{creative soul}

Painted Moments

I am so excited to tell you about a new product that just came out today. Painted Moments are 12x12 painted backgrounds that are a little bit artsy and a little messy. The thing I'm most excited about is that while they are perfect for art journaling, they can also be used as a 12x12 quickpage. Just add your pictures and journaling for a unique and beautiful page in a snap!

I just love what the creative team at JessicaSprague.com has done with these painted pages and I wanted to share them with you today....what an amazingly talented and creative bunch!

Painted Moments are 25% off today, Monday, May 21, so give them a try.

Hugs!
N

 

 

Fab Friday: Digital Art Journal Tutorial

Hello and Happy Friday to you! Today, I am going to show you a fun tutorial to use for your digital art journaling! We'll be using an inspiration piece from Art.com in combination with my ColorWash Brushes to "paint" on our art journal canvases!

First, in Photoshop, open up an existing painted art journal background that has yellow-orange hues to it.

Then, open up your inspiration pieces. The pieces I chose were more painterly but they can be anything that speaks to you. Remember when using existing artwork to inspire your personal art journals, to respect the original artist by not copying it verbatim - change it up and make it your own!

Next, load up my Color Wash brushes and, using your color picker, pick up the purple from the inspiration piece. Choose a rough vertical brushstroke. Here I decided on the fourth one in. Then in my brush presets, under Shape Dynamics,  I selected flip x & y jitter so it would give me some variance while I brushed.

I also chose the Color Burn mode to burn in a rich purple color as I painted...On a New Layer, go ahead and get painting!! :) Do this until you have a look you like. I chose to do this in the middle of the page. Change the opacity to 37% percent:

Find a horizontally-oriented brush that you like. I chose this one, from the color wash set:

And using my inspiration piece as a reference, on a new layer, I painted the top, creamy yellow portion. I left the orange- yellow background showing through on the edges, just as it does in the Art.com print.

Next, making another new layer for each part of this next painting section, paint in the gray areas. Choose varying levels of the gray and combine it with varying opacity levels on each layer. This is what I ended up with:

Then, to get the brushed look on the bottom to look my art piece,  I added yet another layer of gray, then added a layer mask and painted in the layer mask with the same vertical brush, in black to erase away parts of the layer....

Whew! Okay, are you still with me? LOL! See that brown sketchy line in our art piece? Choose a horizontal grungy brush or doodly border brush. I ended up choosing both - hey it's okay to do because this is our art journal and we can do anything we want, right?! :) Choose a rich brown color for your paint brush and on a new layer, paint in that horizontal border line, anywhere you wish!

I thought the space below the horizontal line was a good place to add my title. For my page, I wanted to put down in words all the wishes I have for my daughter. So my title was "My Wish for You". I added a doodley flower to the title:

For my last step, I thought the purple paint block in my art inspiration piece would be a perfect place to put my journaling for this page. So, from my color picker, I selected the rich purple from the art piece and, on a new layer, I painted in vertical block, using this brush from my color wash set:

I duplicated the layer and flipped it vertically, choosing "Color Burn" from Layer Styles and an opacity of 78%:

My last step was to add my journaling - my wishes for my daughter: sunny days & starry nights, moments that take your breath away, love that lasts a lifetime,  good friends to stick by your side, children to snuggle with and show the way, wonderful pets,  a small house and a large garden, the courage to be yourself and to live every day of your life in gratitude & joy.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! The doodle flower and border are from my upcoming Doodle Book brushset, which will be available next week in my shoppe!

Have a wonderful weekend and I can't wait to see your pages!

xo
N.

 

"Your Art is a Reflection of your Creative Soul Force"....

These are the words I heard this weekend from my energy healing session with Mary Spicer. The session was a gift from my sister Michelle (thank you Mich!), while I was visiting with her this weekend in Alamada, CA.

It was something that I really needed to hear. I love my work and feel so blessed to do what I do! Very fortunate. But, like every artist I feel pressure that my work is never good enough... like I've not yet found myself stylistically. This makes sense I guess — I mean as artists we are always discovering ourselves and finding our own style. But this feeling of never being "enough" is always in the background. Mary explained that I am working from my base chakra where my fear of money or not being good enough comes from. She also told me that I need to allow my child self to come through and to work alongside her in my art and journaling. Children create to please themselves, not others. They create purely, trust in themselves and never worry about being good enough. Wise little people, aren't they!? :)

My meeting with Mary was incredible and very healing. The entire weekend seemed filled with serendipitious moments. On the flight out to San Francsico, I sat next to a very sweet lady and we got talking. Turns out that she is an incredible illustrator! Anne Keenan-Higgins creates whimsical and elegant illustrations that spoke to my soul! We hit it off immediately, got out our IPads, payed for in-flight WiFi and surfed together, sharing the art that we love on Pinterest and talking the whole flight. It was so much fun!

