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Incorporating Organic Artistic Textures (plus freebies!)

It’s become a fairly common practice to use photographs of rust, wood, metal, concrete and dirty surfaces as a means to bring texture into designs and illustrations via photoshop layers. There are a ton of great images to be found online, both free and for a fee. And of course you can always grab a camera and go on a texture hunt of your own. There are textures to be found everywhere; all it takes is a desire to explore your surroundings, and any good designer probably possesses just such a desire.

Today I wanted to explore some other ways to get original textures for your work, such as using paint, ink, pastels, printmaking, photocopying, and making rubbings.

Let’s start with something really simple. Take a blank sheet of paper, slap a blob of acrylic paint down, and use a palette knife to pull the paint across the page. Reload and pull it again, in a different direction. Keep going until you have something you’d like to scan and use as a layer mask. You can also do this using a screenprinting squeegee. Try experimenting with different ways to pull the paint across the page.

How about some cool ink splatters? Get some india ink and an old toothbrush, and splatter the ink across a sheet of paper. (Be prepared to get your hands dirty with that one though; maybe put on some rubber gloves before doing it if you don’t want to have india ink all over your fingers for a while). Make little splatters from far away, or big globby splatters, or a combination of both! You can also use watercolor paints for this. It’s a great way to bring some beautiful colors into your work.

Monoprints are another good way of creating unique artistic textures. Get yourself a sheet of glass or plastic (glass from a photo frame, for instance). Put a blob of blockprinting ink on the glass and spread it out. (You can use acrylic paint, but you have to be fast because it dries quickly, especially when it’s spread thinly on the surface). You can use a brush, a rubber brayer, squeegee, your finger, or whatever suits you. Spread it out all over the glass to make a background image for you digital art, or just a small spot for random embellishment. Take a sheet of paper, lay it down on top of the inked up glass, then press down and rub with the palm of your hand. Cover the whole area where your paint or ink is. Lift the paper from the glass and there’s your monoprint, ready to be scanned! (Well, after sufficient drying time, that is). Another option is to roll out your ink/paint, and draw an image into it with a hard instrument (a pencil, perhaps). Remember that when you make your print, the image will be backwards, so keep this in mind if you write words. Of course since you’ll be scanning it, you could always flip it the right way around once you bring it into photoshop.

Then we have rubbings. This one’s easy; find a surface with a texture you like. A wall, the floor, an old book cover, or pretty much any firm surface with an interesting texture. Place a blank sheet of paper on top of the surface, and rub with the side of a pencil. A conte crayon or graphite stick is a really good tool for this sort of thing. Try to find images or words you can rub (nothing copyrighted of course!)

Photocopies and image transfers make great textures. Try copying a sheet of black paper, then crumpling up and spreading out the copy. Maybe make a copy of that. This makes a great worn-looking texture. Or go here for some great ideas on how to use image transfers, then scan those into your computer.

Do you have any creative ways to create organic textures for use in your digital work? If so, why don’t you tell us in the comments? I’d love to hear what other designers are doing to add another level of interest to their work.

Click hereand here to download some free artistic textures I made for you using acrylic paint and a palette knife.

Or Click here to purchase some hi-res (300 dpi, at between 8 to 22 inches) painted textures. 5 grungy layer masks/textures made with acrylic paint, and one splattered watercolor texture, for only $3.00. (I’m working on a better way to sell these, which will be in place next week. Until then, to purchase just make your payment and I will send you a download link as soon as I get it). Seems my paypal button was interfering with the comment form somehow, so just send an email to skipgo at gmail.com if you’re interested in buying them, and I’ll email you a link, until I get the other method of selling downloads implemented. (thanks to ferdinand at the awesome fudgegraphics for letting me know.

© 2008 What Noisy Cats Are We.