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12 Days of Christmas Doodles

November 3, 2015 By Colleen 2 Comments

12 Days of Christmas DoodlesToday I’m not only sharing my 12 Days of Christmas Doodles I drew for The Graphics Fairy, I’m also showing how I created them using simple photo editing! Whether you’re an artist or crafter, I think you’ll find these tips open a whole new creative world.

12 Days of Christmas DoodlesYou might be thinking that these don’t look like doodles . . . and you’d be right. They don’t call her The Graphics Fairy for nuthin’.

However you can turn your own doodles into something fabulous with some simple photo editing. Promise!

I use Photoshop Elements. Have for years but I know only a few basics. It’s fairly expensive, although you can also pay about $10 a month and have all the capabilities you’ll need and more. There are other editing programs, some are free, but I don’t know much about them.

The main thing I’m getting at is you can create many more images from your doodles than maybe you realized.

12 Days of Christmas DoodlesThis is where I started. Well, almost. I drew the one, the leaves, partridge and pear without darkening anything black. Just a doodle. Well, sort of. It took more time than I wanted to draw the number alone. Then all the decorative elements? I was gonna be here until Christmas 2016.

At first I thought I’d just sketch the numbers separately, which I did, but then . . . lightning struck.

12 Days of Christmas Doodles
It hit me if I doodled little elements – leaves and flowers and stuff – I could reuse them in different sketches without having to draw the same thing over and over again.

Make sense? Okay, let’s start how I started – first draw the numbers, then the major elements and then little doodads. After that, I scanned them. (I never used my scanner until Karen at TGF showed me the light.) Once the doodles were scanned at high resolution I opened them in PSE, Photoshop Elements and the fun began!

12 Days of Christmas DoodlesJust remember –

you’re scanning and saving in PSE at high resolutions for printables but you’ll want to make smaller resolution photos to work with online. 

12 Days of Christmas DoodlesIn your editing program I separated each little element and made different versions like the daisy above. On the left is the one I drew, then I filled in different leaves.

12 Days of Christmas DoodlesFrom one leaves on a stem sketch I flipped it, darkened a few leaves, flipped it again, then darkened all leaves and rotated it once more.

Yes, this takes some time on the computer. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll love creating new images from one simple doodle.

12 Days of Christmas DoodlesNot to mention you can clean up any blips or squigglies in PSE too.

Some of you are probably already doing this. But to the rest of us/you, it might seem seriously daunting. I get it, believe me. In my next post I’ll give step by step instructions for using PS Elements so you can maximize the potential of your own artwork or other clip art.

In the meantime, hop over to The Graphics Fairy to see how she transformed black and white doodles into a HUGE colorful collection!

xo

Colleen

about Colleen

 

Filed Under: Christmas, crafts, holiday crafts, patterns, printables

Comments

  1. Kris says

    November 3, 2015 at 9:23 am

    These are just great, Colleen! Keep up the wonderful doodles! I love those folk art designs!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. 12 Days of Christmas Doodles | bethanybnichols says:
    November 4, 2015 at 1:14 am

    […] post 12 Days of Christmas Doodles appeared first on Just Paint It […]

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    About Me

    Hi there! I'm Colleen, a self-taught artist, writer and blogger, among other things. You don't get to be old enough to order off the Denny's senior menu without accomplishing a few things in life. Read More…

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