wordless wednesday

Happy Spring!

PAF: entrance

I haven't participated in Photo Art Friday in months and months.  I love working on digital art but it all just takes so much time.  And now since I haven't done it in so long I've forgotten many of the techniques that I'd figured out and liked.  But, I want to edge back in now and then so I don't totally forget everything.

Bonnie at Pixel Dust Studio hosts a Friday (open Thurs nites for links) roundup where you can share your photo art efforts.  She offers a weekly theme if you want, but you're encouraged to share whatever you've been working on.  This week's theme:  Entrances/Exits.  My submission:  Enter Spring with a quote by AA Milne.

My photo of a snowy daffodil is blended with Bonnie's Blank Page texture.  It might be a bit premature to hint at spring, but I'm employing a little wishful thinking.....  :)

crisp morning

After a week of rain and low, gray skies, today dawned clear and crisply cold here in Seattle.

By the way, Lorinda had a great idea to share the individual cards from the inspiration deck exchange we participated in gradually throughout the year.

The first two in my deck are these lushly layered cards from Connie @ Connieartz.wordpress.com (left) and MaryJane @ desertdreamstudios.com.  Thanks ladies!

poppy

Inspiration Avenue is back with their weekly themes and this week's is poppies.  I'm dragging myself out of my sick bed to join in - I'm not up to attempting to draw anything but I have some photos I've taken that I just love - here's my poppies......

These 15' tall poppies are a spring display at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.  They were of some clear acrylic stuff that sparkled in the sun.

Join in - share your poppy story.....

wrapping up ALAW

I hope you've all had a simply marvelous Christmas and Boxing Day.  I hope you've found time to be with friends and/or family, people you love and who love you. I hope you've found time to be quiet and time to be joyous.  I hope you now find some time to take a deep breath, relax, and reflect on what 2013 will bring.

I had a most excellent Christmas - our boys came over, stayed the night and we played games, drank and ate, played some more games, talked and put our feet up and talked some more - oh yeah, and played some more games and ate and drank some more......did I mention we love games of all types?  It was one of my favorite Christmases ever!  Here's my family on Christmas morning:

I have found some time to be creative - a moment here and there.  I've been working on my ALAW (a letter a week) project, my second alphabet.  Here's the last of the letters I've written on my pockets (these haven't been cut apart and folded yet).  Then I'm adding photos that I've taken of flowers beginning with each letter to fill the pockets.  Next step is to figure out the book format I want to tackle.

I certainly like how some of these letters turned out more than others - even after practicing a whole page of each before moving to the pocket - the texture of the paper is different and the pen reacts differently, but I didn't have enough of the pocket paper to practice on it.....so I figured it out. 

Here's a few of the flower photos that will go in the pockets - they are 5x2.25"

Hopefully I'll get the book started in the next few days.....Now it's time to turn my mind to what I want to tackle for my first alphabet in 2013.....hmmm.....

APR and IA

Once again my two favorite challenges have meshed in their themes.  Artists Playroom (the 29th week!) hosted by Jenn at Just Add Water Silly is encouraging us to do something botanical.  Over at Inspiration Avenue, the theme is rose.  W-e-l-l......first I did something digital with one of my bazillion rose photos (layers, brushes, splotches, color, cutting & pasting):

I used this photo and a separate one of just leaves as the starting point:

If you like roses, here are a few more of my fave shots:

Okay, enough of that - but then I realized that wasn't enough so I printed a couple more pics and decided to see what I could do with collage.  

These smaller two collages I started with scraped paint backgrounds made at Jane's class at Art and Soul; the top one is on a large Michaels sale postcard, gessoed and stamped/painted, etc.

Hope you'll join in when you can - Inspiration Avenue (IA) and Artist Playroom (APR) are welcoming, encouraging communities of creative folks who want to support your artistic efforts. So come play with us!

second alphabet

An ongoing project is my ALAW (a letter a week) so at the end of the year I'll have two alphabets completed - I made the first alphabet into an accordion book (you can see it here).  This time I wanted to incorporate my photography as well as make a little more complicated book.

I decided on flowers as my theme since I have tons of flower pictures I've taken over the years.  My idea is to make a pocket featuring the letter of the alphabet (in the prescribed 3x3" format) and then tuck my photos of flowers starting with that letter inside the pocket.  The lettering in the background is computer generated and is a list of flowers beginning with the letter drawn.  I did a ton of research trying to find as many for each letter as I could.  (for example, the background text for the A is agapanthus, anthurium, aster, astilbe, acacia, alstromeria, acanthus, amaranthus, anemone, allium, amaryllis.  I won't have photos of all those, but of more than one!

lettering done with a parallel pen - still learning how to use it evenly

Then came the hard part of selecting which flower starting with "D" I was going to use.  I decided not to limit myself so redesigned the pockets with gussets so they could hold multiple photos.  I found this bit of leftover paper that is perfect but I don't have a lot of it so if I mess up writing a letter I don't have room for many corrections so I think I'll wait til I draw them all then go back and redo my least favorites.  Or, maybe I'll just go look for another paper :)

agapanthus and astilbe, photo size 2.5" x 5" to fit inside the 3" pockets

bird of paradise

clematis

dahlia and daffodils

Now that I've settled on a plan, I'm off and running - I've made a list of the letters I don't have a flower to go with and so now I'll be on the hunt as we go on vacation next week.  I need to fill in those holes!

They'll look something like this .....

I'm also sharing this post with Artists in Blogland.  It's a great site to share what you've been up to creatively....I usually forget to add my post, but lots of people participate so it's worth a visit.

THIS SOUNDS LIKE FUN

I came across this in my blog reading today and thought I'd share in case any of you want to join in.  Donna Downey (Simply Me) put out an international call to help her decorate her new studio space and it sounds like SO much fun!  She wants any and all takers to decorate a paintbrush that will then adorn the walls of her public restrooms.  Simple or elaborate, the style is up to you.  You can read more here.

    

These images are from her site - one on the left done by Julie Fei Fen Balzer and on right by Donna. (she could have put it in Jenn's turquoise and lime challenge this week!).  So if the idea of having an embellished paintbrush along with a card proclaiming your info hanging in the restroom gallery of Donna's studio appeals to you, visit her site for all the details.  Fun!