This week’s Adobe Photoshop or Elements tip of the week is now available on video. This weeks tip is on How to Move Sliders Incrementally in Photoshop and PSE.

Saturday Scraplift No. 152

I could not go past this stunning layout by Phylis (aka Whatnext, who has a gallery full of amazing art:

Phylis says she wanted to scrap this photo of her mother-in-law, but it was badly over-exposed. So she ran with that - inverting it to end up with this wonderful silhouette effect. I love her use of Anna’s Artplay brushes and the wonderful retro color combo. Fabulous font choice too!

Lots of inspiration here - from the silhouette effect (which you could maybe replace with an extracted photo or with a brush created from a photo as Cassie shows below), to the colours and the use of shapes to build the page. Did you notice the descending rectangles from the side of the page, and the sun hinted at with the circle and brushstrokes?

Here’s where it took Cassie, Mel and Pattie:

Credits: layout by Cassie, Custom Photo brushes tutorial by Cassie Jones, white paper, ArtPlay Palette mini-kit No.05 LoopdaLopp artstrokes No.02, Distressed Toolset No.03, Distressed Toolset No.05, Different Strokes No.04, Distressed Edge Overlays no.05 and Beauty Wordart No.01 by Anna Aspnes, Alandia Collection

Credits: layout by Melanie, Saffron Villa layered template(altered), Complete Stitched Alpha no.01, Dotted Korners n Edges brushes, and HeartLoopdaloop brushesby Anna Aspnes, rainbow from Forecast kitby Lynn Grieveson clipped to dots.

Credits: layout by Pattie, Worth Repeating Expressions No.01 by Katie Pertiet, ArtPlay Palette mini-kit No.05 and ArtPlay Palette mini-kit No.08 by Anna Aspnes.

Happy Friday to you all!  Before I get to our challenge this week,
I want to pick out two pages from our outstanding Art Journal gallery. Two pages among the many, that caught my eye.

Here is h_ryfa’s page Red Tulips :

And here is KathyJ’s page Preoccupied :

Now this week I went looking for inpsiration at places such as Art.com and AllPosters.com. These are wonderful places to get inspired. I looked up some of the great artists, such as Picasso, Klimt and Kandinsky. And I chose one painting by Kandinsky as inspiration piece for my Art Journal page this week. 
My challenge to you is to go and get inspired by the Masters. Perhaps a painting your already know and like, or look around in the poster galleries I mentioned above. You can also take inspiration from the same piece I chose.
This is Kandinsky’s Akzent in Rosa. I chose to focus on the colors, the black background, the yellow big square, the pink circle and the other circle elements.

I used my wacom pen tablet to draw out the big square that is a little crooked, filled it with with a solid color and clipped the yellow paper to it. I used one of my photos, made it into black and white, changed the blending mode to Multiply and lowered the Fill a little. For the titles I used the Clone Tool, opened up a paper with variegated look to it and loaded the alpha as a brush. With the Clone Tool as my alphabet brush, I “picked up color” first from the colored paper I chose and then stamped the letter on my page. I picked up new color for each letter. This way the letters look painted.
Lastly I added the pink circle, the glitter and the jewel.

Here are some of the items I used in this page:  Lynn Grieveson’s Awanui kit (Coming soon!), Anna Aspnes’ Spiced Jewel Page Set, MonoBlendz Bananas and Custard Paperie, CircleIT brush set no1 and no3 and Roughly Edged No.1 and Mindy Terasawa’s Splattered Alphabet.

I hope you can find some inspiration with the great masters this week. If only to go and enjoy some art - it is always inspiring! Then upload your pages in the Art Gallery - so we all can enjoy your artwork too.   Until next time - have fun with your Art Journaling!    - Aino.

I enjoy lots of things about the Template Challenge, but probably my favorite part is seeing all the different ways the artists here at DD interpret the challenge. Everybody begins with the same general “floor plan,” but the final products are always delightfully different. I love that moment when I see something in a layout that makes me think, “Oh, that is SO cool.” And with all the creativity in the gallery, that moment occurs regularly.

Today we’re using Pattie Knox’s Speed Byte No. 132, and I think you’ll agree that the three examples from the Creative Team offer a variety of interpretations of this versatile template.

The stars of Merrilee’s (digigrandma) page are the wonderful photos of her grandson Cade. She chose a beautiful color scheme to complement the black and white photos and let them take center stage. The “aha” moment for me with Merr’s page was the way she filled the circular element with other circular accents. I love the repetition with variety.

Credits: Speed Byte No. 132, Drawing with Dots Paper Pack No. 01, Crumpled Cardstock Overlays No. 01, Contessa Paper Pack, Basic Paper Alphabet: Beige, ArtPlay Palette Find My Way Value Set, Blank Safety Tags: Vintage

Fiona (Applechick) started with the basic floor plan and then moved around some of the furniture. She reconfigured the spaces for photos to accommodate the focal photo from her weekend getaway. All of her photos work so well together to tell her story, and the bright colors underscore her theme. The “aha” moment here was her use of the mask in place of the circular journaling space.

Credits: Speed Byte No. 132, Brad Bonanza No. 03: Digital Fasteners, Tie ‘Em Up Ribbons {coming soon}, Pick Me Up Kit, Fill in the Blanks Alpha Brushes and Stamps, Graphic Word Blocks Brushes and Stamps, Date Tags No. 04, Little Layette Kit, Say YES PageSet, Vibrantz Solid and Patterned Paperie, ArtPlay Palette Obsession No. 01 ValueSet, HeARTist Edges No. 01, Stitched by Anna White No. 02, Lighten Up Paper Pack, and water stain web freebie from Katie Pertiet

I was excited to use Pattie’s template for some photos I took when my son tested for his next karate belt. I had lots of photos but didn’t feel most of them were stellar. The spaces in the template allowed me to use the best parts of the photos to tell the story. Ever the rule follower, I used the ample space Pattie provided for my journaling.

Credits: Speed Byte No. 132, Brad Bonanza No. 03: Digital Fasteners, AsianART Print Paperie, Martial Arts No. 01 BrushSet, AsianScript No. 01 BrushSet, Drawing with Dots Paper Pack No. 01, Alandia Paix Element Pack, Basic Paper Alphabet: Notebook, Clock Parts No. 06, Garden Stakes: Words, Ticketed Dates, Dreams of Paradise Solids Paper Pack, Lighten Up Paper Pack, Summer Skies Solids Paper Pack, Emily Kit, French Summer Kit, Silk Road Kit: Remix

Pattie’s template is on sale today for 30% off. I can’t wait to see how you use it with your pictures and words. Come on – post your page in the Template Challenge Gallery, and give me an “aha” moment!

It’s Thrifty Thursday at DesignerDigitals where we have a brand new item priced at just $ .99 cents and 365 items marked down 30%. These specials only last until 6am EST on Friday morning so don’t miss out.