It does not seem likely that brands like Moleskine, Caran d’Ache and Copic will disappear any time soon. Instead in this digital age, there is still the excitement and fun of participating in and discussing creative expression and an appreciation for all things hand-made.

I am a huge fan of writing things down. For once, I hate to lose a good idea and my working memory is barely above that of a squirrel (no offense to my favorite critter!). But more importantly by putting my thoughts on the (real or virtual) page, I can clearly look them and decide if they are any good and where I want to take an idea.

There are so many reasons why keeping a journal is a good idea. I think it is even more fun, when you primarily work with images – everything from doodles and collage to painting and photography.

The following books make it clear that journals can look so completely different like the people that create them:

• “An Illustrated Life” by Danny Gregory
• “Drawing From Life: The Journal as Art” by Jennifer New
• “Artists’ Journals and Sketchbooks” by Lynne Perrella

In this series I will show you, how you can start a visual journal and show you some ideas you can try.

Meanwhile you can explore these inspiring galleries:

• Dan Eldon (War photographer)

• James Jean (Visual artist)

• Tommy Kane (Art Director)

• The author has a way of explaining the complex subject of creativity so that you can understand it in detail and relate it to your own process of creating.
• The content was very rich in information and gave me many insights. The exercises help you to actually transfer these insights into your life.
• The design elements on the pages might not appeal to everyone’s taste, but they are done with a lot attention to detail and do not conflict with the presented works.

What could be improved:

• The photographs of the artists’ projects could have been better with some images. However, the scans are excellent.

For these reasons my overall rating is 4 out of 5 points.

The book communicated one very important message that I wanted to share:
It is not enough to dream something into being, you actually have to work on it to make it real.

“If every idea that popped into someone’s head was realized, we’d be constantly bombarded with wild leaps in fashion, amazing music unlike anything we’d ever heard, and other things so different from anything we’d seen or tasted or heard or touched that our mouths would drop in wonder. It’s not like that, though, because most ideas never come to fruition. They’re there, in someone’s head, and then they’re gone. Sometimes they get as far as being written down or sketched on a bar napkin, and sometimes someone will tell his best friend about this terrific idea he just had. But mostly, it’s just an idea, a little spark that isn’t fanned into life. And therein lies the fundamental difference between those who have ideas (and that’s everyone) and those who are creative: the act of bringing the idea to life.”
(page 21)

1. Webbased tools

There is an application I liked by Anymaking that creates a lovely old photo effect. I only increased the contrast slightly (with a curves layer set on the blending option “luminosity”) in Photoshop.

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I also liked PhotoFunia’s vintage photo approach a lot. The logo inserted at the bottom of the frame was removed (with the Spot Healing Brush) in Photoshop.

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2. Free (or cheap) software

There are many free photo editors for Windows or the ones available for Mac you can use to turn your image into a black&white version, apply a sepia color tone or add a frame. However, unless the editor offers layers and other more advanced options (e.g. levels and curves), it might be difficult to try more complex tutorials and add paper textures or signs of age – like cracks -  to your photo.

3. Photoshop

a) Actions

I almost cannot believe how many useful and beautiful vintage Photoshop actions there are on the web for free. Just google for “vintage” or “retro” and “photoshop action”!

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From the top left to bottom right corner:

1. Old Photo Action by shagagraf – applied with an opacity of 50%
2. H.D.A.-soft elegance by H-D-STOCK – applied with an opacity of 40%
3. Vintage effect by photoshop-stock – Option 2
4. Cross-processing action1 by untitledhope
5. Vintage by Roy Adkins
6. Vintage action by lassekorsgaard
7. Dim and Jade by davidnanchin
8. Photoshop actions 41 by night-fate – Option 6 with first curves layer to 80% (Julia Starr actually offers many pages of free actions!)
9. Retro Action by marissaxxx

Two other actions I also especially liked were the “Hand-colored Vintage Photo” and “Vintage Photo” actions by Jenny W.

