Today 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.
You 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.
This 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.
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!
Just 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.
In 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.
From 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.
Not 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
These are just great, Colleen! Keep up the wonderful doodles! I love those folk art designs!