If you read my process notes, youll find out what a nifty little shortcut I found accidentally. But maybe you already know this one.
Quote: A secret to happiness is letting every situation be what it is, instead of what you think it should be. Loubis and Champagne
ArtPlay Palette Cosmopolis
ArtPlayPaletteCosmopolis
ArtsyTransfers Cosmopolis
ArtsyTransfersCosmopolis
MultiMedia Frames No. 4
MultiMediaFramesNo.4
TapedTextures No. 6
TapedTexturesNo.6
Art WordART Mix No. 1
ArtWordARTMixNo.1
Font: CK Graffiti
Process Notes: Using Cosmopolis paper 4 and Cosmopolis overlay 2 as my base I built the layout up from there, keeping in mind that I wanted it to look like a grungy, graffiti painted city wall.
Choosing a frame and placing it on the page, I typed out the quote and placed it in the frame, then I brought in the artsy transfers, moving them around until I was pleased with the results. I am more comfortable opening the artsy transfers in another tab in PS and using them one at a time instead of all the pieces at once. Its less overwhelming that way for me. Thats the beauty of the artsy transfers, you can use them any way you want.
Bringing in the word art, I turned the word life upside down and placed it in the upper corner of the frame. I also turned the faded word art upside down that I placed at the bottom right of the frame and leaving the top left faded word art as is.
As I was creating all this I blended everything into the background, with the exception of the quote, using the Color Burn blend mode and varying the opacity. That brought out the background textures and made the transfers appear painted on a wall.
I placed the psd butterfly and moving the shadow to pop the butterfly out more. It was at this point I accidentally found a shortcut you might find useful. I link layers like the butterfly and shadow in the layers panel so I can move them together without worrying about separating them accidentally. Sometimes, during the creative process, I need to unlink them, and usually I highlight the layers in the panel and clink the little link at the bottom. But this time, I dont know why, I had my finger on the shift key and clinked on the link symbol on the layer itself and a little red x appeared over the link symbol, indicating it was unlinked, in this case, the butterfly from the shadow, so I could move the butterfly and leave the shadow where it was. Imagine my delighted surprise! That eliminates a few steps I wont have to do anymore.
Last, I worked with the quote, rotating it slightly and resizing some of the words to give it a bit of a irregular look. I also used the Blend if in the fx window on it, breaking it up and giving it a bit of an aged look to it. And there you have it, a wonderful experiment in blending artsy transfers.
