Sewn Collage Photoshop Brushes

 Now that my darling daughter has gone off to New Zealand I have been able to use her room to get some of my old collage materials out. Lord, some of them haven't seen the light of day for years. Tons of stuff, lots to be thrown out but lots to be re-aquainted with. At the same time I have been thinking about the idea of machine stitching on paper but without any real purpose in mind. I put a few pieces together, just randomly grabbing things from the pile. The first piece - a square of fabric, a piece of gessoed paper and a couple of scraps of coloured photocopies. The piece below, more coloured photocopy but scribbled into with pen.

 This I scribbled with thread and then added pen. I thought the added pen would be overkill and nearly didn't add it but it does work. That's the thing with physical and not virtual stuff; make a mistake and it's not generally erasable. I've become spoilt and more than likely, lazy, from always working in digital media, being able to delete layers and erase bits.

 Another photocopy and then a page from a book done years and years ago.

 So I did all these little pieces and dragged some canvases out and played around with various different combinations but, while I liked them well enough, they didn't really grab me, you know? I kept thinking  - so what! Little thought then goes trotting across the back of my mind . . . . so I go and scan them in, turn them into photoshop brushes ( simple tutorial here ) and BINGO! Now I like them! Here they all are on one page in my favourite combination of grey and cream . . .  kind of spooky aren't they?

Then it was play time trying them out  . . . . . this one below almost looks like a print of some kind.
 

 This Cathedral one is the best piece I've done for a while, you know that feeling when something just comes together . . .  I fiddled with the underneath for ages and then the last few elements just fell into place one right after the other. Sweet. Now, back to that pile of papers . . .  I must have a purge.

Ink blot Photoshop Brushes

Having cleared the advancing tide of fabric so that I could do the first part of my Mandala collaboration with Shana I took advantage of the space to get some ink out and do a couple of ink blots to make into Photoshop brushes. I've been wanting to do this for ages and oooh, what fun it was to splatter . . . . . I used watercolour paper for this first one but cartridge paper for the second.

 Watercolour paper again for the one above . . . .

and then with just a little ink left in the saucer I dragged a dry fan shaped brush along the paper. I wasn't going to keep this one, didn't really think it was going to give good results but so glad I did.

Once scanned in I desaturated the image and tweaked about with the levels, making a light, medium and dark version - being careful to save each version as well as the original! Pushing the dark end of the Levels takes all the midtones and most of the detail out of course but the heavier version can give some good brush results . . . . I've used all three levels of the same brush on the bottom half of the image above  . . . . all on seperate levels so I can move them about if I need and then using a soft fuzzy brush at about 30% opacity as an eraser to just blend the edges together. 

Here is the long streaky brush . . .  looks way better than I thought especially when layered with another colour

Straightforward inkblots . . . . .

but this is what they look like all together . . . I used  large dark ink brush at the top of the image layering it in black and turquoise. Gotta love the yellow though it's 'out of gamut' which is Photoshop speak for 'Holy Smokes you can't print that!!'

You can see where I've used the brushes in this piece below . . . .  I used the lasso selection tool to make the tall rectangular shapes and the splatter ink blots inside that.  A whole world of possibilities opens up does it not? My busy little mind is thinking of all the other paint/wet media techniques I used to use . . . . . .

In case you want to make some brushes for yourself here is my basic tutorial 
on how to get started and another on building textures with brushes