Lessons

Lesson Info

Class Introduction

Mixed media for digital scrapbooking. I love mixed media. I'm so excited to talk about it with you guys. So let's just get started. Mixed media is traditionally, what we think of as a scrapbooking with paper kind of thing. We use gesso, if you guys have heard of that, or seen that. I'm gonna show some examples. We use decoupage we use painting, we use doodles. There's a lot of stuff that goes into mixed media, for our paper scrapbookers. And I have an example, this one is by Zeneva Kovac. Beautiful page; she's part of our Scrapaneers team of creative professionals. And she does a lot of paper scrapbooking, along with digital and she wanted to share this example. I think it's a great one to look at. But typically for paper what we think about is, lots and lots of bulk on media, mixed media pages. There's inking that's going on, there's some type of gesso in the background, there's decoupage, there's texture. There's heat transfer, is one of the process that they're gonna use. Beautiful ...

page. This particular card that we have right here, by her as well, doesn't have a photo on it, but it's still something that's in the realm of mixed media. Scrapbooking for paper right? She's added some doodles up here, and she's kind of drawn them in with colored pencils. There's a couple of different, bulkier things up there, like flowers and whatnot, it looks cool. Here's another example, that she did where, she, can you guys, be like that? (laughs) I saw your face and you're just like, it's beautiful and she's drawn these, this particular doll up there, it has butterflies up there, it has sparkles. And take a look at this. I'm gonna show you something. If you get even closer she's added some really strong techniques to make it bumpy, to add some texture. It's gorgeous. Now, I wanna stop for a second, and ask you guys, whoever wants to chime in. Is this what you think about, for digital mixed media? You think this is possible? Anybody wanna go ahead Phyllis. Yes, it can be done, I've tried it. But, it's fun. Yes. To get the texture, to pop out of the page. Exactly, thank you. Thank you Phyllis. Well, we can do it. We can actually make these kinds of looks. We can do even more with it and that's the beauty of digital mixed media. And why I'm here today with you guys. Digital mixed media scrapbooking combines our favorite kind of digital tools along with our paper tools, we can combine them together to create even more interesting kinda looks. I like 'em both (laughs) I like 'em both. But, we can use blending tools. We can use masks and colorize things, using gradients, in all sorts of wonderful things, which we're gonna get into. We can use brush work, we can use a lot of our stuff. And, in this class, I wanna share how we're gonna do this. So, let me give you some examples. This one is by Kathy Engelhardt, who is a part of the scrapaneers.com team, as well. And in this particular layout she's artistically blended patterns and textures and colors and text. Like the leaves, those leaves are real. And she's used blend modes to blend them in. So it's a much simpler kind of technique, but it's still very beautiful. It's still a very beautiful, emotive kind of page. Here's another example, by a fantastic artist, her name is Janaina. And she added an illustration to her page. And she actually does hand paint that, using digital supplies basically. Like that Phyllis? Yes. Yes, beautiful, right? Talented artist, here's another example of what you can do with digital mixed media. And I wanna point something out with this page, there's a lot of digital texture in here, it's dimensional. It has a kind of handmade look to it, but if you get a little bit closer, and I'm gonna do the Vanna thing, real quick, right here you can see that she's added some very, realistic, real dimensional pieces. And that was not created using digital stuff. That was actually something that was taken from our real-world, scanned in, digitized, and then brought into the page. So we have so much that we can do. It's all over the place really, artistically. But we can combine, a lot of things. And, that's why I love being a digital mixed scrapbooker, because we get the best of both worlds. We can do paper stuff in our digital process and also do digital at the same time. So there are real benefits. Another thing, that's a benefit is that no matter, how much you add your page it will still print, flat. And that's amazing. If you look back at this page, our traditional mixed-media page. It looks great, she's added a lot of stuff up here but there's a light bulb up there, for God's sakes. If you wanna stick this into a page protector, it's not going to work. We can put it on the wall, we can store it. But there are some things that we have to consider, as a paper mixed media scrapbooker; what we're gonna do with it? What's gonna happen over the long-term? How are things gonna fall off? How are we gonna move this? If we do decide to move it. With digital you don't have to worry about that. This is the page that I created, featuring my mom and my daughter. And one of the things I love about it, is that no matter how many flowers and extra pieces I added to it, it's still gonna print out digital. The other thing of course of being digital, I think we all know this, Command z, Control Z. You can go back and undo every single thing that, you have created. And that's really important to me, because I'm not the best illustrator, in the whole wide world. So I need to be able to go back. I don't wanna have to make a paint and go, I've got a whole new canvas to start. With digital we don't have to worry about that. And if you're a beginner digital scrapbooker, you may not know that. But if you've been around the block, then we all know that. (laughs) The last thing which I think it's a huge benefit, is that