Saturday, May 18, 2013

2B Day 8 Part 1 : Chalk Messages

This week, Kim showed us how to make any font look like a chalk drawing based on a tutorial by SN Fontaholic.    I've been looking forward to this lesson since I started the class in April.  That's one benefit of being so far behind--I have a little more time to process the lessons and let ideas percolate through ...  Work has been hectic lately--Most days there is so much to do, I'm not sure what to do first.  I actually wrote the word "Focus" on a post-it note and stuck it to the desk to help me zero in on what I need to be doing. 

For the Frilly Focus Chalkboard above, I followed Kim's recipe and the Fontaholic tutorial pretty faithfully.  The font is Chalk-Hand-Lettering-Shaded.  When I got to the Sketch-Charcoal/Chalk Filter Layer, it gave me unexpected (but still pleasing) results.  Unless you had black chalk, I'm not sure how you'd get an actual real-life chalkboard to come out like this. 


 For Focus Version 2, again, I pretty much followed the recipe as given.  I had to try this a couple times to get a version that seemed to work.  I think I got it now ...


This one looks like it was written with a wet finger on a chalky chalkboard.  I like the effect.  Again, this is what I got with the default Chalk and Charcoal filter settings.   I guess it's more charcoal than chalk?  I think this is a results of copying the blurred text layer rather than the clean text layer. 


"Reinvent Yourself." This phrase is another one that seems to be good advice for my current work environment.  It worked for David Bowie and Madonna for years--why not for me?   Of all three chalk boards, I think I like this one the best.   For this one, I used Kim Klassen's Chalk Magic texture for a background and DearJoe4 as font.  I also used Colleen Ray's modified recipe to get a chalkboard effect.  She used the Dissolve blend mode for one of the layers.   I could have done more with the layer mask to erase bits and pieces, but it was difficult to make it look natural, so I gave up on that part of the lesson. 

Beyond Layers

1 comment:

Beverly said...

Wow, you really went "to town" on this lesson, making several versions with several techniques! Lovely work, and very pleasing. I like the "wet finger" look on the board too. I definitely know I would need to watch the tutorial if I were to make another one of these.