Freebie – Gesso-Look Canvas Textures

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Hiya!  I wanted to pop in with some things to share with you!  Yay!  One, right off, is my ‘logo’.  I ‘slipped’ it in on the first parts of the Dec freebie.  My friend, Su, from StarSunflowerStudios, actually commented on it.  Thank you, Su!  The two hands holding a card with my name on it was too big.  It covered too much of a preview.  So, I looked to do something else.  Since my nickname was one I picked up in my ‘hippie chick’ days, I thought about something along those lines.  The ‘whirling dervishes’, as they were referred to, were the chicks, and a few dudes, who would dance and spin around to the music at the live events.  Yeah, I was one of those!  LOL  I had seen the ‘gypsy’ silhouette at 123RF stock, so, I used one with some paint spattering and texture.  It takes up a lot less room on a preview, yet, I think, it still stands out.  I had hoped you would like it!

logo grunged-out-bordertransp600

Looking back, still, ever since my teen years I have kept some kind of journal/sketchbook.  With journaling, if I was in a dilemma over something, by the time I transferred my feelings to paper, I had usually ‘worked through’ what ever it was.  That happened a lot!  I think that, with me giving the matter(s) their due while writing, I would mull it over and, more often than not, find answers or, at least, some measure of resolve.

Journaling carried over to my adult years, writing about my children and the ‘occasional issue with my hubby’.  (What an understatement!  LOL)  Family, moves, jobs, schools, friends, I always had something to write about.  I know some of you can relate.  It wasn’t until I started learning digital art, though, that ‘art journal’ came to me.  That was just what I wanted to do!  I saw all the beautiful, impactful pages others had done and I liked it!  I love art anyway, but, coupling art with the written word was perfect!  Most of all, though, anything goes – just about.  Using bits and scraps of my life and the world around me is, to me, the greatest form of art!   Whatever is ‘relevant’ works in art journaling.  Hell, it doesn’t even have to be that!  LOL

The ‘free’ spirit in me has always bucked tradition and art journaling was built to order for this chick!  I just haven’t ever set out to do a ‘journal’, like in a book format, yet.  I’d like to.  So far, though, I have just been creating art, and only occasionally adding some prose or text expressing a feeling.  After my most recent drama, here, at home, I could really use the opportunity to work through some of it via my art and/or writing.  To get it out in an art piece, or, in a little journaling, I think, would do wonders for me!

  There are some awesome kits and sets available for journaling anything and everything.  One look at almost any scrapbooking site and there is a section on journaling.  But, they were designed by another for whatever use they had in mind.  They just aren’t my own.  I knew I wanted to use a ‘canvas’ for my base and went in search.  There aren’t very many available and those that are, well, they are quite pricey.  So, I decided to start totally from scratch and make my own.

The very first need was a canvas/page.  ‘Gesso-smeared canvas’ is a look that is really popular, perfect for art journaling.   I couldn’t find much along those lines, though.  So, that is what I made.  Five(5) of them!  They are free to use any ol’ way your little hearts desire!  Well, other than harmful.  LOL  Click on the preview to download!

su GessoTextures 600

Here is a close-up of one of the textures so you can see what the canvas and gesso look like.

su GessoTexture close-up

Like the one above, the rest of the textures are all neutral, 3600X3600px in size, 300 ppi, and free to use, no credit necessary!

Have fun and enjoy!  Until next time,

Smile Graphic #9

Hugs,

Su

Freebie Brush Set – Assorted Text

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Well, hello!  Long time, no, um, see?  LOL  I made it through my ordeal for the most part.  My little grandchildren mean the world to me!  We’re all back together now!  Since December’s kit was entitled “A Child’s Christmas’, I had found it difficult to work on.  I am happy to announce that I have managed to pull it all together!  I will begin posting my parts, this month, January, as planned in December.  Miss Edna will have some freebies for you while I get caught up.  She posted her parts to December’s kit in December!  LOL  My downloads will start next Monday.

In trying to keep busy, I got an idea for a project and have been puttering away on it for the past month.  I love text, from fonts, alphas and typography to written word.  I like vintage text especially – pages of newsprint, dictionaries, advertisements, ephemera, etc.  I have collected a bunch of text as well as found some great places online for ‘Public Domain’ images of text in all manner of type and handwriting.  I put together some brushes of some of my favorite texts.  They’re made at 300dpi, each around 2400px on the longest side.  They’re pretty large and hi-res.  As most of  the images are from Wiki’s Creative Commons, they require no credit what so ever.  There are two pages from the Vintage Moth, but, otherwise, the images came from the “Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary” at Wikipedia.  So, have fun with them if you can use them!

