A Taste of the Thames

I was contacted several weeks ago by the British/Australian writer Pauline Conolly asking me if she could use my art work Three in a Boat on her website. I was flattered that she like it enought to want to use and gave my permission.

Pauline has written a book called Taste of the Thames. You can see the description of this book as well as her other book The Water Doctors Daughter on her very interesting website.

What I've been doing

We have had a lot of rain over the past couple of weeks. Being indoors has given me permission to play on the compute. Here are some of the results of my efforts.

                                                  Escape to Neverland

                                                  Book Magic
I've been on a fantasy kick and these two LO are the results.

This LO was inspired by a challenge using the word connect.

                                                       The Girls

                                                  Meditational Levitation
More in the Maggie Taylor style.

                                                           Oh!
And this on just for fun!

Comments are always appreciated.

Featured

I took  a little on line tutorial this week to create this fantasy layout.

                  Late for the Ball

The layout was created entirely by extracting items from photos placing them on another page and manipulation of the photos. A good example of manipulation is the path in the LO. This photo is where it came from.

I then  used  various tools in PS to manipulate, blend and color to fit  the photo into the landscape I was creating.

 I played around with hue and saturation to change the overall color and light of the page to give it more of an fantasy feeling.  Amazing what PS can do!

I posted the LO to Digital Whispers where it was chosen to be  one of the featured pieces this week. You can see it by clicking on Artwork at the top of the page.

Please leave a comment I always love hearing from you.

Art Journey

Art Nouveau is one of my favorite styles.  I especially love the jewelry that was created at this time. The wonderful swirls and dragonflies that are often used  appeal to me.  While surfing the net for Art Nouveau information I came across this beautiful photo  and felt compelled to create a journal page for her.

3 in a boat

I read a book many years ago when I lived in the UK called 3 Men in a Boat.
It was a funny account of a boating holiday on the Thames.
Here is my vision of of a boat holiday.

Portal

This page is call Escape to Neverland.

When I have had a  particularly busy and somewhat difficult week I would love to have a portal to escape through occasionally.

Blackbird Singing

I had the song Blackbird Singing written by Paul McCartney in 1968 going around my head the other day and created this journal page.

What I did not know was that McCartney wrote the song in response to the civil rights struggle  in the US at that time. If you would like to read more about the songs meaning you can find it here. 

Maggie Taylor

I recently discovered the Digital Artist Maggie Taylor that has taken my breath away with her creative pages. I received her book as a gift and love looking through it. On May 7th I posted a page I created in her style. Here are are two more

 Come Forth

The Choice

Again!

I've been chosen again as one of the  highlight of the week for the Art Journal Caravan.  It is two years this month that I first figured out how to open Photoshop and started to learn the program. What a journey it has been learning the first basic steps and then starting to create my own tools and designs. And there is such a long way to go until I can truly use all that it offers.  

Highlight of the week

I was laid low by a flu bug last  and it has put me behind in most things. My energy level has finally come back and I'm catching up with life's demands.

I have continued to create journal pages trying to do one page a day which is a nice goal but not always practical. One of the pages I did last week  was chosen as a highlight of the week  you can see it above or go to the web page.
This page was created in the style of Maggie Taylor a most impressive digital artist.
Leave a  comments and let me know what you think, comments are always appreciated.

Highlight of the week

My daughter took this photo of her two girls, my darling twin granddaughters as they were walking home. She asked me if I would use the photo in a journaling page. And this is what I came up with.
Much to my surprise and delight it was chosen as one of the hight lights of the week on Tangie Baxter's Art Journal Caravan blog. You can see it here along with the other pages that were chosen this week.
Patting myself on the the back and grinning ear to ear, that 2 pages in two weeks that have been features on web sites.

