

- Next, insert a photo of red poppies or a snapshot of the British Legion Poppy Appeal lapel poppy;

- If there are many poppies in the photo put a mask on it to leave just one;

- Remove background with Instant Alpha tool, so that only the red poppy is left;

- Resize and position the Poppy over the photo the way you like it to look;

- Take a screenshot, print to PDF or Jpeg - and use as avatar, favecom, profile picture, etc.

Click on Remembrance Poppies label (here, or below this post) to read other posts about Remembrance Day theme and making your own clipart with poppies.

Add photo of poppies

Remove background with Alpha

Mask to leave one poppy

Resize and reposition.

 Photos: ©A.Anichkin

A Remembrance Poppy

If you are working on a Remembrance Day project you may want to design a Red Poppy.

Here are the elements of a Remembrance Poppy:

 

And here is the finished clipart:

Please read Remembrance Poppy: Designed in Pages.

Remembrance Poppy: Designed in Pages

Read a more detailed tutorial in this later post The Remembrance Poppy. (How-to tips.)

The Poppy Appeal is launched each year in Britain in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday. The nation expresses its unequivocal support for The Royal British Legion's charity work. 'Our emphasis this year is the need to help the Afghan generation of the Armed Forces and their families - today and for the rest of their lives' says the Poppy Appeal web-site.


I designed a Remembrance Poppy (image above) in iWork/Pages following the look of the traditional Royal British Legion poppy pin. It is made up of five shapes: three ovals for pettals and the black button, and two free shapes for the stalk and the leaf.

Feel free to reuse the image and remember to donate to help the veterans and their families.


Please read also 'Remembrance Poppies: Make Your Own Clipart in Pages' and 'Remembrance Theme: Using Background Images.'
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Remembrance theme: using background images

The photo of red poppies lining a Normandy field is used here to create a graphic margin for the Remembrance page in our magazine. The image is one of a series of photos I took this Summer.












Here is how it works:

- Import original photo with poppies (top right image).
- Under Arrange menu - Send to Back.

Now the photo is behind all other elements of the page.

- In Metrics Inspector click on rotation wheel or on degrees arrows to rotate the photo so that the line of red poppies is vertical.

You can also rotate the photo by pressing Command and dragging the photo's handles (little squares in the corners).

- Resize and move the photo so that the vertical line of poppies is on the margin of the page.
- Mask and edit mask so that the right side of the image slighlty, only just, overlaps the text. (top left image)
- In Object Inspector (update: Graphics Inspector in current version of Pages) add picture frame with blurred edges.

In my version of Pages it is the bottom left option. Blurred edges create romantic, moving feeling about the whole graphic composition.

- Reduce opacity of the image (also in Object Inspector).

Fading out the background image by reducing its opacity is needed to avoid a large graphic element dominating the page and also, because it overlaps the text in the first column, to make the text visible.

The whole process may sound complicated, but in fact it is rather easy to do - and very enjoyable. The things you do for England!

I was slightly concerned about the slanted line of horizon visible at the top, but then realized that, serendipitously, I gave the photo a 'fallen soldier' effect - you fall down and the earth and the sky look tilted in your eyes.

Whenever you use a photo as the background image always consider reducing opacity. I think it is the best way to achieve better visibility for text and other graphic elements 'in front'. Of course, light, consistently coloured images may not need this. Like the 'old parchment' image behind the main article on this page. The image itself is from the Musical Concert Poster template which comes with your copy of Pages.

Note: Click on pictures to see small details

Please also read these related articles on I Work in Pages:

Remembrance poppies: make your own clipart in Pages
Simple tricks with photos: fading photos from side to side
Fading out background image

and see other photos of red poppies in Normandy on our Readers' Photos blog here and here
If you use the photos please credit them to the Rendezvous Media.

Remembrance Poppies: make your own clipart in Pages

Readers of our magazine are mostly Brits living in Normandy. So every November we run Remembrance day theme.

The distinct symbol of Remembrance is the red poppy. The connection comes from the killing fields of Flanders (Belgium) where many soldiers died during World War I: red poppies in wheat fields are like drops of blood.


This summer I took a series of photos of red poppies near the town of Falaise where fierce fighting took place in the final days of the battle of Normandy in 1944.







To create your own original clipart:

- Import the photo in to your Pages document and choose an element in the photo to make into clipart
- launch Instant Alpha (under Format menu)
- remove background by continuosly dragging the Alpha tool over the photo

The poppies in my photo are now on their own, without the ripening crops in the background. Next I mask the photo to leave just one flower. Now it is ready to be resized and copy pasted as a Remembrance Day clipart.

You can also 'Print' the Pages document to iPhoto and then crop the JPEG to keep it with your stock of clipart images. This option is under PDF drop down menu available in Print Dialogue window (Command+P).





Clipart JPEGs created this way can also be used as bullets (as, indeed, any other image).

- In Text Inspector click on the List tab
- and choose Custom Image from the drop down menu.
- Click Choose and import your clipart image.

While Instant Alpha is a wonderfully powerful tool, you may find that with some photos it is very difficult to 'separate' the background from the desired object. It happens when background colours are similar to those of the object. I have a beautiful picture of a holly bush with bright red berries which I wanted to make into Christmas clipart - but couldn't, because holly leaves blended with thick forest foliage in the background. (Update: a year later I cut off a twig of holly with berries, took a photo against blue sky and made it into clipart for my Christmas card.)

Bear it in mind if you are taking photos to make them into clipart. For example, when taking a picture of an apple, angle your shot so that the apple is against blue sky. If it is a red flower, it is best to have green leaves in the back.

Have a look at 'paper' Remembrance Poppy designed in Pages here and an example of a magazine page with the Remembrance theme here.


Please read these previous articles about creating clipart with iWork/Pages tools:

Creating your own clipart with Instant Alpha
How to design folders with Pages tools
Creating clipart and original shapes in Pages
Curving lines and shapes: make them in Pages
Maps in Pages

and about an easy way to make your Pages document into a JPEG:

Quick JPEGs straight from Pages