Lesson 6: Collage

My daughter dragged us to see the movie "Cars" six (yes, that was 6!) times last summer. As a result, we've been inspired to take a road trip next summer. We're going to try to follow Route 66 from its end in Santa Monica back to its beginning in Chicago. Hence, the collage.

I found a bunch of photos of famous Route 66 attractions and arranged them on the page as you see. This took a few tries and I had to leave out a LOT of pictures. Then I added drop shadows to each photo. For the text, I added a drop shadow, bevelled and embossed, and added an outer glow to get that sort-of-neon look.

After reducing the size, some of the pix are hard to see, but trust me--all of these places are delightfully tacky :)

(To be fair, there are lots of really cool places along the way, and some absolutely beautiful scenery. I can't wait to take this trip!)

Lesson 5--Business Card

Lesson 5 done! This was fun.

The card looks pretty small in this posting, but you can click on it to get a larger view, if you like.

It's not a real business card, of course, and in fact, if I were making a real business card, it would be simpler, maybe with blue and black, or something like that.

But this was a kick. I'm the Volunteer Coordinator for the Fall Festival at my daughter's school. I also do the school's website. And I did the website for another friend's charitable organization, and I'm getting ready to do another one for another group, and I bake cookies for the bake sales and I rescue dogs...are you starting to get the picture? I just can't say no. So I thought I'd have some fun with it instead of tearing my hair out.

Now, let me see if I can remember what I did.

For the background of the card, I used a large brush to draw the fuzzy border and made the "Welcome" layer about 50% opaque.

I just used a drop shadow for the text in the center, and I bevelled the buttons and gave those a drop shadow too. I might have used the "Satin" layer style on some of the smaller text--I can't remember now. I tried just about everything in the layer styles--that's fun! The phone number isn't my real number: it spells out "volunteersrus."

And if you can get the cookie off the card, you're welcome to eat it. Enjoy!

Lesson 4: Editing Photos--RedEye

I can't believe how easy this was! Suddenly, lots of my images are salvageable. On this picture of my daughter, Lulu, I just used the red-eye tool.

Lesson 4: Editing Photos--Magic Wand

I know we didn't need to post this one, but I had fun with it. The first is the original; in the second, I used the Magic Wand to change the wall color. I like this--I can test out all the colors and see what it will look like before I actually paint!

Lesson 4: Editing Photos--Filtering

I've uploaded two filtering assignments.

The top picture is the "Before" version. I took this picture on the Oregon coast, where they have some amazing scenery.

In the second picture, obviously, I've used filters on the whole picture. I used (on different layers) sprayed strokes, dry brush, watercolor, and ink outlines.

In the third picture, I used a filter on just a selection, using a yellow foreground color to create the sun effect.

This was fun! I see now that I can become a famous Impressionist painter, and never lift a brush!