Okay..before I start...if you hear a loud snuffling and snorting..it's me. I sound like a pig searching for truffles, sniff, snort, sniff. I have a cold and sore throat, plus it doesn't help that my nose is glowing a very luminous red!! Too many tissues!! So imagine a pig with a clowns nose and you've got me in one!!
I nearly forgot to mention the cough..a sort of raw hacking noise.....that will not be suppressed..as my DH has found out. Other details I won't describe, I don't want to put you off completely!!
Anyway, on to business. Paint!!!!
I thought I'd share a little a tip about using overlays in a short tutorial. Not only can you stack overlays to make your background papers, you can also add extra layers and stick a little paint on them. If you play with the blending modes, then you can have some real fun. I use Photoshop CS2 but you can apply the principle in most software packages.
In the tutorial I will keep things simple but you'll get the basic idea and then it's up to you to experiment!! I haven't tried to be subtle with the blending modes, I've just tried to make it simple...the finer points are up to you!!
The overlay that I used is included in the download with a PDF of the tutorial. You can use the overlay for Commercial or Personal use. If you already use this technic...I apologise....ignore me!! Lol!
Right let's get going.
1. Open up a new file 12x12, 300dpi, transparent and fill it with the colour of your choice.
I used a brown colour for my base layer bc7d5c, but feel free to use any you want. (I renamed this layer colour)
2. Now open the overlay file that came with the tutorial, jsch_pattern_example.png
3. With the overlay file as the active one, hold down the Shift Key and drag it into your new file with the colour.
(Holding down the Shift key will make sure that the overlay is central when it has been moved.)
4. When you've done this, change the blending mode of the overlay layer to: Overlay, 78%.
5. Now for the start of the fun part. Make new layer above the overlay.
(You can do this by Layer>New or by clicking the small icon, second from the right at the bottom of the Layers palette).
Rename the new layer to Paint 1
6. With the Paint 1 as the active one, select the paint brush you want to use. I choose a soft round brush, size 800. This size just covers the flower like centre of the pattern on the overlay.
The quick way to get the brush ready is select the brush icon in the left tool bar. Then change the size in the top tool bar by click the down arrow next to the brush shape.
Choose a soft brush from the drop down list and then at the top change the px size to 800.
This is what your top tool bar should look like when you've done.
7. We need to pick the colour we want the brush to paint with. I choose a bright turquoise blue, 5accd6. Again it's a matter of choice.
Make sure that the new layer is still your active on and then we can start to paint.
Hold the brush over the middle of the flower like shape and click once.
Continue doing this until you have all the shapes you want covered. (You can use different colours over each shape, but for now I'm just using this one to keep it simple.)
When you have finished painting the shapes and your happy with it, turn of the Paint 1 layer by clicking the little eye on the left of the layer. We can turn it on later when we've done the next stage.
8. Make an other new layer above Paint 1, exactly as we did before and rename it Paint 2.
We'll use the same soft round brush but we need to change the size of the brush so that it just covers the centre of the flower shape.
To change the size make sure you still have the paintbrush icon selected and then in the top tool bar click the down arrow next to the brush shape and change the brush size to 150px. (You can also change the brush size by pressing the ] key to make it larger or the [ key to make it smaller.)
We also need to change the colour. I have used a green, 3ed895.
We're ready to paint . So line up your brush and click once on centre of the first flower shape.
Continue doing this until you have covered all the centres of the shapes. Again you can change colour for each one if you want. If stuck to this one colour.
9. When you have complete all click on the Paint 1 layer to make it active again. Change the blending mode to Overlay, 90%.
10. Click on the Paint 2 layer and change the blending layer to Colour Burn, 64%.
(Okay, this is not very subtle but the subtle bit is for you to do later!Lol.)
This is what you should have.
I have kept the tutorial to the basics, but you can add texture to the painted layers via the Layers Style Palette, change the blending modes, use different shaped brushes...the list is endless!! Just play and experiment!! But most of all have fun.
You can download the tutorial in PDF format with the overlay here
Have a great weekend!!
