Creative Arts Group Holiday Challenge 2022

  

Category:  Photography & Art

By:  dig  •  4 months ago  •  35 comments

Creative Arts Group Holiday Challenge 2022

Creative Arts Group
Holiday Challenge
2022

***

Ho Ho Ho


NewsTalkers members are cordially invited to get their creativity on this holiday season. :)

Get in the spirit by creating any kind of holiday-themed artwork and posting it to A. Macarthur's weekly articles from now through New Year's.

Get backgrounds, clip art, and other components from Pixabay, a stock image site providing free content with no attribution required. [Pixabay License]

Use an image editor like Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, GIMP (which is open source and free), or even the Microsoft Paint 3D that many of us already have on our computers (for fairly simple creations at least) and turn the various components you find into a Festivus miracle! The possibilities are endless.

Here's a quick example I made just this morning with PaintShop Pro...

original

And here's a collage I put together of the components I used to make it...

original

I used one of my own photos for that particular background, but everything else came from Pixabay. There are plenty of other possible backgrounds there as well.

I specifically chose holiday clip art with transparent backgrounds to make things as easy as possible.


Pixabay tips:

Try various holiday-themed search words to find plenty of components to work with, such as Christmas, Santa, Christmas Presents, Christmas Tree, Christmas Flowers, Snowflakes, Snowman, etc.

Transparent backgrounds are indicated by a gray and white checkerboard pattern behind the image on the download page. On the search results page the backgrounds just appear white, but not every white background turns out to be transparent on the download page.

To preserve a transparent background for quick and easy use in your editor, be sure that the downloaded image is saved as a png file and keep it that way. If you move it around, don't change it to jpeg.

Create a special folder to store your downloads in and keep them for a while. They can be reused in future projects.


Note that "holiday-themed" doesn't mean Christmas exclusively. Make stuff for Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, Festivus, whatever. :)

Also, if you use material from somewhere other than Pixabay, then be very sure that you have a legal right to use and/or modify it, and provide attribution if required. Don't just grab random stuff from a Google image search or something.

Consider resizing your final product to somewhere around or below 1000 pixels wide (if applicable). I've been posting things at 800x600 lately. They still look fine on a 24 inch monitor, and they don't make the page drag while loading like larger files sometimes can.

That's it. Have fun and be sure to post whatever you make on the weekly Creative Arts articles.

Come on, give it a try. You'll enjoy yourself.


Tags

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Dig
Professor Guide
1  author  Dig    4 months ago

I'm not an expert or anything, but I can offer a little help with editing if anyone needs it, especially for PaintShop Pro. Others are probably more familiar with Photoshop.

You can also watch editing tutorials on YouTube for whatever software you use. There are tons of them.

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
2  Perrie Halpern R.A.    4 months ago

Fun idea Dig! Gonna try my hand at it!

 
 
 
Dig
Professor Guide
2.1  author  Dig  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @2    4 months ago

Great!

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
3  Buzz of the Orient    4 months ago

800

 
 
 
Dig
Professor Guide
3.1  author  Dig  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @3    4 months ago

Haha. Good one.

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
4  Ender    4 months ago

This would be a great one for one to make their own Christmas cards.

 
 
 
Dig
Professor Guide
4.1  author  Dig  replied to  Ender @4    4 months ago

Oh, absolutely! Homemade Christmas cards would be a great project.

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
4.1.1  devangelical  replied to  Dig @4.1    4 months ago

my daughter makes holiday/special occasion cards. she went to a holiday craft fair last saturday and sold out of them at $5 per. everything else she made didn't sell.

 
 
 
Dig
Professor Guide
4.1.2  author  Dig  replied to  devangelical @4.1.1    4 months ago

Has she tried selling her cards online to a mass market? Etsy or something? Might be a winner.

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
4.1.3  devangelical  replied to  Dig @4.1.2    4 months ago

she does etsy too, her other crafts sell better there, cards not so much...

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
5  Perrie Halpern R.A.    3 months ago

1280

 
 
 
Dig
Professor Guide
5.1  author  Dig  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @5    3 months ago

Good job! Super cute critters.

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
5.1.1  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  Dig @5.1    3 months ago

Thanks, Dig. I love little critters, as you may know from your own photos.

 
 
 
shona1
Junior Quiet
5.1.2  shona1  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @5.1.1    3 months ago

Evening...

We shoot them here..feral and vermin..no warm and fuzzy here I am afraid..but they do look cute..🦘

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
5.1.3  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  shona1 @5.1.2    3 months ago

OMG, I used to breed bunnies, so I love them. I know you have a rabbit problem since they have few natural predators. 

 
 
 
Hallux
Junior Principal
6  Hallux    3 months ago

Meanwhile in Toronto where nothing is sacred other than Toronto:

512

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
6.1  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  Hallux @6    3 months ago

Looks a bit brisk for me! 

 
 
 
Hallux
Junior Principal
6.1.1  Hallux  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @6.1    3 months ago

N.Y. has summertime/fall dressed up as a cupcake races.

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
6.1.2  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Hallux @6.1.1    3 months ago

Perrie would natually take note of that since among her other talents she is a consummate masterful cupcake baker (or is that mistressful? - actually I'm confused by all the new pronoun requirements).  

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
6.1.3  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @6.1.2    3 months ago

Thanks Buzz for remembering about my cupcake art. Baker is just fine! I'm not fussy what anyone calls me as long as they don't call me later for dinner.

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
6.2  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Hallux @6    3 months ago

You know that Toronto has 4 seasons per year:  Snow, Snow, Construction, Snow.   And what about the people who dressed like those above swim in the water in a hole dug in an ice-covered lake?

 
 
 
Hallux
Junior Principal
6.2.1  Hallux  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @6.2    3 months ago

That's why I live in Montreal, at least we get July.

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
7  Ender    3 months ago

Merry Christmas Dig  (and everyone)

512

 
 
 
Dig
Professor Guide
7.1  author  Dig  replied to  Ender @7    3 months ago

Merry Christmas!

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
7.1.1  Ender  replied to  Dig @7.1    3 months ago

Old School.  Haha

512

 
 
 
Hallux
Junior Principal
7.1.2  Hallux  replied to  Ender @7.1.1    3 months ago

I'm going with Tree-Rex:

512

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
7.1.3  Ender  replied to  Hallux @7.1.2    3 months ago

I want one.  Haha

 
 
 
Hal A. Lujah
Professor Guide
8  Hal A. Lujah    3 months ago

original
original The top photo was taken at a Christmas light show that my wife dragged me to.  The bottom one was created from it.  

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
8.1  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  Hal A. Lujah @8    3 months ago

Really nice, Hal.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9  JohnRussell    3 months ago

800

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
9.1  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  JohnRussell @9    3 months ago

Retro fun John. Like a walk down memory lane. Really nice! 

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
10  Kavika     3 months ago

512

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
10.1  Perrie Halpern R.A.  replied to  Kavika @10    3 months ago

jrSmiley_93_smiley_image.jpg

Well done!

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
11  JohnRussell    3 months ago

800

 
 
 
evilgenius
Professor Guide
12  evilgenius    3 months ago

800

800

 
 

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