Have I finished?

I’m working my way through a Digital Art Journaling class.  Or rather, I’ve just made a start and am trying to catch up with the flurry of prompts and video links, because as usual, there are so many things I want to do.

Oh yes, and I want to do them all. Now.  Of course.

But I’ve struggled with this journal page on the theme of “heart”.  I’m ok with the Photoshop techniques and enjoyed fiddling about with transparencies and so on.  I can’t tell you how exciting it was to get the font made of my handwriting, too!  My problem is that the workshop was based on a finished page and I just couldn’t bear to do anything vaguely like the teachers example.  So, although I tried to start off with a faded old map as a background, I couldn’t get it to work with what I wanted to do.  Not only that, but there were other elements in the layout as well, but I decided that they added nothing to the finished composition, so I took them out.

What did I learn in this class – apart from how difficult it is to call something “done”?

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  • I installed & used paint/mixed-media brushes in Photoshop – though I could do that already
  • Rotated & resized type – I had done this too
  • Created a clipping mask with a shape & outline – that was useful!
  • Used type as a clipping mask – I did that but erased it
  • Added a splat brush – Oh, there’s plenty of splatting!
  • Created a stroked border – I liked that so much I did it twice!

I also learned something I’ve always known, that it is worth stepping away from the canvas and coming back to it – or in the digital world, to save the file and open it in a different situation, ie put a photo an your blog!  The page in this post looks so much better than it did when I had my nose up against the Photoshop screen and I really think that yes, I can say with confidence that I’m done with Lesson One.

Lesson Two presents further challenges.  The theme is “home” and not only do I not want to follow the well trodden path set by the teacher’s example, I don’t do whimsy or spiritual.  Hmmm…watch this space!

Two of my friends are also working on the class – Take a look at Helen’s journal pages, and Dorothy’s too.

Comments

[Mary]

Good job. I'm most impressed.