Class of 2010

The local children have just returned to school for their last few weeks before the summer break and my own, rather grown up, daughter is also coming to the end of her first year at university.  The time has flown by!  These past few weeks she has been in teaching practice and has had her first taste of being in charge of the classroom.  Despite the odd 'experience', she's as determined as ever to teach and I get the feeling she will be rather good at it (biased, me? Never!).

So lots of children will be getting ready to say goodbye to school soon and there will no doubt be the usual run of cards and presents.  There will also be 'the class photograph' to look forward to (I've so many of these tucked away) and this is what my card today is all about.

Mo's Digital Challenge this week is to merge two (or more) of Mo's images. I only recently learned to merge images but I have to say it's been one of the best things I've learned in a long time.  So I was really pleased to read this week's challenge and, without further ado, please meet 'The Class of 2010':

Images: Mo's Digital Pencil, 'Harvard', 'Smith' and 'Trinity'

Papers: Scenic Route (stripes); 'photo frame' printed on PC

I've missed off poor old 'Oxford' (only because I don't have him yet), and I don't know of any classroom in the land that only has three pupils!  But, hey, we don't worry about that, right? Artistic licence and all that!

I use the free programme 'Paint.net' for my image manipulation - I have 'Corel' but I'm scared of it!  Paint.net does everything very simply and has much of the functionality of the more expensive software, and certainly sufficient features to satisfy my needs.  I know that there are also quite a few other free programmes around that will do much the same - GIMP is one, I think.  Anyway, I'm happy that I don't have to get to grips with my Corel for now, at least. 

I chose to make Harvard a little taller than the girls because boys are often taller than girls of their own age.  And I wanted them to be kind of jostling for position a bit - see how Harvard's arm is in front of Trinity but her bag is on his feet!  And Smith just wants to make sure that everyone can see the book she is holding in her right hand. I really enjoyed messing about with these three.

Coloured with my Copics, shaded with my Prismas (as usual), I then framed the three with a mock-up of the cardboard school photo frame that we usually get.  I debated as to whether to make this simply a school photo but I wanted to introduce the stripes to pull all the colours together.  The whole thing is then backed on navy blue card.

And before you ask, the pattern on Smith's dress is achieved by using my Copic blender pen to 'remove' some of the colour - spots on top, checks on the bottom.  Cool effect and so easy to achieve. 

Right, off to link up and then tea time - I'm ravenous. 

Happy crafting.
xx