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b) Tutorials

Hongkiat has compiled a list of very useful vintage and aging photo effects tutorials.

Gerardo Carrillo came up with an approach I just had to try. The texture I used is from the “Vintage Grunge Textures” package by Princess of Shadows. If you are looking for textures try these recommendations or the links on this website.

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If you want to try a soft and dreamy look then try this wonderful tutorial and look at the actions by CoffeeShop, e.g. “Soft Autumn Glow” or “Butterscotch Vintage“.

1. Webbased tools

Pixenate has a “Lomo tool”, but I did not like the effect. The Lomo look may be a bit too complex for simple online photo editors. Swisswuff has an analysis of the lomo effect, if you are interested in the details.

2. Free software

Paint.net is a free software that features a Lomo plugin. You can find more information on how to install it and use it on this website. I am not overly excited about this option compared to the Photoshop actions and tutorials, but it does a decent job, if your image is light enough (higher than average exposure) and has a low contrast, before you apply the effect.

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3. Photoshop

a) Actions

There are so many Lomo actions that I made this collage to show you some of the good ones.

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From the top left to bottom right corner:

1. Action 3 by ZeroComrade
2. lomold action by turunchuQ
3. Retro Love by pseudonymfreak
4. Lomo Action Set by WingsOfAHero – Option “Lomo X Process”
5. Vintage Lomo Effect Action by NamfloW
6. Lomo by Addicted to Design – Option “Medium Vignette”
7. Lomo Effect by photoshop-stock – Option 6 with half the contrast
8. ABDPBT Lomo Action Set – Option “Rose-Colored Glasses” with half the contrast
9. bhp actions by Beau Hudspeth – Option “The Look of Lomo” with Unsharp mask reduced to 10%

Many thanks to Graphic Identity and Zedomax for these great resources.

b) Tutorials

For a standard approach how to achieve the Lomo look digitally try the tutorial by Darren Rowse.

Kwame Busia has a different way of doing “Fauxmography“, which creates warm colors and gorgeous light leaks.

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The Tutvid channel has a tutorial video on YouTube, which is really easy to follow and gives your images a washed-out look with a punch.

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If you need some inspiration then visit the “Lomo Faker s League“.

1. Webbased tools

Upload an image on the HolgaNizer and the application turns it into a Holga image. For inspiration you can check out the HolgaNizer Flickr Group. Side effects of the PHP-based script include a very low resolution (300×300 pixel) and a mandatory film frame border around the image. If you want this action for Photoshop, it costs $20, but it allows for a much greater image size. I very much like the pretty light leak in the right bottom corner. There is a group on deviant art focusing especially on photos with light leaks.

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2. Photoshop

a) General actions

Alberto Campione offers a free Holga Photoshop action called “Holga Simulator” and Lawrence Ripsher has a tutorial on how to use it. On top of the action I included a viewfinder frame to make it even more realistic.

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There are also nice actions – not only in b&w but also in color and silver-toned – by Chris Fawkes. Additionaly I used this texture in the image.

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If you like a strong radial blur then you can use the action by tannermorrow.

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b) Special actions

Holga + Polaroid = Holgaroid! Rawimage has some wonderful actions for these special images – one for black&white and one for color.

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c) Tutorials

If you want a look in detail at one way to achieve the Holga characteristics in Photoshop, then take a look at the different steps by Lenscraft or the video tutorial by PhotoshopGirl. Feel free to experiment and keep in mind, that there are many ways to holga-fy an image.

I would very much like to see what you come up with, if you’d like to share.

1. Webbased tools

Polaroin allows you to upload a photograph and turns it into a Polaroid. I am not too crazy about the strong color casts (in blue, red or green), but it does work rather well in some cases.

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The Hockneyizer takes one image and transforms it into a collage of Polaroids in the spirit of David Hockney. This is more for fun than artistic expression, but it leads to interesting results. Just use the “Click here to shuffle” link, until it generates an arrangement you like.

