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.

but I had previously had issues with too much noise in the image (time for a new camera!). Instead, I decided to make one using photoshop and freehand mx. Turns out it wasn’t that difficult to make, and I was pleased with the results. I considered giving away the image for free here on the blog, and then thought, even better; I’ll make a tutorial! (and give away the image as well). So here you have it, this is how I made my record from scratch:

In freehand, draw a perfect circle by holding down the shift key while dragging your circle tool. Draw a second perfect circle, much smaller than the first, and place it inside the bigger one.

Select both circles and in the align palette, select “align center” in both pulldown menus then hit the “align” button.

Select the blend tool, and create a blend between the two. In the object palette, change the number of steps to 80. Export this image as an eps, then open in photoshop. Open at 300 dpi, 3000 pixels.

Once opened, name your layer “vinyl”, then create a new layer and move it underneath the vinyl layer. Resize canvas to 11 inches, leaving your image in the center. Select your bottom layer and fill with white.

Select the vinyl layer. Using the magic wand, select the area outside and inside of the circles, then invert the selection. Go to your filters palette and select Radial Blur. Set the blur to 75 and click ok.

With your selection still on, create a new layer. Fill selection with black, set layer to multiply, and opacity to 92%.

Keeping your selection, create another new layer. Create a radial gradient on the top corner of the image like so:

Duplicate layer and set to overlay. Create a copy of this layer. Then create another copy, which you will rotate 180 degrees. Create a copy of this layer and set the opacity to 15.

Make a small circular selection in the middle of the record. With the vinyl layer selected, hit command-x to cut the pixels from this layer.

make a new layer above the gradient layers. This will be for your track seperations. For this part of the record, you will make several different sized circle selections around the record and stroke them with black. After you have several concentric circles (not all the same size; try to vary the width of the spaces between circles), set your layer to exclusion.

Select your vinyl layer, and with the magic wand tool, select the area inside the record. Now go to your black layer, and while holding down the option key, select the middle again. You should now have a selection of the ring around the inside of the record. On a new layer, which should be at the very top of the other layers, fill your selection with black. Set the opacity to 72.

Now it’s time to make the label in the center of the record.

Start by making a selection of the white area inside the record, and make it a few pixels wider than the white section. Making sure you’re on the ‘center ring’ layer, hit command c to copy your selection. Now hit command n to open a new document the size of your selection. Make your document several pixels larger on each side and click okay to create the document. Hit command-v to paste your selection.

with the magic wand tool, select the outside of your circle. With the selection intact, you can go ahead and delete the circle layer, and add a new empty layer. Select inverse, then fill the selection with your label’s background color.

using your guides, determine the center of the circle.
Now draw a small circle with your round selection tool, and delete the pixels in this area.

create a new layer and call it rings. make another circular selection, larger than the last, and give it a 2pt stroke of black. Draw another, still larger circle and give that a 2pt stroke as well. Give these circles a gaussian blur of 4. Adjust the opacity to 30.

open the image (supplied in the zip file at the end of this tutorial) record-layer.jpg. select all the pixels and copy, then paste into your record label document. Invert the image, and adjust the levels as shown.

Set this layer to screen. Set the opacity to around 40. If you’d like, you can duplicate the layer and rotate it, and move it around to your liking.

When your happy with the texture,command click on the label layer thumbnail to select the label. go to edit->copy merged, then open up your vinyl document and paste the selection. Center the label on top of the vinyl. (at this point, i realized my vinyl might be a little too wide in comparison to the label, so I cut around the edge of the vinyl. You can avoid this when making yours by making the center ring and label big enough to begin with).

Now all that’s left to do is add whatever design you want to the label and you’re done!

I’m including a zipped file with this tutorial that contains the layered psd (from photoshop cs2), and a flattened file that you can have to use as you wish (i don’t mind how you use it, but a link back to me would be nice if you do use it in a project).

Get the zip file here

Now, keep in mind, this method isn’t the best for fine detail. You’ll be painting this stuff onto a polyester mesh screen by hand, so you won’t be getting a crisp, hard line. Tiny text is usually out of the question (unless you’re a lot more talented and steady with your hand than I am!). This sort of thing is much better suited to the photo emulsion style of screenprinting. When using screen filler, I’d suggest using large areas of flat color until you get comfortable with the process.

First, let’s start with the supplies. You can find most of these things at any art or hobby store. If you have any trouble locating any of this stuff, I would recommend www.dickblick.com; they have everything you need, and then some!

You’ll need to get a screen. (fig 1) This is usually just a wooden frame with a sheet of polyester mesh stretched over it. You can make your own and save a bit of money, or you can spend a little more on the pre-made screens. This is probably the easiest for your first time.

Now it’s time to paint the screen filler onto your mesh. (fig 6) This is the most time consuming part of the process. You want to be sure to paint everything EXCEPT for your art. In other words, you’ll paint the negative space of your design. This will allow the ink to come through the little holes in the mesh, without going through the rest of the screen. After you get this part done, give it time to dry. Then go back, hold it up to a light, and see where all of the little pinholes of light are coming through. You’ll need to go back and fill these spots in with more screen filler. Be diligent, keep going until all the pinholes are filled and no light comes through the screen filler. This might take several applications, but it’ll be well worth it in the end.