AJC14 digi collage pause...

I've resisted the one little word thing since I first heard of it, firstly (and mostly) because I suck at resolution type things, and, secondly, because I couldn't think of a word that really encompassed enough of what I wanted a new year to be. It seemed confining somehow.

But as I was going thru this first day of the year, I found myself pausing to scan the 6am sky for the last stars, to breath the crispy air more deeply as I waited for the dog to piddle on our walk, to read thru a poem a second and third time, to pick up that painted paper I got in a swap and really look at the colors.

So' pause...' is my OLW for 2014. Pause... before I speak that unneeded remark, before I go inside for the night to look at the sky one more time, before I walk past that stranger without a quick smile, before a lot of things - most things, probably, for me, because I'm a hurrier. Gotta get this done, no matter how pleasurable it may be, so that I can get on to that. Hurry to work, hurry home, hurry thru saying hi to the animals, hurry thru that really good book so I can get to the next one cause they're piling up on the shelf.

I'm going to pause... a bit more this year.

To plant the thought firmly in my mind, I made a digital collage.

digital collage - ciao

Haven't done a digital collage in ages. Months. Just got caught up in paper, I guess, but tonite I was in the mood and made this one. 

All the elements are from the AJC 2013 September kit which was Italy. I think I'd really like Italy if I ever got there. But that's prolly not gonna happen so I'll make collages instead.

black sheep digital collage

This morning Rhonda posted a couple freebie backgrounds and the bottom one appealed to me so I downloaded it, opened Elements 11 and went to work.

Actually, after all the blending and overlays I did, it looks(quite) a bit different, but you can tell it's the same one.

Didn't have much of a plan other than something fun, so I used a couple goofy bodies from the Woot collection at Deviant Scrap, a couple faces from I have no idea, and a bunch of other misc things.

These two obviously don't really fit in with their more 'normal' family in the old photo so when I came across the 'black sheep' text, I had my title.

Waddaya think, Rhonda? Looks pretty cool, huh!

Double click to embiggen and really see the details.

digital collage "remember"

Made for a challenge at Scrapbook Graphics, my primary digital hangout.

Had to use the birds on a wire, the large green scrap on the right, and the large red scrap above it.

I added a ton of other stuff, layer upon layer, played with blending and opacity quite a bit.

I really like this one...

digital collage Time is a Circle

Inspired by all those gelli prints, I used two of them - the aqua with squares and the rustiest of the white-ish ones - as the background for this digital collage.    

The angel is a photo I took at our local cemetery.

The two brownish elements along the left side are ephemera from the CRenee Authentic Artistry II collection.

The black stamps (the overlay type things like the circles of music and the upper right corner design) are from the CRenee Collective Memories Stamps.  You can search for both those collections here in Christina Renee's section of Scrapbookgraphics.com. 

I did a fair amount of duplicate layers with various blending modes until I liked the look. The word 'time' was a prompt from week two of the Art Journal Caravan 2013. I'm just finally getting around to using it.

I'm not at all religious but I like the stone angel, and the overall feel of this is sort of cosmic to me. Maybe the circles remind me of the paths of the planets or something. 

digital collage 'capable appearance'

I'm slowly getting the hang of Adobe Elements 11, which is the latest release of the non-professional version of Photoshop. So many cool functions, but like most complex programs, I use about 20% of it. One of my 2013 goals is to learn a whole lot more than that 20%.

However, in this collage, I only put the 20% I know to use since I worked on it in bits and pieces during a day at work. It was a really stressful day with (BIG) water leaks, flooded offices, too many customers at once (why can't they show up evenly spaced during the day instead of all at the same time??), lots of my work, lots of phone answering cause the normal phone answerer was out sick.

So... to keep my sanity, I opened PSE11 and began to tinker. By the end of the day, I had this.

I kept the colors somewhat muted and monochromatic on purpose, going for a vintagey, grungy look.

The words are one of the prompts for week 3 of the Art Journal Caravan 2013.

They have nothing at all to do with the background...

If you're at all into digital, AJC 13 is a blast. Tons of prompts, tutorial vids, other people's work to study. This year's theme is a trip around the world. Our first port of call with the United Kingdom.

things to remember

We stayed home Christmas day and ate leftovers for all three meals. Doesn't sound much like your Christmas, I don't suppose, but it suited us perfectly. Among other things, I made another digital collage. I'm really enjoying the digital thing and am determined to get significantly better at it in 2013.

