Incorporating Your Original Art into a Digital Collage

Hi, I’m Sherry LP, a new guest contributor to Altered Hearts. 

Like many of you,  I love to sit at my computer for hours creating digital art– moving elements here and there, transforming images, tweaking colors,  experimenting with filters and layers and brushes.   But I still have a special place in my creative heart for hands-on art. I’m an art journaling devotée;  and also dabble in mixed media collage, fun lettering, rubber stamping, sketching and portrait drawing, Zentangle-style art, and more.

Fortunately, I’ve discovered many ways to incorporate my original art into my digital creations, whether I’m creating a digital scrapbook page, greeting card, or collage for an online art challenge.  In this tutorial, I’m going to show you several methods of incorporating a basic black and white sketch into your digital work, with an emphasis on adding color and pattern.

Right now I’m still using Photoshop Elements (5.0), but I’ll be upgrading soon. Most of you probably have newer versions of PSE, or other Photoshop software. For this tutorial, I’ll explain what I do in PSE 5.0.  Similar instructions may apply for later PSE versions. You can also check the “Help” section of your photo-editing program for similar techniques; and search Google or YouTube for one of the many free tutorials for PSE and other programs.

Step 1: Prepare and scan your sketch.

1.  Your goal is to get a sharp image that will scan well. First, create a sketch using black pen or marker on white paper.  For my example below, I stamped an image of a woman’s face (Hampton Art Stamps) in black StaZon ink, and used a black Micron pen for the Zentangle-style embellishments.

2.  In your sketch, try to make sure that there are no “white” gaps in your black lines. These gaps can be a bit difficult to detect, since a line that may look solid to you may actually have tiny gaps where the ink doesn’t cover the paper. Filling these gaps  will make it easier for you to fill the white areas with a color or pattern later on if you choose to. Don’t worry too much about this, though, since you can digitally correct this problem later as well, and there are other ways to get pattern into your sketch (as I’ll show you later).

3.  Scan the sketch at high resolution (I use 300 ppi).

4.  Save the scanned image as a .jpg file with a quality of at least 10.

Step 2: Edit sketch as needed.

1. Open the scanned image in your photo-editing program.  Depending on the size of the scanned image, you may want to create a new blank file (e.g., 5 in. x 5 in.) at 300 ppi resolution and place the image into this new file. To create a new blank file in PSE, go to File/New/Blank File.

2. Adjust the image to your satisfaction (contrast/brightness/sharpness/etc.).  I’ve found that applying the Posterize filter can help darken the appearance of black lines and fill small gaps, if necessary .

3. Crop the image as needed.

4. Digitally erase or cover up stray marks on your image. If you’ve signed the piece, you can remove or cover your signature at this point if you’d like.

5. Give the edited file a name and save it.

Step 3: Start your digital collage.

1. Open a new blank file in your photo-editing program. I use a 300 ppi resolution and an image size of 8 in. x 8 in., or  8 in. x 10 in.). I use a transparent background and RGB image mode. Be sure to save it under a different name to preserve the file containing your original drawing.

2.  Bring the image containing your sketch into your new blank file. 

Here’s how my sketch looks in the new PSE file, ready to work on:

Using Your Sketch in a Digital Piece

Option 1: Using the Sketch in Black and White as a Digital Collage Layer

You can keep the image in black and white and use it with other PSE layers that contain color. Here are three alternative techniques you can use to accomplish this.

Technique 1: Superimpose black and white sketch on other layers

For the circus-themed piece below, all of the additional papers/images I used are from Beth Rimmer’s digital kit, “L’Esprit du Cirque.”  You can see that I’ve added more PSE layers under the sketch layer, and on top of the sketch layer. I used the following layers, in order from bottom to top:

1. Two background papers, with blending modes applied.

2. My edited black and white sketch, with the “multiply” blending mode applied to make the image a bit darker in tone.

3. The Harlequin frame image, converted into black and white and resized to frame the central image.

4. The two circus performer images in layers on top of the frame.

I also edited the appearance of the rubber stamped face a bit, to blend in better with the whole piece, by using a soft round PSE brush to lighten and recolor some areas. To finish the piece, I added a 40mm stroke border of red. 

As always, save your completed piece often while working on it, and when you’re finished.

Technique 2: Blend sketch layer with a background layer (to add color to sketch)

1. Open a new blank PSE file (I use 8 in. x 8 in. or 8 in. by 10 in.).

2.  For your background layer, bring in a patterned background image of your choice. In the example below, I used an ocean-themed image I had created for an art journaling page and scanned into Photoshop Elements.

3. In the next layer (on top of the background) place your black andwhite sketch image and resize the sketch to suit your preferences.

4. Now, you can play with blending modes on the layer containing the sketch, using the controls in the layers palette.  In the example below, I’ve used the “luminosity” blending mode to allow some of the pattern to show through the lines and spaces of the sketch.