Featured on Digital Whisper

I created this page for a challenge at Deviant Scrap. We were asked to create a journal page about our wings . After reading this quote by Jean de la Fontaine which struck a cord in me I created this page. The background paper was from a kit by Rucola Designs and the balloon from DeivantArt_Pshoudini.
I also posted the photo on Digital Whispers where it was selected as one of their featured photos. Kinda nice to be recognized ;-)

Time marches on

Thinking of how quickly time is going as I had another birthday in January I created this journal page. The quote is from "The Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick. You can find the complete poem here.

Work in progress

A 2004 we were given tickets to tour a garden in Quebec called
 Les Quatre Vents or The Four Winds. The garden is owned by the New England Cabot family and is only open to the public twice a year for a few days.
I took hundreds of photo's as we followed the tour over 15 hectares and several hours of walking. Les Quatre Vents is a  truly spectacular garden that is divided into more than 20 areas from formal gardens, to woodlands, including an extensive Japanese garden and a field of the most incredible blue poppies I have ever seen.  If you are interest in learning more about the garden the present owner Francis H. Cabot wrote a book describing his family ties to the area since 1902 the development of the garden called "The Greater Perfection".



I had always intended to use the photo's I took to create an  embroidery.

Yesterday after so many years I finally started . I laid a foundation using a Embellisher. If you don't know what an Embellisher is check out this link.

To form the  bricks and plants I used mohair and soy silk fibers. Next step is to create dimension by hand embroidery. I plan on using several different weights of floss and a variety of stitches. Truth be known this is my favorite part, I love to embroider and find it very soothing.

More photos to come as the piece develops.

Looking for True Love

My take on a challenge from the Art Journal Caravan - Castle

5

These little ballerinas turned 5 today! I am blessed to live nearby and be a part of their lives.

Travelogue

I am back from our cruise and starting to feel as if I have finally caught up with "normal" life. I thought this post should be a little travelogue of my trip.

We boarded our ship the Ryndam on Sunday afternoon. It amazes me how very efficient the staff can process over a thousand people. Before we left port we had a emergency drill exercise. After all the terrible press of the sinking of a cruise ship off the coast of Italy we were quite happy to see that the Ryndam took emergency preparation seriously.
The ship had 12 levels and our stateroom was on #8 in the center of the ship. That was a great help when we hit rough seas, which we did several times during the cruise

                                       The Ryndam in port at Costa Maya
Our stateroom was a good size with a sitting room. The best part of having a stateroom is the balcony.

It was lovely sitting on it having breakfast in the morning or watching the sunset in the evenings.
Our first stop should have been Key West, Fla. Unfortunately one of the engines broke down and we were not able to dock. The Capitan was very apologetic and we were given glasses of Champaign in at dinner that night.

The next port was Belize City and our tour of Altun Ha & Belize City. The tour around the city was short and there was not much to see. The city was rundown and in disrepair. Altun Ha the Mayan site was about a 35 minute bus ride from Belize City. Our guides were very pleasant and knowledgeable. There was not much to see on the drive there, this part of Belize is very much a 3 world country. What surprised me was the amount of trash on the side of the roads. Altun Ha was well kept and we were happy to have had the opportunity to see it. At this site we were allowed to climb to the top of the pyramids. The steps are very steep and far apart. It was not for the faint of heart to make this climb.

I will admit my legs felt the result of the climb for a few days afterward.



Tuesday evening was one of the two "dress up" nights on board. It was nice to see so many of the men in tuxedo's and women in pretty evening dresses. We dressed up as well but did not go as far as true formal wear.

When we woke up Wednesday morning we had already docked in Mahogany Bay, Honduras. It was a clear and sunny day and it was so beautiful to look at the sparkling water and the white catamarans bobbing in the water as we ate breakfast on our balcony. Mahogany Bay is on the island of Roatan, which I had never heard of until we booked for this cruise. What a pleasant surprise it was especially after Belize. From the moment we got off the ship and walked to the port where we were picking up our excursion we could see the difference. There were beautiful lush gardens and urns filled with flowers. The tour of Carambola Botanical Gardens and the Roatan Butterfly & Bird Gardens were great. I especially liked seeing the exotic birds.

