Theme Thursday Challenge: Pattern

Pattern...a theme dear to my heart. I adore patterns, especially in black and white with a touch of bright color. So...here's my patterned scene, digitally created.

The "zentangle" dress forms are my design. Other image credits: dover, rubyblossom, irena alexeeva, holliewood, cemerony, dezinaworld, last door down the hall.

Three Muses Challenge: Books

Books are definitely something I can't live without!

Image credits: Holliewood, artfreebies, paperstreet. Background is my design.

"Take a Word" Challenge: Music

I've been experimenting recently with composing images of women to use in my collages. I've combined bits of digital images (hands, feet, faces, etc) from different sources, and added some of my own art, designs, and effects. The lady pictured here is one of the first I created, and she absolutely insisted on being part of my "music" collage. So here she is, ready to dance on New Year's Eve!

Image credits: cemerony, wikimedia commons, broderbund clipart, pam jones, holliewood, pringle hill studios, easy elements and obsidiandawn digital brushes.

Sunday Postcard Art Challenge: Open Theme

We had free rein for this challenge in terms of images and themes. Here's what I came up with.

Image credits: Milla, SJD, Shadowhouse, Brimm. Woman's face is my design.

Theme Thursday Challenge: Famous Faces

I happened to have sketched Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson in my portrait-drawing practice this year (from photos, of course), so here are their famous faces in (yet another) cowboy collage.

Credits: wikimedia commons; Dover. Johnny's hat was "borrowed" from a publicity photo on his website.

Season's Greetings to All!

Take a Word Challenge: Celebrate!

Image credits for this fun digital collage: deviant scrap (holliewood, brimm, finecrafted designs); broderbund clipart; milla.

Again, happy holidays to all!

Theme Thursday Challenge: Tags

We were challenged to use a tag or tags in our art creation this week. Here's my holiday wish for all, spelled out in tags.

Image credits: Deviant scrap/holliewood; peppermint creative;grunge textures; media militia, familycrafts.com.

Digital Whisper Challenge: Wreath

For this challenge, I'm posting something I did in the fall. I drew a Zentangle-inspired wreath in the traditional black and white, then scanned it into Photoshop Elements and filled it with various patterns of my own creation, in autumn hues. Here are both versions. (For more info on Zentangle, check out http://zentangle.com. Beware...it's very addictive.)

Three Muses Challenge: Odd Couple

This was a great theme for a challenge! Here's my very odd couple. Looks like they won't be together much longer...

Image credits: collage obsession, deviant scrap/holliewood, broderbund clipart, milla, dover.

Inspiration Avenue Challenge: Believe

Image credits:rubyblossom, D Sharon Pruitt flickr creative commons, milla, Sherrie J Drummond.

Digital Montage Studio Challenge: Reflections

A new monthly challenge blog! The theme for this one is reflections, in any sense of the word. The image of the woman is one that I scanned from a black and white Dover design book, then extracted from the background and added color in PSE. Thanks, Ilene, for lending me the treasure trove of Dover books! :)

Image credits: Dover, paree (flickr creative commons), Eddi 07 (flickr creative commons)

Sunday Postcard Art: Robins

Another springtime image for a chilly day (it's snowed a little here already and I'm still in denial about winter!). And while creating this collage, I couldn't help but think about my sister-in-law Robin. Hi, Robin, if you're reading this!

Image credits: deviantscrap/holliewood; graphicsfairy; rubyblossom; enchanted gallery; stampington; broderbund clipart; dover

"Take a Word" Challenge: Childhood

The centerpiece of this digital collage is a photo of me and my twin sister at a party when we were young. When I look at it, I always wonder what was causing those brilliant smiles (the prospect of chocolate cake at the party, perhaps?). To me, the photo epitomizes the innocent and magical joy of childhood.

Other credits: catscrap/milla; graphicsfairy.

Sunday Postcard Art: "Toys" Digital Collage

Yes, I've succumbed to the temptation of a new challenge. This one requires a postcard-sized piece--4 x 6. The image was up to our imagination and choice. Now I'm caught up until next week. (Does that mean I have to vacuum the living room now?)

Image credits: deviant scrap/holliewood; graphicsfairy; pringle hill studio.

Theme Thursday Challenge: Winged People

Hmmmm...these art challenge themes seem to feature wings fairly often. I have to admit, it is fun to work my digital magic to make humans do things they couldn't ordinarily do. Here are my flying people.

Image credits: deviant scrap/holliewood; dover, milla; joessistah/flickr; graphicsfairy, artfreebies.

Digital Whisper Challenge: Lights

my digital collage



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Last night, we lit the last Hanukkah candle, and lingered in front of the menorah in our darkened dining room for a few moments, savoring the sight of a completed row of tiny, bravely glowing flames.

Image credits: wikimedia commons, flickr creative commons/paree, original light image provided by digital whisper.

Inspiration Avenue Challenge: Peace

Here's my contribution to this week's challenge, with the (always timely) theme of peace. I wish everyone a peaceful, healthy, happy, and safe holiday season.

Image credits: deviant scrap/holliewood; catscrap/milla; dover, graphicsfairy, crowabout studio, cemerony; my own rainbow effect.

Three Muses Challenge: Flowers

The wonderful thing about art is that it can be independent of the seasons. Creating this flower-themed collage on a chilly day in Maryland warmed me up a bit.

Image credits: artfreebies, scraporchard/irene alexeeva, deviant scrap/holliewood, my own texture background from paper collage.

So-artful Challenge: Angel

No one ever said a mermaid couldn't aspire to be an angel, right?