5. Finish and crop your collage as desired (add more layers or elements; apply texture or filters). Be sure to rename and save any version you want to keep.   In my example below, I cropped the collage; lowered the opacity level of the sketch layer to 80% (using the layer palette) to allow more of the background color to show through; and added a border.

Technique 3: Invert sketch into negative image  

Another way to use a black and white sketch–for a very dramatic effect– is to create a negative version of the image.  In PSE, you can either apply  Special Effects/Layer Styles/Photographic Effects/Negative; or use the Filter/Adjustments/Invert feature to do this.  Here’s how the negative version of my original black and white sketch looks:

 Below is a completed digital collage using this image as a layer, on top of two background images. The circus poster is from Divas D’Este; the clown is from Dover Designs; and the curtain background is from Beth Rimmer.

Option 2: Adding Color to the Black and White Sketch with “Fills” or Patterns

In PSE  there are two types of “fills” that allow you to fill an area of an image with color and/or pattern with a click of the mouse on the paint bucket tool.  They are “color fill” and “pattern fill.”

In  PSE 5.0, at the top left of the screen, there’s a “fill” box that is usually set to “Foreground.” This means that when you select the paint bucket tool and choose the foreground color you want, you can click on an area of your image and the color fills it entirely. By changing the fill option to “Pattern,” you can fill an area of your image with a preset pattern or one that you create. You can also change the blending and opacity modes for your fill options.

Caution: When using the fill options, It’s a good idea to first duplicate the layer containing your image and use your “fill” technique on the duplicate layer, which you can later delete if you don’t like the effect.  

 As I mentioned earlier, you may find that your “fill” covers more area than you had intended. This is usually because there’s a tiny break somewhere in your black line. You can zoom in on your sketch image in PSE and add a tiny black dot with a PSE brush to close any gaps that you find. You can also try applying filter than darkens lines, such as the Posterize  filter, to see if that helps fill in some of the gaps.

Technique 1: Solid Color Fill

Here’s an example of how I began to fill areas of my original sketch with a solid color, red.

Technique 2: Pattern Fill

Once you change the “fill” option to “Pattern,” a pattern fill works just like a solid color fill.  Instead of filling a space in your sketch with one color, this feature will fill the space with a pattern that you select. PSE contains some preset patterns, and you can find more online; or, you can create your own pattern from another image or from your own artwork.   After selecting the “Pattern” option, click on one of the patterns shown, or create and save a new one of your choice (as explained below).  Pattern fill can give a quite dramatic, colorful, and textured effect to your piece. 

Creating Custom Patterns

1. Open the image you want to make into a pattern.

2.  In PSE, click on “Edit” and “Define Pattern.” Once the pattern has loaded,  save it. You can now use that pattern to fill in areas of your digital piece.

Here are three of my own designs that I made into custom patterns for the digital design shown below.

 Once you’ve reached this point, you can further manipulate the image by changing the overall color scheme or some of the individual colors (Enhance/Adjust colors); or by applying filters, layer styles and other special effects.  You can also add layers above or below the filled sketch layer.

Here’s a finished digital collage using my pattern-filled image. I’ve placed the filled sketch image on a background of my own design, and added two borders. The heart charm image is from MissMint.

Technique 3: Pattern Stamp

The pattern stamp tool (a variation of the clone stamp tool) allows you to control and vary the shape and size of your pattern effect by using a digital brush of your choice.  After you select the tool, choose a pattern, brush shape, opacity, and blending mode, and “stamp” the pattern wherever you want on your sketch. You can achieve a wide variety of effects this way.  For ease of editing, you can create a new layer(s) for the pattern stamped shapes. For my example below, I chose a soft brush to stamp the round shapes on the left, and a faux finish sponge brush for the areas on the right. When using this technique, you won’t have to worry about gaps in the black lines of your sketch, and you’ll get a softer, more “painterly” result.

Conclusion: Ways to Use Your Original/Digital Hybrid Creations

Once you’ve created a digital piece using your own artwork, you can use it as a basis for other digital and hybrid creations. For example, by incorporating a photo of a friend or family member, you can create a digital scrapbook layout for a special occasion. You can add text, word art and other digital elements. You can also print out your creation in the desired size and adhere it to a blank greeting card.   Here are two sample creations:

Scrapbook Layout:  

 Birthday Card:

Now that you know more about using your original art in a digital collage, you may want to scan any “hands-on” art that you create, into your computer . You never know when you’ll be able to use it in a digital environment as a background or other layer, a  pattern fill, or a design element!

I hope you’ve learned something new here, or refreshed your memory about a technique you may not have used in a while. I wish you many happy hours of color-and-pattern-filled digital creating! 

Note: All text and images shown in this article (unless otherwise credited) are the creation and property of Sherry Pollack and are not to be used without specific permission of the author.