This layout was made entirely with elements from a free kit the AJC13 participants were given when we signed up. It's by Lorie Davison and when I first saw it, I doubted I would get much use from it. It just didn't seem like my sort of thing but then I kept seeing other people's work done with the kit and decided it would be a challenge for me to create with it.

The background is 3 different papers, layered and duplicated, and with different blending modes.

I hung the gems from the tree, attached the twist key to the bird's back, put the eye inside the globe, attached the chains, etc. Lots of shadow and blending work so that the various elements would have depth and be harmonious as far as color intensity, brightness, etc.

The text says: things to remember for 2013...     practice patience...      stay curious...     see more of the world...      swim upstream more often than not

It isn't a kit I ever would have purchased but I love the page and that's one of the cool things about this class - it will provide me with prompts and kits that will move me outside my usual way and style of doing things.

I'm featured!

Remember that post I did a day or two ago about using a digital template for the first time in a program I was unfamiliar with?

Each week one of the designers at Scrapbookgraphics chooses her favorite layouts and posts about them on the SBG blog.

Guess who's layout was the very first one?!?

Can you guess? Huh?

Mine.  

Unreal.

It's a small feat in the general scheme of things but it was such an unexpected thrill to open her post and have my own work pop up. Very cool.

digital collages

One of my (loosely set) goals for next year is to get pretty darn good in Photoshop, altho I'm switching over to Elements 11. Photoshop is too darn expensive and like most really complex programs, I'll use about 20% of it. By playing with a trial version of PS CS6 and Elements 11, I've convinced myself that Elements will work just fine for me. It also has some cool home-user type stuff that looks like fun. Luckily most of the doodads and commands are very similar if not the same, so it shouldn't take me too long to get at least back to the level I was at in PS CS2, the ancient version of Photoshop that I've been using for the past several years.

A marvelous place for all things digital is Scrapbook Graphics. I forget how I first found them but they have a great line up of designers (altho I mostly buy from just a few whose work really appeals to me) and an active online community with monthly challenges, contests, classes, tutorials, etc, that I'm participating in more and more.

One of the challenges for December is in the section they call the Launch Zone and this month the challenge was to use the provided template (first image). I'd never used a template before and didn't have much of a clue what to do, so I printed off the tutorial they linked to, opened up the trial version of PS CS6 that I'd just downloaded and went to work.

Talk about a learning curve... new program, new technique. Oy. Made my head hurt. But I fired up the Keurig, made a hazelnut cappuccino, and struggled thru the first twenty minutes until things began to make sense enough for me to move right along.

So the 2nd image was made in PS CS6. The photo is my great grandpa around 1895, dressed up like the town dandy, posing in a photo studio.

I made the 3rd image in Elements 11 using the same template. I figured doing the same exact task in both programs would go a long way to reassure me that I could do just fine with Elements and save the PS CS6 money for something else, and it did. I left most of the template elements intact because I wanted to see the program difference between the two pages when I was done and not be distracted by different elements. I like them both altho the colors in the blue one appeal to me more.

credits: template - Rosey Posey, flying bee - Lorie Davison Quieter Than Daylight kit, all other elements - AJC12 and AJC13 by Tangie

Emily knew...

Gail of Shabby Cottage re-opened her challenge blog, Mind Wide Open. I didn't know it in its first life, but jumped right in when she announced a new challenge. She gave us a gorgeous image of a girl with a butterfly tattoo on her face, on a lovely background. I went digital again, since I'm in photoshop mode today.

I liked the aqua in her tattoo so I started with three different green/aqua backgrounds, added two overlays of grungy frames and one of old film, two leaf edges, a couple glitter swirls, a butterfly image and I can't even remember what else. Did all sorts of tweaks with filters and layers, and ultimately ended up with this:

I just love the colors in it (been on an aqua binge for months now) and the overall look. I still have a long way to go to be proficient in photoshop but at least I'm now able to create art that I'm happy with.

Those of you who enjoy challenges, go check out Mind Wide Open. If she keeps up with these types of images, I'll be there every time.