To reflect the sky colors in the water, I made a duplicate layer of the sky, flipped it vertically in Edit–>Transform. I reduced its transparency to 36%, and slightly adjusted the color to make it greener (for the influence of the green of the water) and darker. I remembered my painting lessons which taught me…
Category: Digital Art
Digital art – ATCs, tutorials, and more by Aisling D’Art, one of the original art bloggers and founders of the current art journaling movement.
ATC Tutorial 1 – Memories – Digital ATC
This is page one of a free tutorial showing you how to make a digital ATC similar to “Memories,” the artist trading card shown below. How the card started: I wanted to make a different card… something not quite so “ghost-y” as some of my other ATCs from mid-2005. I was also thinking about some…
Midnight in New Orleans – ATC
The idea for this started with an illustration in Photoshop Secrets of the Pros showing an eerie, monochromatic image by Joen Asmussen. The clouds in the sky of that image inspired me to try a similar effect, using some of my own graphics. I started with a public domain photo of a solar eclipse, courtesy…
Memories – A Digital ATC
This card was designed to document the creative process when I’m working on digital ATCs. I’ve written four pages–with thumbnail images of each step–to explain how I work on these cards. It shows you how to go from initial idea to finished card. This card, with documentation and HTML work, took about three and a…
Reality/Imagination – A free poster and Artist Trading Card (ATC)
Free art! This is one of many Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) that you can print from my Aisling.net website. This card has been so popular, you can also print it as a free mini-poster, about 5″ x 7″. I was working with photos of smoke. I wanted to see if I could “lift” the smoke…
Face Behind the Words – Free digital ATC
I set my timer for one hour, and began this project early in the morning. My goal with each card in this series is to complete all of the art–from concept to finished image–in one hour each day. This card started with a deliberately random choice of an image from the public domain, an Asian…
Gold Leaf – ATC Tutorial
My instructions for making this card are for Adobe Photoshop, but you can use almost any graphics program and create the same effects. It’s not easy to explain this sort of process. It’s vastly easier for me to show you, in person. If you print out this page and follow it step-by-step, you’ll probably figure…
Gold Leaf – a Free, Printable ATC
This 3″ x 5″ artist trading card (ATC) started with two photos that I’d taken in Petersburg, Virginia, at a Civil War battleground. Everything was fine until I needed to add a figure as the focal point. An hour and a half later, I saved all of the layers that I was working with–to reuse…
Spirits in the Old Saloon – a Texas ATC (R-rated)
(Originally, I called this card “Ghosts of the Old Saloon,” but later realized that doesn’t really echo the depth of what I wanted to convey with this card. I may redesign it, but – for now – here it is, anyway.) Reminder: This image includes female, upper-body nudity (if you really look for it) and…
Everlasting – free digital ATC
After a wonderful weekend in New Orleans, I was in the mood for a slightly eerie, somewhat nostalgic ATC. The ATC image started with my photo from a Massachusetts park, taken early one April morning. Next, I added a public domain photo of a little girl. I have no idea who she is, but she…