you can digitize stuff. And I'm gonna show you guys how to do that today. We're gonna talk about photographing things, that you wanna pull out from the real world, and put into digital. And, we're gonna talk about scanning. And I don't mean, just use the photographs and bring it in. Or use the piece in object and bring it in. I'm gonna show you how you can transform it, to make it into something that's really amazingly digital. Okay? Alright. The other thing, that I really wanna touch upon, because I feel it's such a personal thing to scrapbook. Scrapbook is about art, but it's also capturing the lives of the people that we love. And moments that we've experienced. So there's a little bit more than just the artistry, and the process of doing it. There's so much more to it. Back to this layout. This layout, which has been shared, created live on Facebook and stuff like that. It's something special to me and my mom. My mom loves animal print and she loves sunflowers. She actually has those sunflowers, and that animal print, in her room. It's something special to her that she's had for a really long time. So when I made a page for my mom for Mother's Day, to celebrate her, she loves my pages, thanks mom. (laughs) I wanted to use things that I knew when she saw it, could go in her room. It was something that she could say, "I wanna use this and put it, on my wall". "Because my daughter made it". "But she took the time to do something, bring something into it that meant something to me". Rather than just extra products. And also because I'm scanning, I'm photographing. I didn't have to spend any money! So, there's also that. But, that's something that my mom, is gonna cherish forever. And that's what scrapbooking, really is about, for me at least. So, there's a great reason to learn this kind of style, if you're on the fence about wanting to know about mixed media. For those of you online, everyone in here wants to know. But, there's a lot of wonderful things that you can do with this kind of style. So I hope that you will spend the time with me today to learn how to do it. Now, I wanna stop and ask you guys a question real quick. Do any of you find what I shared, or the process of mixed media scrapbooking for digital, do you feel that it's intimidating? No, no? Yes, okay, Lonnie says yes she feels it's intimidating. Lonnie, you wanna pick up the mic and tell me a little bit how you feel that it's intimidating? What is it about that intimidates you? I don't have an artistic eye, so knowing what elements to put together, and that compositional and perspective that I see that you have in the blending. I don't have those skills. Great. That's a great answer. You will. (laughs) You will have those skills. We all have those skills. We all have the ability to have an inner artist. The main thing is we have to pull that inner artist out of ourselves, right? So there's the technical part of it, there's the artistic part of it, you need a guide. I'm gonna help you with that, Lonnie. It is intimidating. I don't want it to be. I never want to be any of these processes intimidating. So we're really gonna start from the beginning, and not only, we're gonna talk about the process of it, but we're gonna talk about the artistry. The kind of decisions that we need to make, to make our art sing to us. Everybody has a style, a different style. So Lonnie might be very digital, like Janaina, when you saw her layout. And it was a lot of blend work and brush work. But you might be a Zeneva, Yani over here, might be a Zeneva, who want things to look tactile, and have a lot of dimension. You can do all of those things and still celebrate your style and still do digital mixed media. So we're gonna work past the intimidating part, and by the end of this class you're gonna know how, to use artistic tools that we do on paper, and the digital process, to make a page that you love. Something that's memorable for you, something that's unique, something that I hope that you will really love, and wanna share. So, enough of that. Let's talk about why I'm here today with you guys. I'm the Tifster, so, hello. I'm a scrapbooker, Hall of Fame from 2005 inductee. I was a finalist for Scrapbooker of the Year in 2006. I've been scrapbooking for a really long time. I've worked with quite a few different companies. Shutterfly, Wacom, Renee Pearson classes. Debbie Hodge, over at Get It Scrapped, Imaginisce. It's been awhile and I love what I do, but I'm also the owner of scrapaneers.com, where we teach people how to use your computer to scrapbook. And we have a lot of teachers, I'm not the only teacher there. But we teach app scrapbooking class, like this one, by Kelly, and we also, Kelly Sill, excuse me. We teach process classes, so we can tell you how to use a lot of digital tricks. This one's by Amanda Taylor and it's The Art of Journaling, it's one of our most popular classes. And then Cilenia Curtis, she does an art doll class. We love, to teach digital art. And I love having a site that allows people to do that. I put out a class every single month, that shows people how to make a specific kind of page, using various amounts of techniques. So I love scrapbooking. But no matter how many times I've worked, with different companies and different people, I'm a passionate scrapbooker. It's really about my family and our memories, and things that I wanna share so that they can see it later in life. This scrapbook page is about my daughter. About her goofiness and she's still very, very goofy, it just never goes away, but her mama's goofy, so there ya go! But their personalities, them growing up, their faces how they change. I wanna be able to see that on my pages. I want them to go back and look at it and say mama was there and saw me grow up and this is what she experienced watching me grow up. Vacations, when we go on vacation, I'm