Designer Of The Month RayesDesing
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Sketch Challenge
My name is Raye Mann (aka RayesDesign) and I live in the country about
10 miles outside Chapel Hill, NC (Southeastern USA) with my parents, my
Malti-Peki-Pome-Poo (mixed up mutt), Beanie Baby, and three cats; Trey,
Deeley & April. Dad is retired, mom still works full-time, and I am
their housewife. I am one of the fifth generation to live on our family
farm, which is now, with the exception of 4 family homes, completely
planted in pine trees for timber. There is a 3 acre pond in front of our
house which draws all sorts of wildlife: foxes, hawks, egrets, eagles,
raccoons, coyotes (boo), deer and not-so-little-anymore boys who like to
fish (which are probably the most entertaining wildlife of all).
Tell us what your work area looks like. Most of the time, my work area
is in a corner of my bedroom on a small desk under a window overlooking
the woods. I keep my laptop on the left side of the desk and my iPad
(for binge watching Hulu) and a small task lamp on the right. The only
other thing to regularly occupy desk space is my GI-NORMOUS thermal cup
full of iced tea. Occasionally, when the weather is perfect as it was
today, I bring my laptop to the front porch and work from the porch
swing overlooking the pond, the critters and the not-so-little-anymore
boys fishing.
What can't you live without? My computer, iPad and internet access. I
get twitchy and not very fun to be around pretty quickly without them.
Do you listen to anything while digi-scrapping or designing? I’m usually
binge watching Hulu or streaming videos from one of the TV networks with
my headphones on while I’m designing since I rarely watch TV in real
time anymore.
In which part of the day do you work best? I am a total night-owl. I
work best when the house is quiet because the ‘normal’ humans are
sleeping.
What are you working on right now? Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas
themes, in general, some clipart Photoshop actions and trying to come up
with my next “big idea”.
What is one thing about digital scrapbooking that you couldn’t live
without? i.e. Undo, templates, color changing, fonts. Photoshop actions
are my jam. I create them to handle almost everything, from recoloring
templates to resizing elements and papers for digital use to creating
alpha sets and finishing them to make them pretty. Most of these
actions are used once for their specific purpose then discarded, but a
few of them make it out into the world for other designers to use.
What colors do you find yourself drawn to with designs, i.e. bright,
funky, soft, earthy etc… I love bright, vibrant colors. My favorite
color has always been black (yes, I was that weird child) and I love the
way it makes bright colors look even brighter.
What is one thing about yourself that others might not know - I sing all
the time, in the choir at church too, but like seriously ALL THE TIME. I
am told that I started singing on the scale a few minutes after I was
born. It is really rather annoying to some, I suppose, but I do not
particularly care, because it makes me happy. I love music, every genre
from rap to country, world music to classical with the ONLY exception
being any song that requires Willie Nelson to sing (sorry Willie fans!
I’ll give him props as a super talented musician and song writer, but
the man has no business opening his mouth…like EVER ;)
What other hobbies do you have? Crochet, knitting, quilting, drawing and
painting, paper crafts, baking, needlepoint. My family jokes that I was
born 100 years too late, because I would have been perfectly happy, in a
southern parlor doing some sort of crafts with the other ladies…well
except for the whole “no air conditioning and no internet” thing,
anyway, but 100 years ago I wouldn’t have known any better.
What is your favorite flavor? It is hard for me to pin down ONE favorite
flavor, because like my taste in music, it can change from one minute to
the next. Among my most consistent favorites, though, would be caramel,
chocolate, hazelnut and anything citrus flavored. Combine those first
three and you’ll find me sitting quietly in a corner somewhere, having a
‘moment’!
Where did you learn your techniques? I learned the basics of Photoshop
in a class in college, but the majority of the skills and tricks I use
now came about through trial and error and happy accidents.
Do you print out your digital layouts? I am a packrat by nature, so I
tend to keep everything digitally, so as to avoid being buried alive
under a sea of paper. I rarely print out my layouts, unless they focus
on someone else, or more likely, their children. I recently finished
creating three scrapbooks for my cousin’s three small children (ages 7.
4 & 2 years), whose baby books were destroyed in a fire. Since my dad
ALWAYS has a camera sticking out of the front of his face, we were able
to gather photos from the time each was born to the present to help
preserve some of the memories that would have otherwise been lost.
