Regrets? I have a few…

Just messing about with words and numbers really! For Take a Word this week – “Sepia”…

I’ve always thought this woman is pretty eerie! Thanks to Bonnie Zieman for the textures and to Photoshop Warrior for the tutorial which showed me how to create a ‘classic photo effect’!

The images are all from Elizabeth Golden (Last door down the hall) – thank you!

Please note: I shall be drawing the winning name for the My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking software tomorrow, so if you want to be in with a chance of winning, please go HERE and enter!

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Circles and squares…

For the Three Muses “Circles and squares” this week, I had some fun creating a cat and a house. I managed to write out the formula for it too!!!

Of course, it could be house cat, but I thought Cathouse was more fun! It’s amazing where these prompts take us, isn’t it? To see all the creations for this week’s theme, just go HERE.

Background & texture – Shadowhouse Creations on Flickr

Take a Word #51 – Childhood

I developed my love of books and losing myself in other worlds when I was a child. I was one of those kids who’d be sleepy in the morning on the way to school because I’d been reading under the bedclothes by the light of a torch! So when I saw this quote by Marcel Proust, I created the artwork around it!

Thanks to Tangie Baxter for the cat. The vintage image is from my own collection of photos.

For Take a Word this week.  🙂

 

Zombie Revolution

For SPA this week – zombies…

Texture layers courtesy of Kim Klassen;

Che-zombie courtesy of an image from “Zombie shirts”;

Original background layer – me!!

I converted the Che Zombie image into a brush as the complete image was a bit too OTT for the purpose!! Fun all the way today! The sun is shining brightly and would probably sear the rags off a zombie, but hey, it’s only a theme, innit? 😉

From boy to man…

I’ve been trying to get things sorted and done, put away, etc. at home but I’m not really feeling it at the moment. Life is complicated, uncertain, mixed up and downright messy, isn’t it? So today, I have distracted myself with a bit of digital play (for Theme Thursday’s “men/masculine” challenge) using some original vintage photos/photo postcards from my collection.

Coffin and Beardsley are the gentlemen in the foreground – turn of the century, Edwardian Music Hall actors. The boy is a very soft and blurry vintage photo, and the crack is one of those new brushes – cool, huh?!!

I told my BBF Barbara that I am knitting a bag – in an effort to sit still and keep the bad foot elevated! – and that it’s cable (I like patterns and a challenge!)…

I don’t have anything remotely resembling the top, fluffy bit, so I guess I shall be improvising!! At the moment I am over halfway up the first side and I’ll post pics when it’s finished. I sent my friend Debs, who recently acquired a gift shop in Redruth, near Truro, a big box of handmade pendants, pins, cards etc. and she’s sold several domino pendants, an art pin and a couple of cards, so I had to pack another box up for her today! Nice!

And here’s a quick pic of a reworked watercolour sketch I did the other day in the garden, thanks to Jane Davenport!

Although she’s unfinished, I feel a lot happier with her now than I did before!

Enter the dragon!

I suppose this is a product of my restless spirit (at the moment!) and my warped sense of humour! I created the background over the previous weekend, whilst home alone (and we all know what can happen, don’t we?!!!) and I carved some “house stamps”, using cheapo erasers that I’d bought on my previous shopping trip (40p for 2 at Morrisons!!)

For this week’s Three Muses – Oriental – challenge: Dragon courtesy of Dover publications. All the rest is me! The text reads:

“And the people fled as the great Dragon, Hun-Gri Mun Chin

descended on the village to do his weekly shop…

just in case “Ribs” were on his list!”

That painted and stamped page is still bare in my art journal, looking a tad “Vincent” with the circles, so I might develop it more later, but it sure made for a fun background here!! What a joy digital/hybrid art is – especially when I have trouble getting up and downstairs for now! Never mind… I’m on the mend and grateful for all the get-well wishes – thank you all! 😀

The Granian…

The Granian is my favourite of the winged horses. Thestrals are much too bony to be comfortable and the Abraxans are so huge, suitable only for giants. Add to that the fact that they drink only single malt whisky and require forceful handling – no, they are out of my league! I did consider the Aethonon, because of its beautiful chestnut colour, but no, it has to be the Granian:

Aren’t they divine creatures? They posed obligingly here for The Three Muses – quirky, whimsical and humorous – after all, the Muses are divine creatures too, are they not? 😉

***I make no apologies for this quippity post – you wanted humorous and quirky, whimsical and so on… you got it!! Brushes are courtesy of Tartrix (winged horses); and GBG – Silvia; combined with my own artwork – manipulated greatly – in the background!  Many thanks xx

Fantasy and a silly prompt!

I’m still enjoying myself at summer camp and having seen that the theme for this week’s TAW (Take a Word) is “Fantasy”, I thought I’d employ one of Marit’s “silly” prompts, which leads to the creation of a Fantasy Album Cover for a Fantasy band, following 3 basic steps. The further artiphy-ing of the cover is my own messing around in Photoshop! (CS2)

So, haunted by Project Denim (!), as the background photo for the album, I ended up with Andrea Bianchi – Italian director and a partial quote from Lewis Carroll as the title for the album! Not sure I like the bendy script, but it does echo the line of the jeans at the bottom, and I faded the works backwards for more effect!

I rather like “Memory that only works backwards…” – a bit like mine at times!! 😉

Location is “everything”!

I suppose that’s true really. After all, none of us can wait to move away from here!! So, I was playing with a PS tutorial challenge set by Joyuslion (Digital Whispers group on ning) and because the theme at SPA this week is “storks”, I used a stork photo. Things didn’t go as expected – not unusual for me! – but I ended up following this train of thought:

And doesn’t that stork look like it got in on the ground floor when that development was being planned?!! *winks* indeed!! 😉

DADA-ism vs. GAGA-ism!

SPA this week – DADA is the theme chosen and illustrated beautifully by Marion! I’m not completely sure of myself when I post this, but in the spirit of rebellion and “rage against the Machine”, here’s my offering this week – multi-layered, using 2 of my own mixed media collages and various strange Photoshop brushes….

I was compelled to use the poppies symbolically for the wartime flavour and Alice in Wonderland is the product of Lewis Carroll’s own tortuous mind, so that seemed appropriate too. I also used the jumping horses to be dramatic, and if you look closely, you can see ghostly rubber ducks too!

In the spirit of DaDa and GagGa alike, I kept thinking of her recent song: Judas. I have a teenage daughter’s playlist CD in my car and am used to the odd looks I encounter when I stop in traffic and have it playing (fairly loudly!!). After all, I don’t suppose many 53 year old women drivers listen to LMFAO (Party Rockers) and Example (Unorthodox)! Do I look like I care? 😉

Love her or hate her, this is pretty outrageous… If you are deeply religious or easily offended, do NOT watch this music video. Just sayin’…