Playing and Inspiration

During those times when I don’t feel like creating and I need a spark to renew my interest in digital scrapbooking, I sometimes find inspiration from others. Another artist in Anna’s gallery, Sharron Lamb, recommended a watercolor action for Photoshop. I was intrigued and wondered how well it worked. Below, I describe my process for playing with this action and creating my page.

This watercolor action came with not only the action, but also an abr brush file and a link to a video explaining how to adjust the layers once the action finished running.

Per the instructions, open a photo in Photoshop, create a new layer and title it “brush” using all lowercase letters. Load the brush set provided. Then brush over part of the photo with a soft round brush (included in the abr file) at 100% opacity. Finally, run the action.

Once the action finishes, make adjustments as described in the video. On my page, rather than using a soft round brush as described in the video, I placed one mask from Anna’s Simple Fotoblendz No 1, duplicated it and adjusted it’s size. I renamed the layer “brush” and ran the action. After making adjustments, I created a composite of all the layers.

Clip the composite to one of the masks from FotoBlendz Overlays No. 3. Adjust the size of the mask. Change the blend mode of the overlay mask layer to linear burn.

Note: I blended three papers to achieve the texture on my page below the mask.

Extract blooms from other photos to create a bouquet. For this page, I extracted three different blooms, adjusted their position and anchored them with ButtonThreadz No. 2, UrbanThreadz No. 2 and No. 3.

Duplicate the watercolor composite. Drag them below the original composite and mask. Add inverted masks and stamp ArtsyStains No. 1 and No. 2 to create depth below the bouquet. Change the blend mode to linear burn and adjust the opacity.

Stamp splatters on new blank layers. Add brush layers.

Place a button, adjust color and anchor with a thread. Place transfers. Add a title and date.

When I began playing with the Photoshop action and my photos, I really didn’t have an idea for a page. I love a watercolor look and I just wanted to play with the action. I simply wondered what kind of background I might create. Once I had my watercolor composite, then of course, I was inspired to create a page. Sometimes, all that’s needed to spark an idea for a page is something new, i.e. a watercolor action.