Three Muses: Circus

I seem to be doing a lot of circus/carnival themed pieces lately. One of my favorite themes!
Here's the latest. Image credits: beth rimmer, divas d'este, dover.  Again, I've done this without a background; I'm not lazy, just experimenting some more.

Collage Obsession: What's at the End of Your Rainbow?

This was an easy one. Image credits: my own rainbow background; holliewood art box.

More Letter Love

Joanne Sharpe's Letter Love online class is almost over (sob). She promises another lettering class in April, so we'll all be waiting as patiently as possible for that.There are at least 400 students in the class! We've created little booklets using our own patterned Bristol or watercolor paper, and patterned washi or "duck" tape. Now we're filling the pages with colorful lettering. One of the techniques Joanne showed us was to outline a word on the patterned paper we created, cut out around the connected letters, and adhere it to a contrasting background.  In the image below, the original word color was the green one. I scanned it into PSE (you knew I would!) and recolored it two different ways. I'm again attempting to show it here without a background (fingers crossed).

Take a Word: Mail

I love mail-themed challenges! Here's my digital piece.  For Mr. Weatherworn's sake, let's all hope that he wins the heart of the lady of his dreams!

Sunday Postcard Art: Birthstone (Opal)

Opal is the birthstone for my October, my birthday month. The oval in the background of this digital piece is from a photo of an opal (Google images). The woman is from Dover Designs (black and white image colored by me). The textured background is from an original painted journal page of mine. The stonework borders are from Hero Arts.

Experiment

I may have finally figured out how to post an image here without the background/border. I just realized I can add a PNG image here, instead of the usual JPG image. PNG images have a transparent background, so you would just see the image on top of whatever color my blog background is. So....here goes. If there's no white rectangular background around the colorful words you see below...it worked!

So-Artful Challenge: Time for Tea/ Pastel Colors

The new challenge at So-Artful is to use pastel colors in a "tea" themed art piece.  I usually like to use brighter colors, but I pretty much like the way this turned out. I'm a tea-lover myself, so the theme is perfect for me. Image credits: graphicsfairy, holliewood. You can see the So-Artful challenge (and please participate!) by clicking on the title of this posting, above.

Three Muses: Art in the Round

 

This week's challenge was to create an art piece in a round shape. I hadn't done a circus-themed digital collage in a while, and this seemed like a good opportunity. Image credits: beth rimmer, vintage images.

Inspiration Avenue: Textures

I love to play with textures in Photoshop Elements. For this challenge, I started with a photo I had taken in Israel of some grass with an unusually fuzzy texture (I believe it was at the Baha'i Gardens near Haifa).  I applied some Photoshop Elements effects, among other techniques.  I altered and added the door image from Last Door Down the Hall and the woman's figure from Stampington (originally in sepia); and I used digital tree and lace brushes from Obsidian Dawn. (Don't know the source for the crumpled paper background.)

Collage Obsession: Hands

It was my turn again this week to host the Collage Obsession challenge. I chose the theme of "Hands." My collage is shown below. Please visit the challenge website and participate! You can get there by clicking on the title of my blog posting above. We'd love to see your work.

Take a Word: Turquoise

 

Image credits: grungetextures, rubyblossom, holliewood, flickr creative commons (yndra), dover, suzee que.

Sunday Postcard Art: Gothic

 

Letter Love Class: Vintage Style Fonts

"Letter Love" has been keeping me busy! Here's something I lettered for yesterday's lesson. We were asked to use vintage-styled letters/fonts for our inspiration.  As you may be able to tell, I enjoyed this exercise immensely!

Three Muses: Outside the Frame

Our challenge this week was to create a collage that goes "outside the frame" in some way, and that has a bird theme. I used a rectangular autumn-hued background from Kaylene Maalste, and bird images from Last Door Down the Hall. I put these two images on a background the same (or similar) color as my blog background. Hope it worked!

Inspiration Avenue: Diva

Image credits: artefacts, holliewood, deviant scrap.

Collage Obsession: Sport

Image credits: dover, graphics fairy; background is my own photo of St. Louis Cardinals game.

Take a Word: Old-Fashioned ATC

Our challenge this week was to create an artist trading card (2.5 in. x 3.5 in.) with the theme of "old-fashioned." The image of the two dancing ladies is from the Library of Congress public domain website.

Sunday Postcard Art: My Heart Belongs to You

  

Image credits: Graphics Fairy.

Letter Love!

I'm taking Joanne Sharpe's online class "Letter Love" this month. It's a lesson a day for the whole month of February! It's wonderful to wake up each day to a new and colorful and cheerful video from Joanne. There's a Facebook group, a Flickr group, and a Yahoo group for the class too.  I'm pretty sure you can join in anytime, and the lessons will remain up indefinitely. If you're interested, you can find Joanne's blog here.

Below are some examples of what I've already done for the class.

 

 

Three Muses: Torso Tags

We were challenged to create "tags" in the shape of torsos, so I did...digitally. Here's my February-themed piece.

 

Image credits include miss mint, graphicsfairy, and cemerony.

Collage Obsession: Tangerine Tango

This week we were challenged to use the color Tangerine Tango in a collage. According to the Pantone Color Institute, “Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it. Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.” 

Image credits: rubyblossom, last door down the hall.

Take a Word: Coffee

This week's theme is Coffee. I'm a tea addict myself, but I certainly honor and respect those who must have their daily cup (or two or three) of coffee! Image credits: graphicsfairy, last door down the hall, flickr creative commons (norma frances), dover designs.

Sunday Postcard Art: Classic Movies