in the style of Maud Starr, aka Heather Murray

Heather Murray is a Chatsworth Ontario, Canada mixed media artist who is inspired and driven to create. She exhibits, sells locally and internationally and her work is in collections worldwide.

 A simpler world is her vision .  A world where good hearts rule She cuts pastes, paints and assembles what moves her and captures her attention.   Collage and assemblage bring out the inner scavenger in her, and she savours discarded finds and utilizes found objects in new enticing ways.

SPA--Anything Goes

Well, you did say "anything..."

Elements and papers from Michief Circus collab kits "I'm with the Band" and MUSEum, and Finecrafted Designs' Mixed Media Mayhem

Take a Word--Red and Green

My Holiday Wish for Everyone

SPA--Nutcracker

Happy Christmas, Everyone!

The Christmas Can-Can

The Christmas Can-Can

Clink on the link, you will love it!

Take a word--Winter

Blue Winter

Winter uses all the blues there are.

One shade of blue for water, one for ice,

Another blue for shadows over snow.

The clear or cloudy sky uses blue twice-

Both different blues. And hills row after row

Are colored blue according to how for.

You know the bluejay's double-blur device

Shows best when there are no green leaves to show.

And Sirius is a winterbluegreen star

                                     

                                                          ~Robert Francis

SPA--The Holly and the Ivy

Here is my postcard for this week's theme. I was without a computer for several weeks while mine was being repaired after being hacked.I lost a lot of stuff that was not backed up, but ...oh well..now I get to go find NEW stuff!

Anyhow, the image is from the Graphics Fairy, and the rest from Google Images. the music is the carol, "The Holly and the Ivy."

Keeping Christmas in our Hearts

Yesterday my husband got to play Santa at the Connellsville Elks!

This is what he posted on Facebook,

"Yesterday I put on my super hero costume and played Santa at the Connellsville Elks Christmas Party. Unless you have been lucky you have no idea what a pleasure it can be to fascinate and delight a room full of kids, just by speaking kindly with them. Thank you, Elks."

SPA--Paris

I'm hosting again this week, and thought we all could use a trip, so off we go Paris.

All images from Cynthia Powell's "Paris Flea Market" kit.

The Wheel Turns...Samhain

Samhain Blessings

As October turns to November, thousands of Witches, Wiccans, Druids, and other Pagans across America, Canada, Europe, and elsewhere observe the sacred time of Samhain. Samhain is a festival of the Dead. Meaning "Summer's End" and pronounced saah-win or saa-ween, Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest and the start of the coldest half of the year.  

Samhain also is the beginning of the spiritual new year.  This is the time of year when the veil between the world of the dead and the world of the living is said to be it's thinnest. Spirits and souls of loved ones are said to have more power and ability to visit us. This is the time of year for remembering and honouring our dead, and many people will leave a plate of food and a glass of wine out for wandering spirits.  Samhain is also a time for personal reflection, and for recognizing our faults and flaws and creating a method for rectifying them.

Three Muses--Haute Couture

ihanna's Fall 2015 Postcard Swap

Once again I am playing in ihanna's postcard swap.  The deal is you join the swap  for a small fee ($7.00,) just to insure your completion of the task) and agree to make 10 postcards and give your address.  In a few weeks you will receive a list of 10 names and addresses from all over the world, and you send out your cards.
Then the fun begins!  Cards begin to trickle in from all over, in an enormous range of color, technique and beauty.  This year I am sending one to Hanna herself!

You can learn more about the swaps here.

This time I took Hanna's advice and worked in a series, using a set of painted, stamped and stenciled scrapbook paper backgrounds.

SPA-- Halloween

Happy Halloween 

to all who celebrate!

SPA--Spiderwebs

A lot of things land in spiderwebs

and more Halloween pieces

The Bride

The Others

Thanks to Rucola Designs, Mary Bailey, Russian Dutch Heart and Google Images.

Take a Word--Witch

with thanks to Marta Van Eck, Mary Bailey and Google Images.

Just getting into the spirit...

your future foretold

With thanks to Crowabout and Google Images

SPA--Dark

In the dark

The bat is a free digi stamp gifted by Electra, the rest is PS brushes.

Take a Word--Mail Art

Mail art as a theme always makes me think of Nick Bantok...

The envelope was found on a Public Domain site; the circus brushes are from Aurorabor at Deviant art Russian Cyrk poster.

SPA--Pale

Pale Queen

Look how the pale queen of the silent night

Doth cause the ocean to attend upon her...

                                 

~Charles Best

Mortal Thoughts, 2015

Every year about this time, my muse turns her thoughts to Halloween.  Looking back, I have created several pieces entitled Mortal Thoughts.  the pieces are all different, but contain similar elements.
This one grew from Digital Mania's Layers and Blending challenge--17 layers!

