Okay, this will teach even the newest person to to effectively brush detailed and colorful (or less colorfull) abstracts that you can use for Backgrounds, or whatever you want. And before we start i want everyone to know i use photoshop cs2, so if you use a lower version then several things might be different. But it should be similiar no matter what version your using.

Here are a couple good brush sets you can download.

Brush 1
Brush 2

*Hint* i used both of these when making this tutorial*

Oh ya, the brushes arent mine, but the images and text are so...

Copywrite Marineking.

Rip, Die.

First of all make a new canvas (File-/new...) and make it about 125 hight and 400 width pixels, and make sure to select transparent in the "background contents" drop bar. And then fill it wil black, you can do this by using a default brush and just brushing black over the entire image, or by going to edit-/ fill and selecting black in the drop bar.



then click the brush icon on the toolbar, and pick a brush, and then start using single clicks to make designs on the black background, and make sure the brush color is white.



Dont go to wild, make it small and simple.



Now press Ctrl+U and select "colorize" then adjust the hue and saturation untill you have you have a nice, simple color, as shown below.



Now click on the "layer" tab and select new-/ layer... And then select another brush and start making single clicks around the colored back ground. And then after three or four clicks select the layer blending drop bar on the layers menu and change the blending to either overlay, screen, linear light, or color dodge. Make several more layers and repeat this step with different colors, and different layer modes, try them all. afterwards you should have something like mine below.


(Colors may vary depending on what your using.)

now create another new layer and fill it with white. then make four or five brush strokes (Single clicks) using a white brush untill you have something like this.


(It may look different depending on what brushes your using.)

Then change the layer blending mode to overlay, and ta-da, you shoudl have a nice, vibrant, colorfull abstract that will make any parent proud.

This is what i came up with, but dont despair if it isn't the same. As long as YOU like what you made, and if you dont, try again. And remember to keep exparamenting with different layer blending modes, brushes, and colors.



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Well....I was hopeful when you said "anyone can do it" but I guess my incompetance is even greater than "anyone" ><

I d/l'ed the brush sets on my desktop, but I have no idea how to incorporate them into my photoshop program. Once I have the brushes in the program, the rest is a piece of cake :D

Thanks in advance.

~R

I followed the tut, but I was confused where you say to make a layer filled with white, then use a white brush, and you had a pink colored image. If i use the white brush on white, it doesnt do anything, and when I overlay, it shows white where I clicked, and it blinds me ><.

Sorry in advance, I'm really trying, just got confused at that part. Thanks.

EDIT: This is what i came up with after clicking the white brush on the white-fill layer. Hurts my eyes, so I know i did something wrong.




~R

Thats pretty nice, remember an abstract doesn't need to be a perfect picture, because its abstract :P

But really, thats pretty nice, and when i said fill with white, i meant to either brush it completely white, of go to edit-/fill and do it that way. And then use a black brush to make a simple pattern, then use ctrl+u to color it.

The colors i used were completely optional, you are free to make your own designs, and besides i think yours is better then mine, in its own way.

And remember, its almost impossible to get a perfect recreation when following an abstract because abtracts are so uniqe and random. Thats what makes them fun, you can do it for years and not run out of ideas.

All in all, good job and keep it up.

Yeah I realized that all I needed was to color it like all the other layers. Guess I was too tired to think of it last night :oops:

Thanks though, I'm new to abstract things but I'll get used to it :D

Hey guys, good tutorial. This is my first attempt at brush art:

Worth keeping as a sig, or not?

It looks nice :D

You should keep it up!