As digital scrapbookers we all have so much to learn from each other. I certainly do not know everything there is to know about Photoshop, or digital scrapbooking for that matter, and so I was completely in awe when I first saw the digital paintings created by Adryane Driscoll in the DesignerDigitals gallery. I wanted to know more and Adyrane has very kindly provided a step-by-step tutorial for us.
Adryane lives with her family in California, USA. She is an attorney by day and digital painter extraordinaire by night.
Thank you Adryane for sharing your time and talent with us.
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*Birds* Deconstructed by Adryane Driscoll
"As scrapbookers, we have all, at one time or another, looked at the pages of other scrapbookers and gone through the process of trying to deconstruct those pages and then put them together again, making them our own. The process I use to do a digital painting is very similar. I start with an image, then I take it apart, trying to break it down into individual pieces. I take those pieces, give them a shape, then put them all together again to make a picture."
For this *Birds* piece, I imagined two birds, sitting in a flowering tree, singing a song. This is the process I used to give that image form."
Step 1: Open a new document.
I started with Michelle Martin's Colbie Solids (White). I usually duplicate this layer at least once and set the blend mode on the duplicate layer to soft light.
Step 2: Create a bird body.
I looked through my brushes and chose a brush with the basic shape. Brush No. 8 from ArtPlay Palette Magic had a great curve and I liked the brush strokes in the shape. I dragged the shape onto my page using the Move tool from the Tools palette, then duplicated it, and named the original layer by double clicking on the text next to the layer in the Layers palette. I turned off this layer and also named the duplicate layer.
Select the brush layer in the Layers palette, and go to Edit> Transform> Warp. This will bring up a grid around the object with various control points. You can push and pull and twist the brush image by moving these control points until you achieve a shape that you like. Commit the transformation by clicking on the green check mark. Note that you might have to warp an image more than once to get the desired effect. In this particular case, I warped the shape twice.
Tip: When you activate the Warp tool,
there is a drop-down menu that appears in the Options Bar at the top of your screen. This menu contains
a list of shapes, that when clicked upon will immediately transform the brush image you are working on, to conform to that particular shape. In this case, I used the *custom* option when warping the various brush images.
Step 4: Create the birds head.
I created a New Layer, and used the Paintbrush tool from the Tools palette with ArtPlay Palette Magic Brush No.1, to create the initial brush stroke. I then repeated the duplication and naming process from Step 2, naming both the original and duplicate layers.
Note: Before I warped this image, I flipped it (Edit> Transform > Flip Horizontal/Vertical), then erased the parts I didn't want to use, using the Eraser tool from the Tools palette with a hard round brush. I repeated Step 3 and warped the image so that it fit the body.
Step 5: Create the bird.
Select the Move tool from the Tools palette and move the *body* layers over the *head* layers to form the first bird.
Step 6: Create the birds beak.
I used Brush No. 1 from DifferentStrokes No. 4 BrushSet. I only needed the large circle part of the brush and eliminated the other parts using the Eraser tool and a hard round brush as described in Step 4. The same technique was used to erase part of this large circle to create a beak. The new shape was resized accordingly, by holding down the SHIFT key, and dragging the handles of the transformation box inwards.
Step 7: Create the second bird using the shapes already created.
I wanted the second bird to be a little larger and have a slightly different look. I duplicated the bird 1 layers (body layer, the head layer and the beak layer) by selecting all 3 layers in the Layers palette and dragging them down to the New Layer icon at the bottom of the palette. Rename each layer (body 2, head 2, and beak 2), then use the warp technique from Step 2 to pull out the shape of the bird body, so that it is longer and a little less full. I also *squished* the tail feathers a further and reshaped the head slightly. For the second beak, I used 2 copies of the same large circle shape from DifferentStrokes No. 4 BrushSet (Brush 1) used for bird 1 and the same erasing technique. Erase slightly more from one of the circles than the other and move the layers accordingly. Use the smaller image to create the bottom part of the beak.
Step 8: Create the branches
Use Katie Pertiet's Twiggy elements to create branches. I warped some of the branches slightly to increase the curve. I also erased the leaves so that the branches were bare. The two branches in the screen shot below were used to create all of the branches in the painting.
Tip: Use the Zoom tool from the Tools palette to zoom in as much as you can to ensure a clean edge when erasing parts of an image.
Step 9: Add dimension
Add a Drop Shadow to each of the branches (Blend Mode: Multiply, Opacity: 45, Angle: 120, Distance: 7px, and Size: 9px) and an Outer Glow (Blend Mode: Screen, Opacity: 40) to create dimension.
Step 10: Create a basic flower shape to create blossoms for the branches.
I used 2 basic shapes. These shapes were duplicated and
recolored to achieve different looks. To create the basic shapes, I used the
center part of Brush No. 2 from DifferentStrokes No. 2 BrushSet. I also used one of
the smaller circles from the same brush to make the middle section of the flowers by warping the
circle into an oval. The oval image was layered over the other image to create the flowers. I simply played with the shapes until I creates an image that I liked.
Step 11: Create the flowers for the branches.
Duplicate, recolor and position the basic flower shapes.
Change the blending modes and opacity, and erase parts of the layers to create differing blossoms. For example, the flower above is comprised of 4 layers. The base layer was re-colored to a burnt orange (#7e27od). The next three layers are all yellow (#e8ce50) with a Soft Light blending mode applied.
Each of the flowers below follows a similar pattern, differentiated only by the blending modes used. Experiment with your blending modes.
Step 12: Recolor the birds.
I clipped papers from MonoBlendz Pumpkin Spice Paperie to the bird shapes. Layer the paper over the brush image and then (Photoshop) CTRL + ALT + G or (Photoshop Element) CTRL + G. I also added the following Layer Style to the bird bodies: Bevel and Emboss (Inner
Bevel: Smooth, 100%, Direction: up, Size: 5px, Angle: 120, Altitude: 30,
Highlight Mode: Screen Opacity: 75, Shadow Mode: Multiply, Opacity: 35), and a Linear Gradient overlay (Blend Mode: Color Burn, Opacity: 72, Angle: 90, Scale: 100). The heads were also re-colored with the same I nner Bevel characteristics that were added to the bodies. Use the Paintbrush tool with a small round circle brush to create the eyes.
Step 13: Create legs for the birds.
I used Brush No. 12 from DifferentStrokes No. 2 BrushSet. I did not warp these shapes. I selected the part of the brush image that I wanted to use, and erased the rest.
The birds with feet.
Step 14: Frame the piece and add details.
I added the Chinese symbols for love, spring and life.
To create the frame, I re-colored paper No. 7 from Monoblendz
Pumpkin Spice Paperie to create the lighter paper. This paper was then duplicated. I erased all but the
painted edge from the duplicated layer, then duplicated that layer 2 more
times, to increase the intensity of the edge. The background paper was created using a Fill Layer. Create a New Layer in the Layers palette, and then go to Edit> Fill. Select the color of your choice and move the Fill Layer
directly over the light background layer, then set the blend mode to Multiply
so that the texture from underlying paper shows through.