Take a Word--Moon

Wasn't able to view the super blood moon last night--overcast and rainy here--but saw some spectacular photos on the internet this morning.  Then I saw the theme of Graphic Design for this week's Digitalmania challenge and received the free "City Bicycle" mini kit from Marisa Levin...it all came together very quickly after that.


I love it when art makes itself!

Painted pillows

Finally made a few pillows for my couch.  There are thousands of incredibly beautiful pillows for sale in the world, but having $0 dollars to spend on decorating at this point, I opted to try my hand at painting.  I found really inexpensive cotton canvas (cheaper than dropcloths, even) at Dharma Trading.  Wonderful natural fabrics, from linens cottons and hemp to silks and bamboo fabrics, as well as nylon and rayon.  They also sell dyes, markers, paints for dying as offer instruction on their site as well as books and DVDs.  It's a great site to visit for ideas, too.

Anyway, armed with cheap craft paint acrylics and fabric painting medium and a few stamps and stencils, off I went, and below are the results.

 Pillow #1, painted (before I got the fabric medium) and stenciled and stamped, on the front only.  It's a little stiff, but the paint was applied lightly.

Pillow # 2 same paints, mixed with medium, and applied more thickly. I also added a little water to the mix, to make it absorb into the fabric. Used a stencil or two here and made an unholy mess in the upper corner. So, thinking more paint would only make it stiffer, I decided to make a patch.

Cut and raveled a square, and began randomly stitching lines and circles--still getting comfortable with my old sewing machine,  Then I sprayed the patch with water to dampen it and dribbled acrylic inks on it and sprayed some more to move the ink around. Stitched it on with more lines and circles, and I quite like it.

The back of pillow #2, decorated with stamps and brushed on inks.

Sunday Postcard Art--Buddha

I have the honor of hosting SPA this week, and I have always been fascinated by the teachings and especially the many faces of the Buddha.

Playing with layers and blending modes--

La Vie en Rose

For Digital Mania

made up of eight layers, including the lovely Gladys Cooper (one of my all time favorite images) 

and texture and painted layers from Leslie Sowden, Hollywood, Rucola Designs and Itkuptilli.

such fun to stretch the Photoshop muscles

Three Muses--Apples

trying some digital painting using filters and blending modes.

SPA--Owls

Night Owl

First, it was not a strip bar, 

it was an erotic club. 

And second, what can I say? 

I'm a night owl.

~Marion Barry

Homage to Edward Hopper

Went to see an Edward Hopper exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh recently.  I love his work, and this exhibit included etchings, which I had never seen before. Fascinating, he was influenced by Davinci among others.
I found a photo by Evan Sanders in the local paper, and thought it resembled a Hopper style, so I played with it in Photoshop.  here is the original photo, and my rendition.

SPA--Sisters

We are family: Nicholas Nixon’s 40 years photographing the Brown sisters


The US photographer has taken a portrait of his wife BeBe and her three siblings every year since 1974, making us confront the passing of time, family ties and our own mortality.

you can read more here.

Digital Mania--Namaste

Take a Word--Back to School

SOSS--Farts

a valentine...

SPA--Pink and Yellow

In the neighborhoods where I live and wander in, it is Zinnia season!  The hot dry days of late summer bring forth their sunny, cheery blossoms in abundance.

I remember, growing up, my mom always had a vase of Zinnias on the table in late summer.

The background is made with Photoshop brushes, the seed packets are a freebie from the ever- generous Elizabeth Golden ans the stamp is googled.

SOSS--Image Only

Challenge--to create a card with no words

with thanks to Holliewood Designs and Beedeesigns

DIgitalMania--In the Style of Lynne Perrella

Everyone who is familiar with mixed media and stamping art is probably aware of  the gorgeous, richly colored and unique work of Lynne Perrella.  She is a paper artist, collagist, journaler, painter, stamper and more.  She is a teacher, an author and collaborator contributing to many books and magazines, and has her own line of beautifully unique rubber stamps.
Her work glows from within with rich and jewel-like color and projects an enigmatic serenity that is just compelling.
If you have not seen Lynne Perrella's work, I urge you to Google her and take a look.  You will not be disappointed.

Here are some of my attempts to capture her style.

Take a Word--Vintage photograph

a photograph...

with thanks to Rucola Designs, Marta Van Eck and Cynthia Powell

SPA a fish

a fish

Background from Crowabout, Pierrot and stamp from Google, fish and grungy effects are PS brushes.

Take a Word--Man

YOU GOTTA BE FOOTBALL HERO

TO GET ALONG 

WITH THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS.

YOU GOTTA BE 

A TOUCHDOWN GETTER,

YOU BET.

IF YOU WANNA GET

A BABY TO PET.

THE FACT THAT YOU ARE RICH 

OR HANDSOME

WON'T GET YOU ANYTHING 

IN CURLS;

YOU GOTTA BE A FOOTBALL HERO

TO GET ALONG 

WITH THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS.