Hello fellow digital artists!  I’m happy to be back to talk about celebrating life – the good and the bad.  So often, we want our pages to reflect bright happy memories and we shy away from scrapping the bad stuff.  After all, who wants to remember the negative?  However, it is amazing how therapeutic it can be to get the bad stuff out of your mind and onto a page.  I have a cool trick for those of you who want to scrap the bad stuff, and like to share your pages with others – but don’t necessarily want to do both.  One of my favorite artsy techniques is to journal about whatever is bothering me and then incorporate it into a bright, happy page in a way that disguises the journaling from view.  This technique symbolizes the act of letting go of the negative stuff that is weighing you down and replacing it with positive, happy things.

 

There are several ways to accomplish this technique:

 

1.  Go for the obvious and journal away on the base layer of your layout and then totally cover it up with background paper.  This technique is similar to writing on a canvas and then painting over it (something I love to do).

 

2.  Incorporate journaling into the design of your page by using a sketchy or hard-to-read font and then erasing parts of it with a grungy brush set at varying opacity levels.

 

3.  Use a dingbat font to journal.  That way you don’t have to worry about covering things up because no one will be able to read it anyway. 🙂

 

4.  Cover the journaling up with “painty” elements and digital stamps.

 

5.  Use the blending options panel in Photoshop to blend the journaling into the background paper.  This technique works especially well on high contrast and wood papers.

 

Do you have to coordinate the happy with the bad?  Absolutely not!  Of course you could if you wanted to, but feel free to mix completely different subjects.  For example, in this layout I journaled about some negative work issues but scrapped a happy page highlighting my nephew to remind me about what matters most in life.  After all, work issues fade with time, but family is forever.  Two completely different subject matters, but the technique still works.

 

 

Can you see my hidden journaling?  I’ll give you a hint:  digital paint covers it well.  Still can’t see it?  Here is a close up . . .

 

 

If you weren’t looking for it, you’d never know it was there.

 

So the next time you want to get something off your chest, but not necessarily show it to the world via the Internet, try this technique out.  I think you’ll find it artistically and emotionally liberating. 🙂  And be sure to check out my Challenge this month in The Drawing Board forum HERE.

 

Until next time ~
Judie

About the Author:  Judie is a member of The Digital Press creative team.  She spends most of her time engaged in creative endeavors of all sorts.  Traveling, Starbucks, football and Harry Potter are just a few of her favorite things.