Catching Up

I can't seem to catch up with the calendar these days.  In my head, I've just started June, but realized that tomorrow is tax day and that means the month is half gone and I haven't posted any art work for a while.  I have finished an acrylic/mixed media painting finally after several fits and starts.  It looks totally different from the concept I had when I started.  I guess that happens to other people also ... it's so encouraging to read other blogs and see that others sometimes get a block or change directions. At right is a photo of the original.  Bad lighting, but you get the idea..    I used fluid acrylics, modeling paste for texture, and a transfer.  Does anyone recognize the wide eyebrow?  I call the painting "My Muse". 

I like this photo that I did with my iPhone using the cool photo apps that let you add effects, frames, etc.  The app I used for this one was "Camera +" and the effect is called "Purple Haze".  It's much more mysterious than the original.

More Snow

Another cold snowy day, just perfect for working on the last exercise in my Photoshop class.  Perfect, because our inspiration was a snow scene with lots of white.  Very cool.  Mine turned out quite differently, and much more colorful.  That's how I want snow to be -- sparkling and glinting with the color of the late evening sun.

The only flowers blooming in winter are the hellebores, but mine are all covered with snow today.  Nevertheless, I had old photos stored away that I could bring out to remind me that winter is nearly over, and I used some vivid colors to brighten my day as I had to stay inside out of the cold and chill.

Another class assignment finished.  I think this is the last lesson, but I still have so much to learn!  This time I used the files that were given to me and I tried to follow the instructions to the T.  My colors turned out really muddy when I followed the instructions, so I brightened it and left it that way.  As I was reflecting on a title, "Send in the Clowns" came into my head and lyrics seemed to just fit ....well, I mean they fit better when I flipped "me here on the ground and you up in the air".

The Judy Collins fans will undoubtedly also note that I left the word "up" out of the text.  That's because the "p" on my other computer keyboard isn't working.  (Sad story about that, but I will save that for after I find out how much it will cost me to get it fixed.)

After staying up half the night last night, I finally got this Photoshop exercise done.  The challenge was to replicate a collage done by our teacher. She gave us an example and her photos of a rustic barn, a wire fence and a bird with a misty fog and the colors of dawn. As always, I wanted to do my own thing :) so I looked and looked through my photo collection to find a suitable barn and fence and bird.  I tried several things, including a squirrel, and finally composed the collage as you see it.  (The rooster is free clip art I had downloaded from Dover Publications).  Here's a link to D J Pettitt's blog, where you will see the wonderful digital collages that she does.  http://djpettitt.blogspot.com/ 

"Coalwood Memories"

Last May, a friend and I visited Coalwood, WV, the former home of Homer Hickham, the "Rocket Boy". We discovered this empty shell of an old schoolhouse, half-hidden by bushes and overgrowth of vines. It called out to me to explore the memories that still live there. This collage recalls the former students and their watchful teacher who once walked those halls.

My friends know that I have played with digital art for a long while, (and I mean played) but I have a lot to learn before I can claim to be proficient in Photoshop.  In early January, I started an on-line workshop with DJ Pettitt, a digital artist whose work I admire.  After three weeks of intensive work, I am putting some new tools to work and having a ball with Photoshop.  It can be frustrating at times, but it's usually a correctable error, such as being in the wrong layer.  Patience is definitely a requirement for doing work like this.  This collage has combined five different photographs with blended layers and masks, brushes, and artistic effects. The people photos are scanned from old photographs that I have been collecting from antique shops and estate sales.


"Wish You Were Here"

The wistful expression of the woman in this illustration I found made me want to use her in a collage.  I blended layers consisting of a photo of one of my own acrylic paintings as a background, the illustration I got from Dover Publications, a scanned antique postcard ("Hello Joyce"), and my own flower photos.

 

"My Dearest Sister"

This exercise in the DJ Pettit workshop had us blending layers and using the masking technique for the raindrops and butterfly.  The layers were a flower photograph, a photo of raindrops on leaves, a scanned postcard, and a photo of a butterfly on flowers.