Supplies from Advanced Brushes for Photoshop Elements Class
Cosmopolis Artplay Palette http://www.oscraps.com/shop/ArtPlay-Palette-Cosmopolis.html

Stories are sometimes best told through a composite of meaningful photos, with the words filling in the gaps. This is the case with this page for my daughter's album, which contains a lot of family history and my interpretations of events both current and past. When she sees this, she will recognize the photos she took and how they interact with my heritage photos. I was inspired to get this page done by Anna's recent blog post on storytelling, which you may read here: http://www.annaaspnesdesigns.com/how-to-tell-stories-that-are-not-yours/

I made this page while following along with the first and second videos in Anna's new Advanced Brushes for Photoshop Elements class. I used brush-blending (and blending modes) to composite three photos from my daughter (including her selfie) with one of mine, then added another heritage photo in the slide carrier that comes with the Artplay Palette. Along the way I tried my hand at a Magic-Eraser extraction and blending with the Smudge Toola defringing move that I am sure I will be using a lot in the future. But my favorite part of the two videos so far? Using a brush to scatter light. Who knew?