su AssrtdTextBrushesPrev

I have another tutorial in the works.  This one will be more of a primer on the Layers Palette.  If you are new to Photoshop, hopefully I will help you understand some things.  If you and PS are old friends, well, maybe I do things a little different and you, too, might learn something.  LOL  I spent last weekend viewing a series of Photoshop videos at AdobeTV.  For as long as I have done some things in PS, I still learned another way of doing a lot of things!  I think what happens is, when you learn PS on your own, you grasp bits and pieces piecemeal.  You may learn to Copy a Layer from one tut or person, or, learn how to use the Liquify Tool from yet another.  In PS there seems to be 5 different ways to do anything, anyway.  So, once I learn one way, I will watch a video and see the same thing done another way.  It often turns out that the new way is better!  Maybe there are less steps.  Whatever!  I just like to learn with PS.  I hope ya’ll do too!  I’m going to try to get that posted in the next couple of days.

So, I shall see you next week, if not sooner!  ‘Til then…

The shortest distance between two people is a smile

Smile Quotes

Hugs,

Su

My Apologies

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I am just so awfully sorry, but, I am in need of a little time.  I’m home and feeling better. I thank you all for your good thoughts!

There are some things happening, though, with my family that is just tearing me apart.  I will get back as soon as I am able.  Right now, I just don’t know even what to think or say.  So, best I leave it as it is.  I just need a little time.  Thanks, ya’ll!

Think Hard Before Walking Away

Blessings to you all.

Su

Freebie PS Brushes and a Tutorial

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A good Tuesday to you!  ‘Tis a little out of the norm for me, but, I had something to share with ya’ll.  I saw a design I really liked somewhere over the weekend.  I wish I had saved the link or something.  Anyway, it was several ‘floral ornaments’, so they are called, grouped together, for a really nice page embellishment.   So, I got the idea of creating some brushes of these ornaments for use in my scrap work and I thought I would share them with you all.  The designs came from Snap2Objects.com.

Click on the Preview if you would like to go snag these Vectors for yourself.  If you don’t know, Vectors, like .AI or .EPS file formats, will open in Photoshop.  They’re all Adobe.  (Directions below.)

  These would look nice behind a photo, as an element, or even as a background design.  You could create a pattern from them, as well.  The uses are only as limited as your imagination!  The ones I saw were ‘grunged’, but, I wanted to leave these ‘un-grunged’ to allow for different looks.  You can always grunge them up after you stamp them, right?  I’ll even show you how, if you want.  LOL  Here we go!

Download, unzip and install the brushes.  These were made in CS6.  What other programs they work in, I don’t know.  I’m sorry.  Open a new document at the size you would like the element to be.  I like 800-1500px, depending on the element.  Make it 300dpi, RGB, 8-bit, Transparent.  You can put a color background if you like.  That won’t matter.  We’ll just be using this to create the element.

Select a brush of your choice from the download and change the size to the size of your document, maybe a slight bit smaller.  These brushes are 1800-1900pxs, so, they are kind of large.  Choosing the color you would like, ‘stamp’ the ornament onto the page, on a New Layer.  You may have to stamp more than once, so, don’t lift the brush until you get the results.  Or, you can just copy the Layer until you get the desired strength.  Here is what mine looks like:

That’s it!  If you want it to look a little grungey, click on the Eraser tool, then, select a different brush from the set.  Lower the size down to about ‘one/fourth(1/4)’ the size of your element.  I set mine to 500px.  Set the Opacity down low, like to 10-30%, as in the settings in the image above, then, ‘stamp’ over the element in a few random spots to get the desired degree of grunginess.  Go as intense or as subtle as you like with the erasure/grunginess.  It’s whatever you like.  You can leave it with out grunging it up if you prefer.  Here is what I got:

I put mine on a white background for display purposes, but, you can leave yours transparent.  Save it as a .PNG file and there ya go!  A new element to embellish a page or design.

Another cool thing you can do is to save the embellishment as a Pattern.  Make sure you have selected the Layer with the design on it.  Go to ‘Edit’>’Define Pattern’.  When the text box pops up, give it a name and hit ‘OK’.

If you’ve left the size at your element size, like my 1200px, the pattern will be rather large.  Either reduce the size of the element before you Define the Pattern or just lower the ‘Scale’ of the Pattern down when you go to apply it.  If you want a scrapbook-sized paper, for example, create a New Document the size and with whatever settings you need for your paper.  Click on the ‘Create Layer Adjustment’ icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette.

When the drop-down list opens, select Pattern.

 The Pattern you just ‘Defined and Saved’ should be the one that opens.  If not, click on the tiny arrow on the right side of the visible pattern in the Pattern selection box and select your Pattern from the list.

 Adjust the Scale of the Pattern and Move it around where you like at this time, then, click on ‘OK’.  Here is mine. I created a Layer just beneath my Pattern and filled it with color.

