Heavy and Light - the complexity

As soon as I took this picture I immediately uploaded to print at Walgreen's.

An un-edited, un-cropped beauty.  Heading straight to get to work I almost regretted not lightening it.  But it captured the day, foggy and near dusk. I wanted to make sure that the atmosphere of the picture didn't get lost in translation.

So the question is - how do you work with a dark-ish moody picture to make it pop in a layout without it looking like a goth picture show?

Three possible answers:  

• Light and airy elements such as a cut file brush script or some sort of "see through" element.
• Just attempt to balance the heavy with other heavy elements paired with very light ones.
• Texture

In this case, I chose not to do solely one, but did all on smaller scales.

In the upper right hand corner I placed an adhesive tag from the July Felicity Jane paper set to offset the central picture focus. I have a tiny piece of sandpaper that I use to rough up the paper sometimes if it's too 'pretty' which is what I did on that tag. 

Then I added other black elements with her lightly colored paper.  The contrast gives it a visually balanced effect.  I wanted light Thickers but added a marker outline to add a hint of shadow after I roughed up the paper again. Also I stamped a sentiment in white on the picture.

I balanced out the middle portion with graphic washi and an angled black and white triangle on both the top and bottom of the composition. Adding trailing lined journal notes and small sub-title helped connect all the vertical elements.

I like the contrast between heavy and light in this layout and I hope that I've (coherently) explained from an artist point of view why I did what I did.  Any questions on any layout challenges?  Please leave them below and I'll hope to help you tackle your next scrapping issues.

Thanks for stopping by!!

xoxox

-Kim