Happy New Year everyone – and welcome to the day of New Beginnings!! I am happy to pop in on one of my favorite days of the year to share some New Years’ inspiration and talk about your 2018 creative goals. Do you set annual scrapping, photography or general creative goals for yourself? I will set general goals (# of digital pages, creative routine, etc.) at the start of a new year, and usually set specific goals at the beginning of each month (finish MOC 6, create holiday album, work on specific photography project, etc.). I try to set goals that will push me, but not overwhelm me to the point that I just give up.
My digital goals this year are to work on digital art journaling (which I haven’t explored nearly enough), by creating at least one digital art journaling page each week. I have already started a list of quotes and subjects that I want to build pages around, and a excited to get started on the project! I came across this quote by Alfred Lord Tennyson when I was brainstorming a New Year’s page and I have to say that I really love how the page turned out:
I used a stock photo for the main image and then “artified” it with a sketch filter and some creative blending. I love the multi-media effect of adding a few scattered dimensional elements on an otherwise static design and am excited to see where that technique takes me as I explore it through the year.
Here are the specific details of how I created the blended look on my page:
1. Turn your photo into a sketch. I used the Master’s Hand filter in Akvis Sketch, but I encourage you to try out some of the filters in your digital scrapping program to find a look that you like. Some of my favorite sketchy filters in Photoshop CC is Graphic Pen (which you can find in the Sketch Folder in the Filter Gallery).
2. Change the blending mode of the sketched photo to help it blend more seamlessly with the background. I used “Color Burn” on my photo which worked well with the white background. I also created a mask and blocked out most of the background on the photo so that only the clock, bottle and glasses appeared.
3. If the blend mode makes the photo too transparent, copy the photo layer (Ctrl > J) and either change the blend mode or adjust the opacity of the layer until you achieve the look you want. You can continue adding new photo layers until you are happy with the final appearance. In my case, two color burn layers were sufficient. The first layer is set at 100% opacity, while the second is set at 82% opacity. (I also used the Color Burn blend mode for the digital paint elements from Danyale’s Full O’Blarney set.)
We would love to hear about your creative goals too – so be sure to share them with us in the comments!
Until next time ~
Judie (HeyJude)
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