Image credits: background with mermaid (altered)- Dover; other elements by Dover, scraporchard/irene alexeeva, vintage moth; obsidian dawn brushes.

"Take a Word" Challenge Sample: Mail

This subject of week's Take a Word Challenge will be "Mail," an appropriate theme for this time of year. I had the honor of being asked by Marie (Ozstuff) to create a sample piece for this challenge. Here's my digital collage, featuring a young lady who LOVES her mail (snail mail, not e-mail), and I know exactly how she feels.

Image credits: scraporchard/irene alexeeva; graphicsfairy, last door, deviant scrap/holliewood, two dresses studio, Just Something I Made, milliande, artfreebies.

Digital Whisper and Art Creations Friday Challenges

Digital Whisper





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Art Creations Friday




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The Digital Whisper challenge this week was to use the collage background provided.

Art Creations Friday challenged us to use a very interesting textured background in our art piece. I've used it in my digital collage above--it's there, trust me!

Theme Thursday Challenge: "Fun!"

We were challenged to create a "fun" image (no image was provided). Here are my Fun Girls!

Credits:
Letterforms- my design; faces: pam jones; girls' accessories: dezinaworld; spiral digital brush: sunshine daisey; other brushes: obsidian dawn.

Link for Theme Thursday: http://themethursday.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/thursday-challenge-fun-images/#comment-7942

Happy Chanukah/ Hanukkah/ חנוכה

Three Muses Challenge: Movies (plus a portrait)

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portrait by Sherry Pollack


It was hard to choose a subject for this week's Three Muses Challenge on "The World of Movies." I finally decided to showcase one of my favorite actresses, Meryl Streep. The faces are from various publicity photos found in a Google search. Other image credits: graphicsfairy and Dover.

And...I'm also posting a scan of a portrait I drew of Meryl earlier this year, from an older photo. I've been taking portrait drawing lessons from my art journaling teacher, Carol Zika, and am continuing to practice this skill in a weekly studio class. Challenging, but so much fun!

Inspiration Avenue Challenge: Once Upon a Time (Two Looks)

Working on this digital collage was just delightful. I ended up creating two versions. The top one has a softer color and lighting scheme; the second one (after an impulsive last-minute application of the linear light blending mode) has more fanciful colors and lighting. The two looks illustrate what I love most about digital art- a few clicks of the mouse can produce a very dramatic change, and if you don't like it, you can (usually) undo it!

Image credits: CatScrap/milla; Dover; graphicsfairy; artefacts.

SCD Challenge: Snow

The latest challenge from Something Completely Different is on the theme of "snow." The snow-covered tree in my digital collage is from a photo taken by my husband during the onslaught of the 2010 blizzards here in Maryland (I shiver just thinking about them!). I used various PSE blending modes and filters to enhance the snowy, icy effect.

Other credits: graphicsfairy and Dover Designs.

Take a Word Challenge: "Home"

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For the house in this digital collage, I used a picture from a book of black and white Baltimore rowhouse drawings by J.S. Fuqua. I then filled the house image with some of the Photoshop Elements patterns I've created from my own original paper and digital artwork, and applied other PSE touches. To make the house truly a home to me, I added a menorah in the window, representing Hanukkah, which starts Wednesday evening December 1.

Other image credits: wikimedia commons, deviantscrap/holliewood.

So-artful Challenge: Image Collage

The following 3 images were provided:






This week we were challenged to create a piece of art incorporating at least two of the three graphicsfairy images provided (shown above). Other images in my digital collage are from stampington, land of nod, and dover.

Art Creations Friday Challenge: Bride

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This bride has such an intense look on her face--I just couldn't envision her in a setting full of flowers, lace, and roses. Here's my irreverent take on the wedding negotiations.

Credits: Dover, mediamilitia, graphicsfairy

Digital Whisper Challenge: Zip it Up

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These challenges continue to stretch my digital art skills! Here we were given the image of the zipper; this is what I created in response.

Image credits: Dover, deviant scrap, ScrapCat.

Happy Thanksgiving

Enjoy the day!
(I know this turkey doesn't look thrilled to be here, but I just want everyone to know I did pardon him.)

Music Monday Challenge: Winter Wonderland

I tried a different approach to this digital collage, using silhouettes and digital brushes for most of it. (No image was provided.) I couldn't resist putting in two realistic critters in the foreground; it was looking kind of stark with just buildings and trees and snow.

Image credits: Dover, obsidian dawn brushes, catscrap/milla, media militia.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

So-Artful Challenge: Trompe L'Oeuil

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The challenge this week was to create an art piece using "trompe l'oeuil." The black and white image shown above was provided. According to Wikipedia, trompe l'oeuil is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions. (The words mean "fool the eye" in French.) Not sure I quite got the hang of it (there was something strange about creating a fake 3-dimensional digital room with a supposed-to-be-fake-3-dimensional image on one of the walls), but it was an interesting creative exercise for me, especially the use of perspective (Note to Carol Z: do not look too closely! :)).

Image credits: deviant scrap/ holliewood, Dover, KME.

Inspiration Avenue Challenge: Ingenuity

I can't decide whether this young lady has actually created the inventive "light machine," or is just dreaming it up right now, or maybe she's looking at someone else's creation and wishing she'd thought of it. I'll leave it to everyone's imagination!

Image credits: grunge textures, pringle hill, deviant scrap, graphicsfairy, peppermint creative, Dover.

Three Muses Challenge: Shoes

Image credits for this fun digital collage: scrapcat, graphicsfairy; obsidian dawn brushes.

Take A Word Challenge: "Men"

Here's my musical take on this week's challenge.

Image credits: graphicsfairy, stampington, Dover, land of nod.