Three Muses--The Voice of God

I still feel that sometimes the cello is the voice of God.

Texture Tuesday-- Sit and Think

A photo I took in Provincetown, MA last fall.  I used a layer of Kim's Start texture wth a hue change set at color burn and Simplicity  set at Multiply and 74% opacity.

Take a word--Regal

Live at the Regal

The Regal theater in Chicago was the home of great jazz and blues musicians like Ray Charles and BB King.  Later it was a movie theater, showing movies like "the Philadelpgia Story."

All images from Google.



Sunday Selections--County Fair, Northampton, MA 2003

I went to a real old fashioned county fair with a friend of mine some time ago.  It had horse races, tractor and oxen pulls, 4-H kids with their animals, a midway, rides and candy apples.

4 x 4 Imbolc

Celebrating Imbolc, the feast of MidWinter

The snow person is a photo by Deither, which I found on Wikimedia Commons, and altered with Fotosketcher.  I added the red berries and the candle.  The background is made with a photo of from NASA's Hubble telescope--you can go visit the Hubble gallery here.  The photos are amazing and free to download. The stars/snow is a star brush fron Lady Victoire.

SPA-As time goes by

Why mess with the classics? 

I found a photo from the making of the movie (I cropped out the huge camera and cameraman), altered it with xero filters and applied some textures from Elizabeth Golden.

Soartful--A la Georgia O'Keefe

Everyone knows Georgia OKeefe's paintings of giant flowers and animal skulls.  After moving to New Mexico, she often painted the scenery around her home and the adobe buildings in and around Santa Fe and Taos.

This is a photo of mine from a visit to Santa Fe.  I tried to capture O'Keefe's simple composition style and soft colors.

Yahoo Group Progressive challenge

I am in the process of becoming the proud mommy of a yahoo group focused on digital art.  The present owner is stepping down, and it's a small but excellent group and I couldn't let it die.  There are tutorials, challenges, themes, digital and physical swaps--last year we swapped digital journal pages, you may have seen some of mine here.  This year we are swapping real postcards--actually mailing them to each other.  There is a place to add links to cool sites, and a place to post your digital work.  You can offer suggestions for any of the activities, ask or answer technical questions, lurk, and just generally share and admire our work.

People at all skill levels are welcome--we all are still learning and growing.

Here's the link to the group if you'd like to join.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/arttechniquesdigital/

The above piece is the final of a four step progressive challenge.

Step 1 was take two background pieces, one text and one architectural, and combine and blend them in your own magical way. 

Step 2 was to add a "human element" duplicate it , alter it, change the perspective, whatever.

Step 3 was to add a texture layer.

Step 4 was to add some Photoshop brushwork.

Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers--Vision and blur

If you know Kim Klassen , you know she is all about clean and simple photographic images, fabulous textures and wonderfully perfect quotes.  This is not my usual style of photography, I'm not really good at it and much prefer color and everything sharp--I can blur it of I want to later.--
It feels like discipline to limit myself to trying to capture and work with this type of photograph.  As you can see, I CAN make these captures when I want to.

Photo Art Friday--Serendipity

Use 3 of our own photos and a PDPA texture to make an abstract piece.  I call this Serendipity.

The texture I chose was Wicked, and here are the photos.

All Pulped Out--Rust

Rusted

I've had this photo of a spooky old house forever, I trot it out every Halloween.  It was perfect for Nancy Donaldson's Rust texture challenge.  There are some wonderful rust textures on her blog, and they're FREE to download and use.

Crazy Amigos--Numbers

one-two-three-four-five-six

A little play with pattern and color.

The numbers are a font called Patterns and Dots that I found on Dafont.

The rest was done with PS brushes

Texture Tuesday--Story

Every Picture Tells a Story

  This old bench sits in a lovely park in Portland, Maine, overlooking Casco Bay.  I used two layers of Poetic and one of the Ladder, and desaturated the photo.  It was a brilliant, sunny day and the grass was incredibly green.

I will admit that I photoshopped in the carving.

Collage obsession--Elephants

Oliphants

Image is from Muybridge's series of moving pictures of animals walking, found on Wikimedia Commons, enhanced with gradient adjustment layers and brushes.

Moo-Mania

Asian Moos

I found a new challenge--Moo-Mania--I don't know how long I'll stay, but I like making these tiny bits of art.

Made with images from Dover and Photoshop brushes.

Take a Word--a Moo--or Three

These were such fun!