Between meeting Anne and my session with Mary, I was completely re-energized creatively! On my flight back home last night, as soon as we took off, I pulled out my tiny mixed media journal, my inktense pencils and a watercolor brush and doodled and painted for 3 hours! I wasn't even nervous about flying (something I usually hate). When the gentlemen next to me asked, "Are you an artist?",  I hesitated—about to explain to him that no, I am just a graphic designer, and create scrapbooking products, etc etc. Instead, I just laughed and replied, "Yes, Yes! I guess I am"!

xo
N

 

 

 

A New Digital Home!!

I couldn't be more thrilled to share with you that starting today I have a new home for my digital designs!!  I am now at JessicaSprague.com!  You can read all about it here!

Jessica and her team have been fantastic and so welcoming. I am still pinching myself! I will be slowly releasing my current products over the course of the next few weeks, as well as adding some new things here and there. I met Jessica a few years back when we were both teaching at a digital scrapbooking convention in Provo, Utah. She was warm, kind and stayed to help me set up my classroom. Her generosity and enthusiasm for digital scrapbooking really shone through and I'm just delighted to be working with her.

We are currently teaching a Digital Art Journaling class at JS.com and are having a blast. The students have been so enthusiastic and have been creating some real works of art. Art Journaling, whether done digitally or with paints, is a fantastic way to spend time creating... getting lost in the process and it can also be very healing.

I wanted to give a shout-out to my friends and colleagues at CatScrap to say "thank you" for everything. This is not goodbye...I'll be seeing you around!

Hugs!
N

Digital Art Journaling...

I'm really excited to tell you about two digital art journaling projects that I'm currently involved in. First, my new collaboration with my friend Christine Honsinger (aka Fiddlette Designs) is out. Journal Your Art Out 3 is filled with all the great art journaling basics...painted backgrounds and elements, acrylic paint alpha, and messy stitches. It's a great kit to start your digital art journaling!

Next, I have created an exclusive kit for Jessica Sprague's upcoming Digital Art Journaling class which starts next Monday. This is going to be a fantastic class! Besides the kit (which is packed with over 200+ digital art journal supplies like backgrounds, stitching, grungy brushes, photo frames & masks, ephemera and more!) you will get journal prompts from Jessica, along with great video tutorials. Come and join us!

For those of you who aren't sure what art journaling is, it is similar to a scrapbook layout, but instead of photos and stories of your family & events, this is all about YOU! It's a place to explore and practice your art, but also it is very healing because you also explore your feelings and dreams and goals. Think of it as Art Therapy! I have been enjoying painting and creating mixed media in my own art journals in my basement studio. But then I love scanning things in and creating art journal pages digitally too! You can really fill up a page with whatever you want and you come away feeling lighter. Plus, if you create a page digitally, you can always undo something you don't like and you don't have to wash up your brushes after! LOL!

Ready to give it a try? Let's go! We are going to re-create my journaling page above, called "Trust". I picked this word for 2012 because I am finally learning to trust my instincts artistically, to create what calls to me and feel my way as I go. I am also learning to do this in my personal life....

{If you've purchased Christine and I's JYAO3 kit you are all set to follow along. If you haven't, don't worry, just follow along with whatever digital goodies you have on hand.}

First, open up the three backgrounds called nrj-paintedback1.jpg, nrj-paintedback2.jpg and nrj-collage2.png. Drag them all together into one Photoshop file and then crop it to 8.5 x 11 inches.

Arrange the backgrounds so they are in this order and set your layer blending modes and fill percentages as follows...

Layer 2, Hue: 100%

Layer 1, Multiply: 60%

Layer 0 (background) at 100%

 Your page will look like this...(feel free to play along with other blending modes and fills to get a look that YOU want!)

Now, open up the file called nrj-stitchedbag.png and drag it over the top most layer. Set your layer blend mode to Hard Light, Fill: 70%

Next, grab the painted heart in the file called "nrj-paintedelement6.png

Drag it onto the top most layer and set the layer blend mode to Overlay: 100%

And now your page looks like this! Pretty, huh? But, we are not done building our page yet...

Now we are going to get messy with some stitching! Got to your brush palette and load the stitching brush set that came with the kit... its called nrj-ch-stitches.abr. Add a circle stitching to the center of the main flower and build a row of flowers underneath the main flower.... don't forget the petals! :)

Next, we'll spruce up these flowers with some painted & stitched elements. Open up the following files: nrj-stitchedheart4.png, nrj-paintedheart1.png and nrj-stitchedflower1.png. Drag them over to our working .psd file.

Drag the yellow stitched heart underneath the far flower and reposition. Similarly, drag the blue painted heart underneath the stitched heart flower and resize/reposition.

