Happy Halloween

Here's an early Halloween greeting to all my readers (all 3 of them? :)). It's a digital "artist trading card" I made on PE5. I experimented with with creating "erased" holes in various layers, so you can see the colored layer behind them. I used digital brushes to make the swirl and dot patterns. I think it turned out acceptably spooky, considering the fact that I used no overt Halloween images, just color and pattern (and the font, which I believe is called Chiller).

Happy Anniversary

Today is our 37th wedding anniversary. This is one of the first journal pages I ever created, when I started taking the Artful Journaling class. I used one of our favorite wedding photos, and a representation (and translation) of the Hebrew quotation on our wedding rings.

Where's Sherry?

I surprised Nelson while he was taking this photo at Quincy Market/Faneuil Hall.

Happy Birthday to Me!

This is a photo of the mini-Boston cream pie I ordered for dessert at Legal Seafoods last Wednesday evening (the night of my "significant" birthday). Nelson had requested the candle. The cake was just as delicious as it was adorable. We had a great time there-- wonderful sangria, perfectly cooked and served fish, and a warm and cozy spot with a water view.

Jersey Boys-- Two Different Effects

Last weekend we went to see a production of "Jersey Boys" at the National Theater in DC. I loved it, as I thought I would (especially "my" song :)). This time, instead of doing a paper journal page, I tried a digital collage. The second version you see here is a variation of my basic collage; here I used a "linear light" effect on the Playbill layer, and changed the background color to a dark red to enhance the effect. And then--the best part-- I got to throw away all the little papers, ticket stubs, etc., that I had scanned.

Mom, Ilene, and Me

I was thinking of Mom today, and that led to making this digital collage. I'll probably do more of these "heritage" pages from time to time, and post some of them here.

More Experiments with Digital Collage

For the background on this image, I used a copy of an altered photo I had done in Artful Journaling class. It was a photo I took on a nature walk in Hawaii several years ago, which I altered using bleach, sandpaper, and who knows what else. The flowers were "stamped" on the background using the digital brush I made last week from my flower drawing. I then applied a beveled effect to the flowers to make them stand out.

I'm finding that all this Photoshop experimentation is refueling my regular (non-digital) art-journaling creativity. Often, after I tear myself away from the computer, I'm in the mood to cut, paste, glue, and draw. Who knew?

Text Effects

I've been experimenting some more today (in addition to trying to resolve a big problem with my scanner-- no luck on that so far). Here are some neat text effects I got by using the Text Mask (or is it Mask Text?) feature. You can "cut out" the shape of the letters from a patterned or colored background and move them to another document. Here I used an animal print patttern, a scan of French dictionary text, and a photo of the ocean. That's all for today. I'm going to tear myself away from this computer now.

More Brush Play: Coexist

I've been practicing turning my own images (drawn or lettered) into custom PE5 brushes, so I can use them whenever and wherever I want in a digital composition. It occurred to me that I could try making my brush lettering and doodles (learned in Martha Lever's online Calligra-Fun class) into custom brushes. After some trial and error, I started getting pretty good results. For the image shown here, I made a brush out of the lettered word "Coexist" (I think I posted this in its original form some time ago) and stamped it three times in different colors and modes. Wow, I learn something new every day :).