To begin my project, I created a blank canvas in Photoshop the size of my main panel. I positioned the "Little Bethlehem" image on that, and resized it to fit. I added one of the greetings from "Mini Bethlehem" above the scene. I used the ellipse drawing tool to mark the curve I needed to cut along for the top edge. I made sure to make it only a couple pixels thick, and light grey, so it would show just enough to be a cutting guide. If I missed cutting any of it out, I didn't want it to be noticeable in my final card. Once I had the oval sized & positioned correctly, I rasterized the layer so I could edit it, and erased the bottom part, so only the top curved line showed, & I didn't have the rest of the oval outline going through my image. Finally, I printed my composite image onto a piece of watercolor paper. Since the curved cutting line was so faint, I went ahead and cut along that with my scissors before painting.
I used my watercolors to paint the image. I didn't bother masking the buildings while I painted the sky, primarily because I've almost never had good luck with masking fluid, & there was no other way to mask them. Technically, I could have printed the image onto a piece of freezer paper to make a mask, then fussy-cut & ironed it onto my panel. But I didn't think of it at the time. I made all the windows & doorways in the buildings dark, and just have the window & doorway in what I presume is the stable with light shining through. I figure anyone involved with the Holy Family would be the only ones awake at that time. To create a "glow" around & below the star, I painted over the blue with just clean water, then lifted the color with a dry paper towel. Because not all the color came up & so the star was still a bit blue, I drew over it with a white gel pen. I also added rays going down from the star with the same pen. Then, of course, I had to reestablish the outline of the star with a fine-point black felt tip pen.
I adhered a narrow panel of tan cardstock to my card base, so it goes behind the top of my image panel. I didn't worry that it didn't cover the whole card front, since much of it wouldn't show anyway. I added a strip of dark brown along the bottom, & then adhered my main panel butted up against that.
Date: Thursday, November 12, 2020 GMT Views: 283
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