It’s a little simpler too, if you’re just starting with your photoshop skills, it’s a great one to start with.  The principle is the same, take old vintage photos and in this case, combine two to make one creepy photo which contains a ghost!

Head over to Fed Ex Office blog to see all the details on how to make them yourself, or if you don’t have time or inclination to make them yourself, you can download the sample printable photos!

I got the coordinates of the location from Google Maps (using these instructions) – but to avoid stalkers, I did change the coordinates in this image!

Want to use this for your own party?  Download the photoshop file (without the Happy Birthday text on the flag) – you can modify the time / date / location info on the ‘card’.  If you don’t have photoshop, I’ve also included the image as a jpg, with the text removed.

The artwork is my own, and is CC licensed Attribution/Non-commercial.  Which means please don’t use the image for profit, and give me credit :).

• Template for Dr. Who Dalek Party Invitation: PSD & JPG

Really, I have been so busy with web design stuff, that I haven’t taken the time to draw, and that’s just sad.  So I’ve had this robotic rooster in my head (he’s eventually going to be a big piece) and here’s my first attempt at a sketch of him.  Doesn’t it look like he’s just launched a football into the air?

I really like this sketch so much I don’t want to mess it up by adding more…  but alas I need to keep working on it!  Does that ever happen to anyone else?

Several years ago I created a portfolio site for my art on Tumblr.  I wrote up the how-to here, and it’s been a very popular post–and still quite valid for using Tumblr for this purpose.   However, I’ve decided to move on now.  I design most everything in WordPress these days, and it’s so much more flexible and powerful.  And although Tumblr is free, hosting is dirt cheap these days, and you can host multiple sites on the same account, so having another WordPress site on my account doesn’t cost anything.

Not that tumblr doesn’t work, and you can still see my old site here if you’re interested.

But nancydorsner.com is about to be up on WordPress (I’m working on moving it now) and shiny brand new.  I’m still working on it… but I wanted to go ahead and get it moved over.

The Super Punch Tarot
On exhibit: March 5 – April 23, 2011

If you’re in South Florida, be sure to stop by and check it out!

This is the piece that I have in the show

Curated by Super Punch‘s John Struan!

Artwork by an international group of super punchy artists:
Aaron Miller; Adam Koford; Bethalynne Bajema; Brent Engstrom; Brent Nolasco; Brigid Ashwood; Britt Wilson; Casey Weldon; Chris Booker; Daniel Davis; Dave Perillo; Dean Reeves; Eliza Gauger; Eric Orchard; Eric Wirjanata; Franco Brambilla; Geoff Trapp; Heather Hudson; J.Shea; Jason Chalker; Jerrod Maruyama; Joseph Game; Kat Brunnegraff; Katy Hargrove; Ken Turner; M. S. Corley; Mario Graciotti; Meghan Murphy; Melita Curphy; Mindy Lee; Nancy Dorsner; Patricio Oliver; Roman Laney; Rosemary Travale; San Smith; Santiago Caruso; Simon Page; Stephanie Buscema; Sven Ruthner; The Beast Brothers; Thomas Allen; Tyler Landry and MORE!

Bear and Bird Boutique + Gallery
inside/upstairs at TATE’S inc.
4566 North University Drive / Lauderhill, Florida 33351
Phone: 954-748-0181 / www.bearandbird.com

I decided to do thing-a-day this month, and I’ve already missed a day and it’s only day 4. I’ll do a makeup day for day 2 at some point. So this is my thing-a-day, and also my illustration friday, the first one I’ve managed to do this year.

Oh, and if you missed it, be sure to check out the ‘how to make octopus cookies’ from yesterday! I finally got the tutorial up…

And there’s also a quick tutorial there on how to make cute matching envelopes using scrapbook papers.

Enjoy!

Christmas Gift Label Downloadable Tags

I was looking back at some old posts, and I thought these deserved some front page space!  Download these adorable (if I do say so myself) little gift tags for your Christmas gifts… Click here to download as a pdf or from flickr!

Make a “Little Game Box”, with an Altoids Tin and these cute downloadable cards

Here’s a great little stocking stuffer you can make yourself. A pocket sized game is a great little ‘handmade’ Holiday gift. I’ve included (almost) everything you need to make one for yourself as free downloads! Just grab the file, print, and add your own Altoids tin for a cute little gift that fits perfectly in a stocking!  … Download the instructions and all the cards here:

A holiday gift from me to you… Thanks for reading Dabbled!

You might also like:

The matching Thank You Note templates for kids downloadable:  Just download the thank you note and let them fill in the blanks!  Either full color, or with a snowman the kids can color themselves…  Go get the Downloadable thank you note template

This is a quick method I use for coloring more ‘cartoonish’ drawings… I sketched the drawing in pencil, then went over the line work in ink.  However if you draw your pencil lines dark enough, this method will also let you create an ‘inked’ looking drawing from the pencil sketch.  I use both Photoshop and Illustrator (still on the old CS2, sigh) for this technique.  Click on the illustrations to see them larger.

Tutorial – How to take Line Art to Finished Color Cartoon

Step 1: Scan

Clean up the worst of the stray pencil marks, and scan in your drawing.

Step 2: Levels

Create a new Levels adjustment layer.

Move the white arrow to the left  and move the black arrow to the right (see the Step2 image) until you have a white background and black lines.  This will take a little trial and error, but get it as good as you can.  (If you made any mistakes in your inking, and want to fix them, do it now.)

Step 3: Clean up the Lines

For this illustration, I wanted smoother lines.  (You can skip this step if you like the look of your lines.)  Save the .psd and open it in Adobe Illustrator.

Click on the image, and choose Live Trace.  Check out your lines.  If you want to change them, try other settings from the dropdown box (like Comic Art) or play around with the threshold and min area settings at the top (see step3 image).

Copy, and paste back into your Photoshop image.  (I paste it as a smart vector.  Since it’s now vector, you can resize it if you want it larger, and so forth.)

Step 4: Create a Line Art Layer

I got this technique from the awesome Tom Richmond – Go read the whole thing, but here are Tom’s basic steps:

Yeah, all that is a lot of work, right?  I do this all the time, so I recorded it as an Action in Photoshop, so I just click one button and it’s done!

Step 5: Paint the Color Layer

Now I set up my layers.  I have a WhitePaper layer that is just a solid white layer.  I put all my old layers that I’m not using any more under that.

Next layer up is a blank “Under Color” layer, then a blank “Colors” layer, then my Inks layer, then an “Over Color” layer. (You can see the layer setup in the final image below)

Select your Colors layer.  For quicky coloring, I use the magic wand tool (Sample All Layers checked) to select all of the sections that I want to paint a certain color. Then I have another photoshop action recorded that 1-expands the selection by 1 pixel, and 2-fills with the foreground color. (see step5 image)

Step 6: Paint the Under and Over Colors

You don’t have to do this, but I find it easier for the really small areas (like the suckers on the arms) to just paint on the Under Colors layer.  You don’t have to be neat. (see step 6 image).  I use the Over Colors layer for when I want to paint over the black lines.  Some of my suckers ended up like black dots, so I just painted the green suckers on top!

Below is the final image with the layers.