Images from Gaby Braun, Google and Dover

Sunday Selections--Revisiting King Richard's Faire

King Richard's Faire is an annual fall event in Carver, MA.  I believe it just celebrated its 30th season.  It's great fun, lots of people in costumes, performers, buskers, artisans, giant roasted turkey legs, champagne and beer!  Games for kids, rare and exotic animals--I had my photo taken with a boa constrictor one year!



spa--dragon year

Year of the Dragon

This dragon is waiting for his entrance to the New Year parade in Chinatown.  He looks so excited to be part of the festivities!

Soartful--Spring Dance



Spring Dance

A prayer for an early Spring...

Photo Art Friday--abstracts

Time

Taking Flight

For Photo Art Friday this week onr of the challenges wass to use either or both of the provided textures and use them to create a piece of abstract art. 

I used both textures in each piece, with duplicated layers and many, many applications of filters, layer styles, blending modes and color and saturation adjustments.

Time is based on a photo of a clock face.

Taking flight was created with Photoshop brushes.



52 Photos--Colors of Emotion

Joyful Space

Green is a color that always brings me joy.  It is the lush color of bursting life.

This is a photo of a rainforest in Washington state.  It was one of the most "Alive" places I've ever been---it seemed to be vibrating and growing before my eyes.

Three Muses--Once a Zebra

Way back when I got my very first version of Photoshop, I think it was Limited edition 6.0 and was probably in 1997-98.

I had great fun playing with the filters in those days.  I took a photo of a zebra at the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston (I have it somewhere and will post it I can find it)  I remember glowing edges and solarize and neon glow and invert.

I remember that there were 4 altered versions, and I printed them in the same page, framed them and gave them to my daughter for Christmas one year

I found the original zebra and another of the altered versions!

Crazy Amigos--Constellation

I had to turn to Google translate to decipher this week's challenge!  Sterrenbeeld means constellation in English.  I thought it would be nice if the kids found a new one, so they went out one starry night with their telescopes, found a totally new configuration and called it "Pax"  They know it means"peace", do you.

Made entirely with Photoshop brushes.

Collage Obsesson--Dance

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined...

~Byron~

Dancer from Google images; background texture from Cindy Powell

Take a word--Fish

Graceful

I have the honor of hosting Take a Word this week.  It's always such a fun place to visit.  I can't wait to see what fishie creations you all come up with thas week!

THis was done with PS brushes, gradients and blending modes.

SPA-Violets

Violets

In the language of flowers, violets signify love and faithfulness.  I've been making valentine postcards, so it seemed a natural match.  The woman is Agnes Strickland, artist unknown.  The violets are from an 1897 Burpee Seed catalog cover.  The French script is a stock image from DeviantArts, and the rest is my own.

Winter Haiku

Haiku

I finished the haiku I started last week.

Tree photo from Wikimedia Commons, geograph.uk.org. The bird was googled, background texture is Storm from Kim Klassen. The frame is mine and the snow is a brush from easyelements.

Soartful-Turquoise orange and yellow

Sol

Sometimes color challenges send me off in an abstract direction..  I took the door and altered it with fotosketcher, watercolor, then cut out the central cross and made a background.  The rest is brushes, using the colors of the door inlays.

It was fun!

Photo Art Friday--Taos Pueblo

Taos Pueblo

I used Bonnie's texture Old Ornate Linen, set to vivid light.

Three Muses--Maps

She's ready to go!  Don't you just LOVE that hat!

Images from Google.

52 Photos--Up Close

This week's theme is Up Close--macro photography.  This is a photo of a lamp with beaded fringe, taken with the camera set to sepia.

Texture Tuesday--Ecstasy

Misunderstood the Texture Tuesday Challenge.  This one 's right.

Several years ago I traveled to central Maine with a friend to attend some local dogsled races.  It was a cold, but wonderful experience, and I would go again..  It's amazing how happy these dogs are and how much they LOVE to run!
My photo, 2 layers, bottom normal, top multiply,. Kim's texture, Embrace, two layers,both Multiply, with Hue adjustments.  Kim's texture Cosmo, also set to Multiply.

thanks for visiting.

Texture Tuesday--Snow is Falling

Beginning of  Haiku...I'll let you know if I finish it. 

My photo, two layers, bottonm normal and top set at Overlay and Gaussian blur.  Kim's texture, Confidence, two layers bottom at Multiply and top at Vivid Light