Our guild told us funny and personal stories about the birds that he takes care of.

We also made a stop at West End village beach which was super beautiful. I'm sorry I did not get a better photo of it. There we watched Garifuna dancers put on a short performance for us. The Garifuna culture dates back to the 1600 when a British ship sunk off of the coast of Roatan. The ship was carrying African  slaves who swam ashore and established themselves on the island.

Friday morning we docked in Costa Maya, Mexico. We boarded a bus to Chacchoben a Mayan ruin about an hour away. The countryside that we saw going to the site was very desolate but surprisingly the roads were in fantastic condition.

Chacchoben covers several acres of land and dates back to about 1000 BC. It was very hot at the site with almost no tree cover.

We were not allowed  to climb  any of the structures at this site which was just fine with me as I was feeling the heat and lack of water.

Each night our cabin steward turned down  our bed left chocolates and a towel sculpture. This was the fellow left for us on Friday night.

Our last day Saturday was spent at sea heading back to Tampa.

I hope you enjoy traveling along with me. Your comments are always appreciated.

A-B-C's of a new class & travel news

I love taking on line class and learn at  my own pace. This week I started a poster design class at Jessica Sprague. Our first assignment was to make a poster of the alphabet using 4 different fonts. I thought this might be a nice one to frame for my youngest grand daughters room. 
Now for the travel news. In a few days we are off on a cruise of the Mayan Coast . Our first stop is Key West, and then on to Belize City. During our stop in Belize City we will be going to see the Mayan City of Altun Ha. Next is Mahogany Bay, Honduras. There are no runes nearby to see instead we will be visiting the Botanical Gardens and having a tour of the west side of the island

Another stop on the cruise is Costa Maya, Mexico. We have booked an excursion to see Chacchoben Mayan ruin.

I am looking forward to this adventure especially after visiting the Royal Ontario Museum Mayan exhibition last month. I'm bring my Digital SLR with me to take lots of photo and have made a travel journal to keep while away.

I am trying out a journal that I made with a ring binding to see if that works better than fixed signatures. This way I'll be able to move about photo pockets and pages that work best for my days journal page. 

I hope I'll have lots of interesting photos to share when I get back.

Man of La Mancha

The Art Journal Caravan 2012 word this week was Quixotic. The first image and thought that came to my mind was Don Quixote de la Mancha. I found Don Quixote on DeivantArt drawn by Randis. I extracted him from the background and then went to work on the layout.
When I was in High School, many a year ago, taking grade 12 Spanish I was given the task of reading Don Quixote in the original and then translating chapters into English. All I can say now looking back on it, was the absolute despair I felt when starting out that there was no way I could do it. It did get done eventually and sad to think now I have lost most of that small ability in Spanish. I also saw the play  Man of la Mancha several years ago, I  was very moved by the songs and sadness. I'm sure I have the sound track somewhere around and will have to pull it out and listen to it again.

Fun Video to watch

I watched this youtube video and liked it so much I wanted to share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpunQZ4cUyI&feature=colike

Journal Prompts

I am just finishing a 3 week workshop on Digital Journaling given by Jessica Sprague and Nancie Rowe Janitz. It's been a good experience working each day on a journal page from prompts. Here are a few of my finished pages and the prompt/word that we were given  to inspire us.
Family

Words of a song

Inherited from a parent

Introspection

Lost and Found

Escape

Music

Time

I had a lot of fun and enjoyment putting these pages together and would love some feedback.

More Journal Pages

I've been busy keeping up with the Digital Journaling Class at Jessica Sprague.
The lessons have been a good review for me in various Photoshop techniques.

The photo I used for this page was taken in the summer of 2010 by a very talented local photographer. I added our family's newest addition who was born last May.

 The word of week two of the Art Journal Caravan 2012 was Propinquity. I had to look it up to see what the meaning was! In case you don't know as well it means "nearness of relationship"

I though it would be fun to continue with the story I started about Monimia. Can you guess what her time of need was?