So, there you have it.  One brush set, several different uses!

Here is an embellishment that is sort of what I saw and wanted to make:

Or, they could be used as a Tag:

Click on the preview above to download the brushes.  I put the circular matte in the file, too, in case you might want that.  I did not include the .PNGS as they were uber ‘weighty’ – 15mbs average.  With 7 of them, that would make the folder to download humongous!  LOL  If you need them, I will provide them for you – no problem.  Please leave me a comment and I will zip them up and send you a link.  You could also go to Snap2Objects and download the ornaments there, since they did originate there.  When you open the .AI file in Photoshop, they’ll be in .PNG format and right at 3000px on the long side.  All you have to do is click ‘OK’.  This, or something similar, is what you will see, :

You would have to separate them for individual use.  If you use the Vectors, be sure you follow their Terms and link to Snap2Objects.com – not me.

I want to thank you for stopping by.  I hope the brushes and this tutorial will come in handy for you!

Soon, Miss Edna and I start giving you a new freebie for the month of November.  That will start the second Monday of the month, the 12th, I believe.  I have some more things to share with you, but, they can wait.  It’s late and I need to go to sleep!  LOL

Until next time,

SMILE!!

Blessings,

Su

Mask Tutorial and a Link for Coding

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Hi, everyone!  I have a couple of things I want to share with you today.  They are a mish-mash of topics, but, all should come in handy.  Shall we get started?  M’kay!

First up is a series of posts, “31 Days of Coding Basics”, to help you with some of the simpler codes you can use on your own blog or on others, like in the comments section.  This series is on This Bold Girl.com.  Coding is all of the Greek, or Swahili, I’m not sure which, that allows you to create some cool stuff on your blog or website.  It’s really ‘html’!  LOL  For instance, you can add a bold heading to each sub-section of a post if you are posting on several topics, as I often do (See Below).  You can add a link to a comment you make on someone else’s blog.  You can create lists, breaks, emphasis and italicization.  The last two are useful for me since these attributes don’t exist as options on the ‘visual’ page I post on here at WP.

None of the posts/instructions are very long or tedious.  Rather, you may just learn something quickly and easily.  Gwen, the ‘Bold Girl’, writes a good tutorial!  Give it a shot and see!  I know I was envious of those folks who could place links in their comments on other folks’ blogs.  Now, I can do it!  There may be a trick in there that you can use!

Look at the sub-title just below.  I used code to get it like that.

Key-Stroke Shortcut

Next up, I want to show you something.  It is kind of a keystroke, only different.  LOL  If you use Masks in Photoshop, this is a cool tip!  Say, you are extracting an item from an image.  I almost always apply a Mask to the image I am going to extract from.  This gives me the ability to change things and clean things up more easily.  It keeps your image ‘non-destructive.  Then, I begin selecting the item with the Quick Selection Tool, getting up close to the edges as possible.  When you are satisfied with the selecting, click on the ‘Add Layer Mask’ button at the bottom of the Layers Palette.  This should isolate your item.  If, instead, you’ve masked over the image in error, just switch the masking to the item by clicking on Select>Inverse, then, add the Mask.  (Whichever area you Mask, either the background or the circle, the selected area will remain visible, while the remaining area ‘disappears’, when the Mask button is clicked.)

Here is the tip!  If you would like to check the Mask to be sure there aren’t any places missing or ragged-looking, press ‘Alt(Options-Mac)’ and click on the Mask in the Layers Palette.  The Mask will be completely visible.  This is priceless on difficult images.  You can brush over any areas that you need to, then, simple do the same keystroke to return your image mode.  Or, just click somewhere on the mask’s Layer itself and the image reappears.

Here is a simple image I whipped up to show you how to do this.  I want to isolate the circle to use elsewhere.

Select the circle with the Quick Selection Tool.  Add the Mask.  Then, press ‘Alt'(Options-Mac)’ and click on the Mask in the Layers Palette.  You should see this:

Remember, White Reveals, Black Conceals.  The Layers Palette looks like this:

When you get the Mask cleaned up, and you are satisfied, simply click the same Keystroke or click anywhere on the grey part of the Layer.  This is the result:

(Though it is hard to see, the PS background pattern is showing all around the circle.  I can now save it as a .PNG file.)

When I get the Mask work done, I can right-click on the Mask and select ‘Apply Layer Mask’.

And, here is my newly extracted circle!

Being able to tweek the Mask is a perfect way to see what you may have missed while selecting.  My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, so, this helps me bunches!  Because Masks are editable, you can make changes by going over any areas with the opposite colors: black-conceals or white-reveals.

I think this will do for today.  I have some more things to share, so, watch for them.  Until then,

SMILE!

Hugs,

Su