aA DigitalART Favorites 6/7

Today, I’m sharing aA DigitalART Favorites 6/7.

Part of a short series of posts to be delivered over the next 7 days highlighting the top DigitalART Favorites for each of our aA Creative Team members.

Today is post 6 of 7 in which the aA Creative Team to narrows down their favorites to just 4 products.

Miki

Errs on the side of traditional but has a diverse range.

I love here consistency and willingness to share her approach in the Tutorials section of the aA Blog.

Her style is similar to Heather’s, in that the artsy and traditional digital scrapbooking styles collide in her layouts.

View Miki’s Gallery.

How do I choose?!!! I have so many favorites … oh, the dilemma! But if I was stranded on a deserted island (with unlimited wi fi data and Photoshop)…

Top 4 aA DigitalART Products:

MultiMedia Suns No. 2 – Love to mix and match all the different elements of the suns from all 3 sets in this series.
FotoBlendz Overlays No. 3 – Love how easy it is to blend large photos on the page and they still remain as the focal point.
UrbanStitchez No. 11 – Love how the stitches can anchor a photo, element or add an accent to the page.
ArtPlay Palette Mountain High – Love the watercolor textures of the papers and landscape colors.

Laura

She has a propensity for awesome color and brings a mixed media style to her artistry.

Her journalist approach to artsy digital scrapbooking matches the vibrancy of her personality.

Laura is definitely a wordsmith and writer by trade.

I love the energy in her eclectic style.

View Laura’s Gallery.

Top 4 aA DigitalART Products:

MultiMedia Suns No. 2 – I like the repetition of round shapes in many of my compositions, especially the busier ones, because repeated strong shapes can impose an organization upon a composition that can both lead the eye and provide a place for it to rest. I use aA buttons a lot for this, but when I want something bolder, which is often, I’ll dive into my folder of MultiMedia Suns. What’s so great about these suns, and why they are among my favorite products, is that they all work together and that they are all infinitely customizable. That means that you can use them as either a flattened image or as a collection of parts. Sometimes I’ll want to use just one of the parts from a sun, to either change it by blending or perhaps to contrast it with another shape from a different sun in the set. It’s great to have the option to deconstruct all the pieces. As if that weren’t good enough, the FotoGlos that are included with the suns in Sets 2 and 3 are a terrific bonus; in my designs, they often find themselves migrating to other areas of the canvas for warmth or light.
Tribute Template Album No. 1 – As a storyteller, a frequent design challenge for me is finding the space within a layout to…tell the story! I love this album because there are plenty of spacious areas for text and those areas integrate seamlessly with the visuals so the pages are balanced right out of the gate. This really speeds up the process of creating a book, especially if it’s large. (My latest project, documenting a recent family vacation, is 50 pages long.) I turn to these templates again and again to document all sorts of subjects, not just heritage or tribute-based themes. I also love the dramatic presentation that this album makes when printed: The clipping masks that cross the gutters of the spreads really allow the creation of a big visual punch.
Take Flight No. 2 – I adore this brush set, which features flocks of birds in a slightly distressed format. Birds symbolize all sorts of good things, both collectively and as individual species, including freedom, hope, vision, transformation, and beauty. Birds in flight are particularly special, and I use the ones in this set at every opportunity. Sometimes when I’m staring at a layout and it just feels…empty…a few soaring birds will do the trick. If it’s not a particularly bird-friendly composition, that doesn’t stop me. Blending modes, reduced opacities, and layer-masking are all ways that I can incorporate birds when I want them in a composition as subtle touches rather than as a main attraction.
ArtPlay Palette Wilderness – This was one of the first Artplay Palettes I purchased after first discovering aA designs. It’s as appealing now as it was then and it’s a go-to for me when creating pages where the action happens outside. I love how both the Paperie and Transfers/Overlays feature both evergreen and deciduous trees—I can summon this Artplay Palette whether doing a layout about redwoods, a sub-alpine exploration, or kids having fun in a suburban backyard. The textures make the pages look like you want to touch them, and I also love that brown frame that opens out. It’s definitely a showy way to highlight a photo.

Stay tuned for the LAST installment of aA DigitalART Favorites to inspire you.

Found aA DigitalART Favorites 6/7 interesting or useful?

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I love to hear what your are using in your artsy digital scrapbooking and digital artistry layouts.