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2. Free software

You drag your jpg files on the software icon and Poladroid magically turns them into Polaroids. Martin Pot has a tutorial on how to use it. The picture quality and resolution is really good.

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3. Photoshop

If you like to use Photoshop, you can try your hands at a Polaroid transfer effect. I followed the tutorial except that I used this medium format film border (Rawimage also has some great ones) and one of these grunge textures in blending mode “overlay” instead of the Scratch Heavy brush.

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Happy processing! Next on our list will be the Holga…

There is, of course, the obvious solution of going out and buying an old or toy camera. However, I will not cover analog photography, because I have not shot film for quite some time.
In the coming weeks, I will instead show you how to get your digital images to look like old photos.

You can get an idea of the different looks out there by looking at the following galleries:

• Toycamera.com
• Lomography.com
• No Rules. [Street] Photography. by Nitsa
• Toy camera photographers at the Magnesium agency
• Picturenoise.com and the
• Toy Cameras Group at Flickr.com

In the next post I will start explaining the most easily recognizable film look: the Polaroid.

The book is “Organic Cotton Knits: Easy on the Skin” by the publisher Ondori. The pattern is called Hexagon multi-cover (六角モチーフのマルチカバー).

This is my first piece for the project.

The photo was processed with the “Old Toy Camera” Photoshop action by Dave Ward.

• There is an explanation of the Basics of Japanese Knitting as well as help on How to Read Japanese Graphical Knitting Charts provided on the ‘ABCs of Knitting’ website.
• The Needle Arts Book Shop has a tutorial on Interpreting Japanese Knitting Patterns. There is a direct link to the pdf.
• There is very helpful advice from dancingbarefoot on how to knit a sweater.
• Fluffbuff has an overview on Japanese knitting symbols as does Fleegle’s Blog.
• If you need help figuring out your yarn requirements, then check out the ‘Japanese Knitting Patterns’ website.

As for crochet, these things also apply for knitting:

• The Japanese have another metric system when it comes to needle sizes. Please check the conversion chart on knitbuddies to know what size is required.
• You can still make use of translation tools, such as Google Translate.
• There is the Knitting in Japan Yahoo Group that is rather active and again there are groups on Ravelry, especially Japanese Crochet and Knitting.

If you know about any other useful websites, I would love to hear about it.

• Purlyshells has a tutorial on how to work the rows of a hat. There is also a very detailed one by dancingbarefoot as well as Granny Garret’s Crochet.
• If you are into crocheting small cute stuff, you will find Aspettame’s explanations for Amigurumi very helpful.
• An overview with the basic crochet symbols shows you the corresponding stitches including links to videos.
• In Japan there are other hook sizes than in the US, the UK or Europe. You can find a conversion chart at snuffykin’s journal.
• A good book that has an overview of crochet symbols is “Clear & Simple Crochet Symbols“.

Start with something small or manageable like an amigurumi or a scarf. You will soon find, that finding your way through these visual instructions is much easier than you have imagined.

If you have decided to try a particular pattern and have trouble figuring it out, there are still more ways to get help:

• There are language tools – add-ons – for your browser that translate text found on web sites for you.
  For example, there is the Google Bar for the Internet Explorer and Foxlingo for the Firefox, which I am currently using. The results are mostly helpful in some way, but sometimes the translations might sound like  plain non-sense . You simply have to give it a try to see if it gives you any additional information for your particular project.
  If you want a little tutorial how to go about it, then We’re all Mad here has one for you.
• If you cannot copy and paste text into the translation tool, because your pattern is from a physical book or an image that does not allow for text recognition, then there are many kind people you can ask.
  There is, of course, Ravelry (highly recommended), where you can become a member of the Japanese Knitting and Crochet Group. Just reading through their forum was extremely helpful for me.

Good luck with your Japanese crafting!