gonna do a page, and it sometimes might look as groovy as this, or it might be a really quick page. But, I want to scrapbook all of those memories. I'm also a Project Life, scrapbooker, so I wanna make sure at least once a month that I capture page that's just the casual photos that I never get to do with a big layout or something. I don't mind making stuff that looks like paper-ish, I don't mind making stuff it looks very digital. I just dig scrapbooking and I always have. And so if there's brushwork or blending, then it's probably gonna be like that. But, more importantly, I love to show you guys, and my fellow scrapbookers, how to make pages, that look like that. Not only do I do it for myself but I want you guys to walk away and create the same exact kind of pages, with someone who will help you. Pages that I really hope that you'll love a lifetime. And the other thing too, is a-ha moments. Those things when you say kind of like Lonnie, it's intimidating and then it's no longer intimidating. So you can walk away from it, and go I know how to do this, and I can show other people how to do this, I can pass this on. Okay, so, in this class what you guys can expect. We're gonna start the first part of our show, talking about where you can gathering, your mixed media supplies. Because mixed media really starts before you sit down at your computer. It starts with what things you bring to the table. And you don't always have to look in kits, and that's another thing, I want you guys to be able to know, you don't have to break your budget, shopping online or wherever you get your stuff. I want you to know that you can find things immediately in your home, whether you have a scanner or you have a camera and you can make it work. After that, we're gonna go into the digitizing process. After you've taken all of these things that you can scan, and found them, and things that you can photograph. I want to show you the right way, to create products, by digitizing them. So that you can kind of create your own mixed media studio. So you have it, and the cool thing is is that once you do it once you have it forever, you don't have to redo it every single day. So it's important. I'm also gonna give you four practice exercises, for digitizing which is important. I can tell you about it all day, but you don't have the experience, of doing it yourself, it's one thing. That's a good thing, so you guys who are watching online, please get the classic and get those practice files, so you can do it over and over and over again, and then, you'll be a guru. Last half of class, were gonna work on two separate projects. The first project is gonna be about using patterns and paints and blending and color, to build a strongly textured mixed media layout. And I do have that layout actually in printed format, that I wanted to pass around to you guys, because it's important, that again, we're talking about mixed media, but the cool thing is, is that when we're talking about mixed media it's gonna print flat, but it's gonna look dimensional. We have great shadowing that's going on there. We have a lot of texture, there's a lot of paint involved in this. There's at least seven layers of paint, that I'm gonna show you how to do with brushes. Do you wanna pass this around, take a look at it you guys? I wanna start with Yani over here, here you go. Thank you. So, I'm gonna share that particular page. And then the second page, which I'll start over here with Jane here, is this one, and this is one of my favorite projects because, actually hidden in there, is a trash can. Can you guys see it? No. There's a trash can in there. So I want to show you guys, here you go Jane. You're welcome. I wanna show you guys how you can create a page, or a project like that, which has a very mixed media base, because it doesn't typically start the way that you think. It actually starts from a real trash can, so, that's kind of what mixed media's about. Starting from things you would not expect to add to your layout, but it just makes it easier 'cause it's digital. If you are following along with this class, there's lots of goodies. I hope you've already gotten those goodies, so you can download them and play with them. Other first thing is that there is a digital kit, the Modern Da Vinci kit and it has a lot of different things in there that I think that you will like. It has a lot of great, already-painted papers in there if you had a chance to open it. There's also a 40-piece brush set. I'm gonna using a lot of brushes in here, so please get the kit so that you can use those brushes along with me, then you'll be able to create the same exact page. There's also a workbook, and the workbook is cool. And you lovely ladies already have the workbook. But the workbook is cool because it's going to show you, all of the steps that I take in, step-by-step, through my process. So I'm gonna introduce some things to you. I have some extra bonus tips in there, that I'll talk about. But you have the layout, you also have the opportunity to say okay these are the steps that she's taken so if you don't wanna go back and keep watching the videos, you are offline and you need to know how to do one specific thing you don't wanna have to watch every single video to find it. You just need the steps, and those are all in the workbook. This workbook is 24 pages, and I love things that can be very helpful, so, that's where we're gonna start with our workbook. There's layered files. I know a lot of my students love to be able to have a specific, entire file that has the entire thing completed for you. You add your own photos, you're not gonna get get my kid's photos, baby, but add your own photos to it. But, it's entirely done for you. I think that's very convenient. And then there's some bonuses in there as well, and you'll find the bonuses when you get in there.