Using Sketches
"Sketches"... another card/scrapping term that refers to a design that has been sketched out. These are often used to challenge you.... make a card along the lines of the sketch. Now I don't have a huge amount of experience with these, but I have learned from seeing other maker's cards, that these sketches are open to a fair amount of interpretation!
Here is the first sketch I was given: The added level of difficulty was to make it in black, white and one other colour.
I was told to make THREE cards following the sketch and extra colour challenge. So, I did. Pretty darn closely... effectively only changing the colours and the sentiment.
I was a bit bored by the end of making three cards almost the same. And with all those hearts I had no option but to stick to a love theme. I was feeling very fortunate I had a three heart punch LOL.
Then I saw some of the other offerings sent in. The hearts became butterflies, the flags moved up, down and disappeared, the circle was bigger, smaller, the back rectangle became an oval.... and then I realised it just had to basically follow the layout but changes were totally okay.
The next challenge came last month and I was prepared. The added level of difficulty was to include a bird or animal somewhere in it:
Oh my, its busy. Waaaaay too busy for my taste. But the first one I attempted to follow fairly closely, even putting a big bow on it! I did reduce the size of the circle and changed the shapes of the two smaller circles to a flower and a butterfly and the little pennant under the smallest circle became a flower. But overall its pretty close. Its bottom heavy and I hated it.
For the next card I literally lightened it up a bit more....the bow became a snowflake, and the tiny circle with pennant became a row of rhinestones. The scalloped edge across the card gave way to a strip of glitter. I still don't love it and it seems very unbalanced, but it meets the criteria of the sketch (and it gave me a chance to heat emboss some cute stamps, so it wasn't a complete waste of time).
The last card I made is simplified dramatically! The strip across is super plain, the bow has become a cool skeleton leaf, the big circle is an oval and the medium circle has gone completely. The small circle with pennant in the bottom right corner has become a simple stamped oval. I quite liked this version. As it has been simplified it no longer appears out of balance either. This challenge has only just finished so I haven't seen the other offerings yet... I wonder how far out of the ballpark I will be this time!?
So, there you go, what do you think of a 'sketch' as a design tool? It can be useful to stretch your creativity if you haven't done the design before, and because its not an actual card you're not tempted to copy each detail. But on the other hand it can be quite limiting. Its not for everyone I guess!
Here is the first sketch I was given: The added level of difficulty was to make it in black, white and one other colour.
I was told to make THREE cards following the sketch and extra colour challenge. So, I did. Pretty darn closely... effectively only changing the colours and the sentiment.
I was a bit bored by the end of making three cards almost the same. And with all those hearts I had no option but to stick to a love theme. I was feeling very fortunate I had a three heart punch LOL.
Then I saw some of the other offerings sent in. The hearts became butterflies, the flags moved up, down and disappeared, the circle was bigger, smaller, the back rectangle became an oval.... and then I realised it just had to basically follow the layout but changes were totally okay.
The next challenge came last month and I was prepared. The added level of difficulty was to include a bird or animal somewhere in it:
Oh my, its busy. Waaaaay too busy for my taste. But the first one I attempted to follow fairly closely, even putting a big bow on it! I did reduce the size of the circle and changed the shapes of the two smaller circles to a flower and a butterfly and the little pennant under the smallest circle became a flower. But overall its pretty close. Its bottom heavy and I hated it.
For the next card I literally lightened it up a bit more....the bow became a snowflake, and the tiny circle with pennant became a row of rhinestones. The scalloped edge across the card gave way to a strip of glitter. I still don't love it and it seems very unbalanced, but it meets the criteria of the sketch (and it gave me a chance to heat emboss some cute stamps, so it wasn't a complete waste of time).
The last card I made is simplified dramatically! The strip across is super plain, the bow has become a cool skeleton leaf, the big circle is an oval and the medium circle has gone completely. The small circle with pennant in the bottom right corner has become a simple stamped oval. I quite liked this version. As it has been simplified it no longer appears out of balance either. This challenge has only just finished so I haven't seen the other offerings yet... I wonder how far out of the ballpark I will be this time!?
So, there you go, what do you think of a 'sketch' as a design tool? It can be useful to stretch your creativity if you haven't done the design before, and because its not an actual card you're not tempted to copy each detail. But on the other hand it can be quite limiting. Its not for everyone I guess!
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