savvy traveler

Mary Green and her monthly collage challenges are back! Yay! As always, you must use at least part of all three images. Like the last few, I went digital with this. I love paper and glue but merging 3 such different elements is a lot more fun for me in photoshop.

Used the map as the background, with two overlays - a grungy one and an old film one. There are various other things in the background - newspaper in the top left corner, part of a handwritten letter along the left edge, a collage of health product packaging along the top.

Made the woman from various parts and pieces, and then put a frame around her head. Duplicated the ticket a couple times. Dropped a frame onto the fig label and then put it on a red background so show it would show up against the grungy map.

The savvy traveler (yes I know it's spelled wrong in the collage but it sooo looks like it should have two Ls doesn't it?? and by the time I realized it, I had already merged the layers) font is "crow scratch" from Crowabout Studio B and the other elements are from Tangie Baxter and Deviant Art.  I'm really working on adding lots of elements and packing more onto the page, not for the sake of using lots of stuff, but to make it more interesting to look at, and I'm pleased with this one. Glad you're back, Mary! Bet you never envisioned your elements ending up like this, huh?!? LOL

Green Paper March Challenge

Time once again for Mary's monthly challenge. You can see the original images here, as well as the other entrants. The post will be updated with entries thru the 8th of March, so stop by toward the end to see them all. It's amazing how inventive some folks are. These really make me work because one of the images is usually black and white while the other two are color and I always have a tough time integrating them, but I'm happy with this one.

I went digital again. I'm having a lot of fun with Photoshop lately, trying all kinds of things just to see what happens. It's so much more forgiving than working with paper and glue, and the effects you can achieve are almost infinite.

I started with the image of the woman. I colorized her into a reddish hue. Then added an overlay of a map from the basic Art Journal Caravan package of goodies and tweaked the color, contrast and (something I can't remember) quite a bit. I then extracted the column of numbers from the attendance card and placed them down one side, again playing with the color and filter. Also extracted two words from the music sheet to play up her languid, sexy persona. And finally I added a splash of glittery sequin waste for some bling. Too much fun. Thanks, Mary, for another fun challenge.

Mary Green's January Challenge

I love the challenges that she does each month, but you have only a week to get it completed and when it falls at a busy time, I can't always squeeze it in. But... today I worked my butt off until around 2:30, then came home and played around in PS CS2. I've been buying the occasional digital art pack from Studio Tangie in the hopes of getting better at digital collage. Mary's January Challenge became what you see here.

The elements in the challenge are the picture of the girl, a certificate and a card of flowers with a verse.

I played with a few different layouts, trying to put the girl on the certificate, trying to cut out the flowers to put them in her hair, but I'm just not that good in Photoshop yet and instead of getting all frustrated, I chose to frame them with frames from a digital pack.

With her crown, she looks like a princess, just hanging around the house, leaning on a table. I love all the layers of her dress. Wonder if she was dressed up to go someplace.

Thanks for a good challenge, Mary. I'm glad I got to play this time!