Sketch

I love making sketches using Photoshop.  Mostly I have been using photos of landscapes to create the sketches. Today I tried a  new technique and made a sketch of a face.
I used a photo of my son taken several years ago. I'm quite please with how it turned out.

Crafting for Christmas

Now that all of my hand made Christmas cards have arrived at their destinations I can post photos of them. I was inspired to make cards this year by a video tutorial  that I watched on Joggles.com you can see it here.

The first card I made was of and gas lamp post, I  added a Christmas wreath, painted it and then sprinkled with glitter and it was good to go.

 The three cards above were  made with  3 new Tim Holtz stamps I treated myself to. I used watercolour to paint them and cut the edges with a rotary blade. Glitter was added as a last step to the card and background.

 In some of the cards I sent out I added this little Christmas bird. My friend Lorraine showed me how to make them one afternoon a few weeks ago. I had a wonderful time with my little granddaughters one day after school having them make their own.

I made a dozen of these round ornaments to give as gifts. Again it was Lorraine who show me how to make them. I used paper from an old book and the centers came from antique Christmas cards photos that I printed out. I kept a few for myself and they look wonderful hanging on our tree.

I hope everyone had a happy Christmas holiday.

Oh My!!

Oh Me, Oh My two in one week! This page was choosen as a Gallery Stand Out here.

 "The purpose of the Gallery Stand Out blog is very simple: to showcase some of the most outstanding digital scrapbooking layouts posted in the galleries, every single day."

 Wow! what an honour!!

Christmas Bells - Featured Today

It's a wonderful feeling to have a piece of  digital art that I created noticed and featured on a web page. It's always a thrill to have that recognition.

Today I am featured on Oscraps Blog for my digital page Christmas Bells.
The background paper I used came from Anna Aspnes Designs at Oscraps, the bells were found on the net and then digitally manipulated to give some dimension.

However you celebrate the holidays good wishes from me to you.

Stuff

Last night when I should have been  counting sheep I was counting the number of Christmas stockings we needed to hang up this year. Yikes, I realized that my youngest granddaughter did not have a stocking! What to do, what to do, as it was almost 3am I figured I should wait until morning to solve this problem.

Morning came too soon and after a quick breakfast I checked the Christmas box where we store the stockings. Sure enough there were only 8 stockings and we are 9 this year. I had made stockings for the two older girls and felt I could not possibly buy a stocking for the little one,  it might scar her for life if I did.

What to do, what to do? I checked the closet where I store my stash of fabric and what do I find, a beautiful plaid silk dupioni ( I have no idea what I originally bought it for), and the perfect piece of green silk dupioni to use as a lining. I checked the draw where I keep trim and  found  a piece of green and gold braid just the right size to use for the edging.

After a couple of hours I had a new Christmas stocking made and I did not have to buy a thing, every bit came from my stash of stuff!

 

This true story just goes to prove you can never have too much stuff!

As I was thinking about stuff  The Rule of Stuff came to mind:

 

The Rule of Stuff (as revealed to Susanna Oroyan)

You can never have too much stuff.

The stuff you have is never as good as the other guy's stuff.

The stuff you have is probably too good to use anyway, better save it.

Any stuff you need is always too expensive.

Your stuff is never where you thought it was.

Stuff multiplies exponentially on its own.
Stuff cannot resist gravity, it prefers being in piles on the floor.

Stuff mutates, the stuff you thought you had is not the stuff you do have.

The natural state of stuff is chaos, don't even try to organize it in plastic boxes.

Stuff stored in closets will always fall on your head.

If you see good stuff, better buy it because you will never find it
again....always buy twice as much stuff as you might need.
Really good stuff is irresistible to cats.

Copywrite 1997 Susannah Oroyan.

She who dies with the most stuff wins!!

Digital to Phyical

I have spent the last week in my studio with paper, glue and a exacto knife making school memory books for my 2 oldest granddaughters. The books were inspired by a  photo I saw on the Graphic 45 site made byLuv-Lee Scrappin.   Graphic 45 paper called ABC Primer was used on the cover and throughout the book.  The pockets were made with paper bags covered with the paper and chipboard was used for the covers and spines again covered with same Graphic 45 paper.

I am waiting for a order to arrive to finish  the front covers including locks and some kind of a closure. I still haven't figured that out yet.

As you can see from these photo's I made the spine very wide to be able to accommodate the photo's and other bits and pieces that will be added over the years.

                                                            Inside front cover and first pocket

 Each pocket contains a tag that can be used to record the name of the girls teacher and other information  about their school year.

There are pockets and tags for Junior Kindergarten through to grade 12 and I will be labeling each pocket.

My plan is to make a third book for my youngest granddaughter, but she is only 18 months old so there is no rush.

Tooting my horn

It's always nice to be recognized and today my page ARTHUR was chosen as a gallery stand out at DeviantScrap.

