Not long ago, if I’d heard the word “hybrid” I’d have been thinking of roses. In craft circles now, the term’s been adopted to describe the process of using both digital and more traditional media to create an effect and I’ve been having fun following along with Jessica Sprague’s Mouse Paper Scissors class.
I’ve tried making digital books before, eventually reaching the conclusion that though it’s fun to play around with Photoshop and a few digital photos, I actually enjoy the process of cutting and sticking too. Not only that, but printed out sheets of paper, however clever, are just that – flat and rather uninteresting.
But print things out and then cut them, maybe adding a little something else along the way and we’re talking something different.
Mouse Paper Scissors has come to a close this weekend, so I’ve been tying up a few loose ends, downloading the last pdfs and finishing the final project – a mirror frame. Throughout the course, there’s been a succession of prompts for “Observations” and these scribblings were to be transcribed and printed out on to some background sheets provided as part of the class. I wouldn’t say that my scirbblings are particularly earth shattering and it wasn’t easy to write them most of the time, but write I did and sure enough, yesterday afternoon I spend time cutting and pasting into Photoshop, ready for today’s sticking session.
I have to admit that I’m quite pleased with the result. Not only was it fun to do, the demonstration videos and the Photoshop walkthroughs were interesting and remarkably well produced, making the whole process pretty straightforward. The mirror frame was a clever way of utilising many of the techniques taught as part of the class including putting shipping labels through the printer – clever!
My favourite observation?
Something to remember.
