Journaling / WordART: "Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift. Albert Einstein"

Created for the 11/27-12/05 AnnaLift Challenge. We were asked to use 3 of the 5 provided challenge colors, a pictorial or wordart photo mask, and dimensional elements for depth.

To begin this layout, I started by using a clipping mask to clip a photo of autumn leaves to the "autumn" WordBlendz photo mask. Then, I used another clipping mask to clip a second photo of autumn leaves to a leaf-shaped FotoBlendz photo mask. Next, I resized and arranged them on my page until I liked their placement.

After that, I tried different papers from Anna Aspnes' ArtPlay Palette Autumn Crisp until I found the textured white paper that I picked. I took some geese and some other birds from Take Flight No. 5 and added them to the page, below the photos and masks. In Photoshop, I right-clicked each of these bird layers, selected Blending Options > Color Overlay, and used the blue color from the challenge (#88a5b4) to recolor them.

Next, I took three elements from Thanksgiving Notions No. 1 -- a roast turkey, rusty pumpkin, and rusty turkey, and added them to the page. I resized them at about 12-15% and added drop shadows for dimension. Then I added two ribbon roses from the Autumn Crisp ArtPlay Palette, added drop shadows, and arranged all of these elements until I liked them. I used a clipping mask to add a Hue, Saturation, Luminance layer in Photoshop directly to the blue flower, and lowered the saturation to -55.

Then, I added a row of white stitching from Autumn Crisp and positioned it at an angle across the page. I brought in a blue paper from Autumn Crisp, placed it below the white paper, and then resized and rotated the white paper to stack it. I gave the white paper a drop shadow and a dark outer glow to make it seem stacked. Finally, I added the Albert Einstein quote, which is a transfer from the Barren Sunrise ArtPlay Palette.