You can see it here.

I wrote about creating this page in an earlier post called Arthur . This post also has the link to Pauline Conolly blog that will tell you the sad story about Arthur.
Let us all remember not only Arthur but all of those young lives who died or were injured in so many wars.

Journal Fun

A few weeks ago Barbara at Joggles posted a video using Dylusions Journal & paints. After watching the video I was all fired up to try it out. A quick trip to my local scrapbook store got me started with the journal. Today my friend Cynthia came over and after lunch we spent the afternoon in my studio playing and experimenting. We used spray paint & stencils to start with.

Added some stamps.

A bit of spray glitz.

And had a super good time.

Unfortunately the colours are not accurate or as vibrant in the photos. But I think you can get an idea of how the journal is starting to develop. I'm planning on adding more to each page and will upload them as I finish.
Would love your comments on this technique.

Toot toot

I've been featured again this week on the Art Journal Caravan Blog week #43 highlights. The page that they picked to feature was one of my new series of watercolour sketches, I Remember

The photo I used was taken from a moving car while driving at sunset along the Malibu coast during my last trip to LA. I will also add that as usual traffic was heavy and we were not moving very quickly.

I have been really enjoying using this technique and I think it will end up as a photobook called "I Remember". I've been using favorite photos from my various travels over the years.

I did deviate from the travel theme to create this one, Saying Goodbye. The photo was taken by my young cousin Julia in my Aunt's apartment after her funeral. To me, seeing the empty chair really brought home that my dear Aunt was gone.

Sketch

This week I have continued  making  sketches out of  photos and then creating  a watercolour effect.  I've  used photos that I  have taken on my various trips over the years for this.

 St. Augustine, Fla.

 Giverny, France

 

Washington, D.C.

 

 

It's a pleasure being able  to use these photo's  in my art work and and at the same time renewing my  memories of those trips.

 

What do you think of this technique? Would love some feedback and comments.

Arthur

My Australian friend Pauline Conolly was interviewed recently about her current work in progress which you can read here. It is a story about her Uncle Arthur who served with the Tasmanian 12th battalion in Gallipoli. I was haunted by the story after reading it in the morning before leaving for work. As soon as I came home in the evening I created the page below.

Pauline wrote and told me the page brought her to tears. What a wonderful complement to give a artist.

Challenges

I love challenges that are offered on various sites I'm a member of. I find that they spark my creative juices and get me thinking.
Here are the results of the challenges I entered this weeks.

This one was for the Art Journal Caravan week #42 the word was Elixir. As Halloween is coming soon I thought I'd add a bit of a spooky touch.

Another challenge was the art journal challenge by Nancy Rowe Janitz at Jessica Sprague.Com . The challenge is  " I remember". Some of my happiest travel memories are of Paris, the photo was lifted from the net and it express the wonderful secret corners of the city to me.

Another challenge at Jessica Sprague was to take a photo and change it into a sketch. This photo was taken a few years ago by me in Rome.

Comments are always appreciated.

Featured

I've been chosen again to be one of the features in the Art Journey Caravan blog.

The journal page was created using the challenge word gossamer. Funny this was not one of my favorite journal pages. I preferred this one. The word time was the challenge.

 

There have also been challenges this month for Halloween. I've had quite a lot of fun creating spooky pages.

The challenge was to creating something that gives you nightmares. I think I was pretty successful with this one!

 

Grim Reaper

 

 The three below were created for a challenge using tombstones. If you look closely you will see the name Annabel Lee on the tombstone of the page below. My inspiration for this page came from the poem by Edgar Allen Poe.

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Torch Bearer

Fallen Angel

Imaginary Places

 

Septembers challenge for the Art Journal Caravan's Adventure Quest in Cartography was to create an imaginary place. I knew once I read the challenge what I wanted to incorporate into my imaginary place and that was the a photo I found on the net called "An Artists House".
After seeing the photo I tried to find out more about it and where it was located without success. It looks like a magical place and I wonder what the Artist creates who built it?

Gotta Crow!

My latest LO was chosen as a Gallery Standout over at Devient Art

It is much darker and more spooky than my usual stlye. I have been using portals in my work and this was and experiment.

Woman with a Pariot -Maggie Tayor Style

Time Out of Mind

Little Red Riding Hood

Above are some other Fantasy LO created over the past few weeks.
And here are some in the more traditional mode.

Nest

I had a free day yesterday and spent some of my time working on a new page. I continue to be influenced by Maggie Taylor as you can see in  the page below.

 

Again I used a portal to convey the feeling of  looking into a world beyond reality.

Portals

After a several month "vacation" from this blog, I'm back! See below some of the work I have been doing.

I have always loved the idea going through a  portal to a magical place. Over the past couple of months I have created several digital pages with that theme.

 

I've also created some pages with a fantasy themes as well.

I always appreciate comments.