**WINNER ANNOUNCED** March 2022 - Week 2 Monthly Muse Challenge

Hi everyone and welcome to Week 2 of the March Monthly Muse Challenge, Exploring Art Journal Techniques.

This week is all about using various art journaling techniques to add dimension, texture and interest to your page. All of us have our own idea on what art journaling means to us, Lisa gave a very concise and interesting description in Week 1 about what art journaling actually is, so please go ahead and read that first if you haven't done so already HERE.

Art journaling techniques are pretty much the same as regular digi scrapping techniques, that is, you can employ techniques such as blending, masking, extraction, cluster work and shadowing (to name a few) on your AJ layout. Describing and explaining the processes for each technique I just listed would be far too long to include here, so I have picked the one technique that I employ a lot of on both my art journaling and regular styled layouts, and that is blending, using the Blend If function.

Some you may be familiar with this technique, Christa wrote a tutorial on it in regards to making your font text merge into the background paper so that it looks more realistic. I will try to find it and add the link here later.

The Blend If can be accessed by clicking the fx symbol at the bottom of the layers panel in Photoshop:



After selecting Blending Options at the top of the list you will be presented with the following screen.

In the examples I show you below, I haven't changed any of the boxes shown in the box, I only used the sliders at the bottom of the screen for This Layer and Underlying Layer.




While I use all of the other blend modes a lot, I find the Blend If technique gives you a better result if you are after realism, like blending text onto a crinkled piece of paper so you can see the creases through the text.

This is an example of the difference between using the normal Multiply blending mode on two objects on a wrinkled piece of paper underneath on the left; and using the same Multiply mode within the Blend If confines on the right.




As you can see the one on the left is darker, you can see the text underneath but some of the long crease in the paper beneath it is covered up, and it looks like it is sitting ‘on top of the paper’ rather than being a ‘part of it’. On the right, using the Blend If technique, you can pretty much get rid of the border surrounding the text and the crease is easier to see through the bird stamp.

The setting for Blend If mode for the text on the page on the right is shown below:



The only settings I changed was to slide the sliders to the position I was happy with. For the This Layer slider I kept it in one piece, but for the Underlying Layer slider, I separated the slider by holding down the Alt key, this gives you a bit more control depending on what you are trying to do.

It would take me far too long to go into any depth on this function, there are so many variables that can be applied so please, if you are interested in learning more then just Google it and you will find a lot more detailed information about it.

I tend to ‘just play’ and keep going until I end up with something I like!

So here is my finished page for this week’s challenge. I would say that 90% of this layout contains a variety of objects that has been blended in one way or another.


Credits are in the gallery.

Out of the 28 layers I used to create this layout, I used the Blend If technique on eight of them.

Below is an example of what my page would have looked like if I just used the regular layer blending modes, on the right, and what my page looks like with the Blend If blending modes.



Perhaps you are not able to see very clearly given the size of the page but for me the subtle differences certainly work the best. The parts that really stand out for me on the right side page are circled in red.


So now it is over to you!! What are your go-to techniques to use on your art journaling pages?? Do you like blending as well? Or perhaps extractions, collaged layers and/or drop shadows are your faves.

The challenge this week is to use one (or more ) favorite art journaling techniques to create your layout, and please, share what they are when you post your layout in this thread. As always, these challenges are open ended so please scrap about whatever you like.

You may create any style of layout (ie. clean and simple, artsy, pocket style etc.) you wish, with or without a photo. Create any size page you wish. This is for everyone, so have fun and see where the inspiration takes you.

Please post your layout to the Art Journaling Gallery HERE prior to Midnight EST March 28, 2022 and then post it in this thread by copying the code (at the right of your gallery image) from the box under "Share BB Code".

We will draw a winner at the beginning of next month for a coupon!! Every layout you create is equal to one entry in the random draw. So if you create 1 layout you are entered once, if you create 4 layouts you are entered 4 times.

You can use any products in The Lilypad store or retired products from current Lilypad designers, (just make sure you follow our gallery guidelines).

Looking forward to seeing you creative peeps do this week!!

 

awww sorry Amanda, don't think PSE has it......... I haven't used it for years now. But I KNOW how creative you are so I am sure there are plenty of other techniques you employ.

 

Well the challenge is about any type of technique that you enjoy doing on an AJ page, whether its a regular one you do in other styles of scrapping or not.

 

Oh!! collage and shadows are awesome another fave technique of mine as well Marilyn! your layout is swoon-worthy!!!

 

Love reading about what techniques you all like to use! I used PSE many years ago and loved it but after awhile I felt a bit constrained, wanting to do 'more' but not being able. Around that time I started buying plug ins and other stand alone photo treatment programs where I could open a photo and apply all different types of effects to it and then bring it back into PSE. I think the final push for me to move over to Photoshop was the ability to run all these different super cool painterly type actions and here I have been every since! lol! So no matter what program you do use, there are many other ways of working on your photos to add some zing to them, just PLAY, PLAY, PLAY!