You know that saying: Do What You Love. It goes hand in hand with Love What You Do. From the same words is What Do You Love. I love making real art, but I’m totally in love with exploring things digitally. As I’ve said before, I’m self-taught, and I’m still working in PS DS. What’s DS you say? It’s my comical reference to DinoSaur era. That would be PS 5.5. I have a later version here but I’m reluctant to load it since I nearly passed out and threw in the towel when I made the switch from 5 to 5.5. If you’ve seen the new Stampington publication Somerset Digital Studio (I don’t have a copy yet!) you’ll see I wrote a tutorial on making custom Photoshop brushes. My apologies to those of you who have left the Dinosaur era and are working in a current version because the steps might not be exactly translatable – but hopefully you’ll still gleen some value in my tips.
So what’s my point today? I guess it would be that having an interest in learning is just plain good. Know what you love, and Do It. I don’t know where I’m going with my digital skills but it really doesn’t matter – I’m learning many cool things that can be interpreted in my ‘real’ work, and I’ve been able to make graphics for myself and others that is not just playtime stuff, it’s a paying gig, so that’s something. My other point would be that when you know what you love, and can spend time doing it, it doesn’t matter why or what for, ya know? In looking back at the evolution of my digital playtime I realized that much of it can be blamed on my favorite band. Yes, that’s what I said. I can attribute my growth in developing my digital skills to HIM.
If you aren’t an avid fan like me, you may not be aware that many bands have message boards. When you participate on a board you have the option of creating an avatar and signature for yourself – graphics of a very small size that show up on your posts. I’ve made a habit of not only making my own, but offering my services to other online friends on the board. I also participate in the graphics contests that are posted monthly. I can proudly say I won this month for designing a wallpaper below (meant for your computer desktop) and have won honors a few times over the years.
You may recall seeing the journal pages above – this time they have been layered, with text added. I love the combination of real work and applied text. It’s a great learning tool that leads to problem solving – like how would I get that text onto my page in the real world? Toner transfer, carved lettering, printed transparency maybe? Below is a partial portfolio of some of my messageboard graphics made for me and some friends, as well as assignments for the monthly contests. It won’t look like much to you, but to me it represents the hours of homework learning how to manipulate images and text. The canvases are so tiny you would hardly believe how much time they took – but to me it’s time well spent because it got me to where I am now.
Know what you love but haven’t tried it yet? What are you waiting for?
This month we are Cutting It Out on the Street Team. We are carving stamps and cutting stencils and sharing the results. Soon I will post a tutorial on the stencils. Interested in making a custom stamp? Come play with us on the Street Team. Congrats to Pam McClung who was the Top Hat Pick for the Pandora’s Box Crusade!
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