The Making of a President – Step 3 – The Chad Frye

Welcome to the final step-by-step explanation of the Abigail & John Adams illustration that appears in this month’s issue of Clubhouse Magazine. Today we will look at the last digital methods to add some color to the art and to age it a bit.

First, I start with the traditionally painted image, and scan it into Photoshop. The rest of the steps are all completed in that program. Hopefully you have a decent working knowledge of Photoshop for the rest of what you will read to make sense to you. If not, then just enjoy the visual progression!

So we begin where we left off yesterday with the completely traditionally created ink washed art. — So we begin where we left off yesterday with the completely traditionally created ink-washed art.

I begin in Photoshop by creating a layer and dropping in a brown color with the paint bucket across the whole image, making sure the layer is set to Overlay. This tints the whole picture, then I adjust the opacity percentage to suit my taste.

I don't want the tint to affect most other areas where color will go, so I erased the brown from over most of our happy couple and the windows. — I don’t want the tint to affect most other areas where color will go, so I erased the brown from over most of our happy couple.

I begin to lay in colors now on the windows, the hearts on the letters, and the stamps. Each set of colors is on their own Overlay or Multiply layers so opacities can be adjusted independently.

Abigail Adams gets some color with many layers (10) each set for Overlay or Multiply, whichever looked better. Both those settings allow the original art to come through the color in different ways. — Abigail Adams gets some color with many layers (10), each set for Overlay or Multiply, whichever looked better. Both those settings allow the original art to come through the color in different ways.

John Adams joins Abby in the land of some color. You can see I even gave a bit of a purple tint to his dark jacket. — John Adams joins Abby in the land of color. You can see I even gave a bit of a purple tint to his dark jacket.

Now some aging techniques come into play. I have a set of splatter brushes in Photoshop. I used several of them on 11 layers, manipulating each in different ways to make it look like this "photograph" has been affected by the 240 years or so it has been passed down through history. You can see the spots on the wall, windows, characters - everywhere! — Now some aging techniques come into play. I have a set of splatter brushes in Photoshop. I used several of them on 11 layers, manipulating each in different ways to make it look like this “photograph” has been affected by the 240 years or so it has been passed down through history. You can see the spots on the wall, windows, characters, borders – everywhere!

In this image, I painted in a bit of a dark shadow around the edge of the image area. Helps to look older, and maybe the result of John's camera having a flash on it. — In this image, I painted in a bit of a dark shadow around the edge of the image area. Helps to look older, and maybe the result of John’s camera having a flash on it.

And last, using some plug-in filters, I was able to put in some surface scratches, and some fold marks to complete the aging process!

So, there you go! Now you can go and make your own presidential selfie! Thanks for following along in this little exercise. Hope you are off creating great things on your own!