Take the stitched flower and make it smaller, dragging it on the layer on top of the stitched heart flower. Center it on the heart. You could also bring in a circle or other stitched or painted heart. Do your own thing...play around until you are satisfied with the results.

For a few last touches, lets bring in the file called nrj-collagepiece3.png

And the file called CAH_AlteredBloomtwelve.png...

 

Take the layer with the collaged piece on it (the blue one with the word create) and pull it over to the lower left side behind the flower. Set the layer blend mode to Color Burn and set fill to 80%.

For the flower petal, pull it down underneath the flower clusters but above the backgrounds.  Center it over the heart near the word create. Leave the blend at Normal and fil at 100%.

So now our floral cluster should now look somewhat like this... but again feel free to experiment, make your own flowers and bring in your own shapes and elements.

One last touch we can do is to add a title to our journaling page. It's easy to do with Christines fun stamped alpha. Load the photoshop brush file called "CAH_AcrylicAlpha.abr"

Stamp a word in any color for your title (I used white on mine at an opacity of 82% for my word: Trust).

Save and print! Or add an element or two! Journal! Do whatever it is YOU want to do on your page. Have fun and experiment.. that is the best part!

Enjoy!
Nan

 

 

A New Art Single and some Painty Stuff!

I am really excited about my new Art Single, up today at CatScrap! It is a bit different for me stylistically, but I have to say I love it! I got out my paints and mediums and collaged the background, then painted the coffee cup separately, in gouache paints. I love these paints because they are water based and easy to work with, but also very vibrant and more opaque than watercolors. Then I put it together digitally, so it truly is Mixed Media! (if you think of your computer as a medium, which I truly do). You can print it and frame it as art, use it in card making or other paper crafts or anything your mind can dream up!

I also have some new brush strokes for you, made from those gouache paints. They are perfect to add some accents on your pages for journaling or titles, or to use in your digital Art Journaling projects!

Happy Creating!
N.

Art Journaling Challenge Week 2: Hope

We have been having so much over at CatScrap with our Art Journal Challenge. This is an 8 week challenge with each week having a different theme and a different gorgeous freebie created by the CatScrap designers. The idea is to get your feet wet with digital art journaling and at the end of the 8 weeks, you will have a finished album filled with your Hopes, Dreams, Goals & Schemes! Along the way, you can post your pages in our Art Journal gallery at CatScrap!

Last week, the challenge started over at Fiddlette's blog with her wonderful freebie! This week, I have a new art journal set for you! The theme is also Hope. You can grab the kit in the shoppe for free.

Creating a digital art journal is so much fun! The best part is there are no rules and if you don't like getting messy, making an art journal page in Photoshop is great because all the paint, brushes and grunge are virtual. Of course, there is always the UNDO button and eraser, unlike traditional art journaling! Ready to have some fun? Let's go!

I've created some extra grunge and paint brushes for you to use along with this tutorial. You can download them here. This is an .abr brush set in Pshop.

First open up the beautiful background that Christine created in her freebie last week. Then open up the blue painted background that was included in my download. Drag the blue background underneath Christine's journal background. Flip it so the flowers are on the bottom and adjust it.

Next, using your magic wand, select the bottom petals from the middle flower, copy and paste, then rotate and place it at the top so you get a whole flower.

Add a layer mask. Using one of the grungy brushes I gave you and with your color set to black,  "erase" the doodly parts away from the edges and any other parts from the bottom background to give it your own look.

If you want to change the color of the background blue layer or saturate it a bit, now is a good time! I changed the hue and lightness to make my blue background a bit more vibrant.

Now, using some more of the brushes, add some stems to your flowers, painted circles, and some text, with the text bruhes. Have fun! Remember, you don't have to do it exactly like I've done below. Add your own flair!

Adding different kinds of accents to your journal page truly makes it your own. It can also be a fun and healing process! You have two good friends when digital art journaling, your ERASER and CMD Z! (UNDO!)

Once you've got a look that you like, add the word hope, that is included in the download.

Next open up the envelope that came in the download, the one with the bird on it. Drag it over to your working file, but underneath group of flowers and elements we've created. Between the colored layer and bottom blue layer.

Next, using one of the acrylic paint brushes and some white "paint", let's paint over the bird in the envelope so it looks like we just slapped some gesso on there for real! I created a layer above my bird layer and "painted" around the bird and erased bits so just his head and some of his tail was peeking out!

To finish up, feel free to break out even more "brushes" and paint some more brush strokes or accents in varying colors to make this your own personal art journal! You can even add some journaling to this page as well.

Here is my finished piece.

This is my second page in my art journal and it makes me happy! I "HOPE" it does the same for you! tee hee!

Hugs!
Nan