Tribute to Lotus

We lost our beautiful Lotus two days after Christmas.  I'm sitting here looking at our Christmas card with her image.....

She was found in the summer of 06 near Pear Blossom Highway in the high desert (probably was used to hunt).  She had four puppies she couldn't care for.  

She was emaciated and very sick.  We adopted her and the puppies got adopted too, thankfully.  She came to us shortly after the rescue group got her and we nursed her back to health.  Her coat was so "blown" that we thought she was totally white.  

Not until it grew in did we see that she had brown spots and ticking.  She had the most gorgeous white eyelashes too!!

For this photo

Mike put his tee shirt on her head and we decided she looked like a nun.  We sent this in the form of a birthday card to his sister who teaches at a parochial school. She got a really good laugh out of it.  We called her "Sister Mary Lotus of the Ascension".

 This was the original shot of her jumping for a piece of carrot -- I used it for our Christmas card.  If you click on it to enlarge you can see that piece of carrot in the air above her.  You can see the Christmas card in the next post.

 She had the most beautiful, expressive face.....

I'm remembering how I used to get so upset with her because she had this obsession with the waste basket in the bathroom.  I called her the "dumpster diva".  Now I would like nothing better than to see her getting into that waste basket!!  

She will always be a part of us as are the others who have gone before her.

This one is a good example of how she loved her bed.

She was a very bright spot in our lives and we shall miss her terribly.  Ollie, our whippet, seems to be missing her as much as we.  He's just not his playful happy-go-lucky self.  We love you, Lotus.  

Holiday Time

It's that time of year again.  It's a time when I try to make a conscious effort to be more grateful for all my blessings, a time when I feel extra "giving" and a time to share with my family and friends.

For Photo Art Friday we are sharing photos we have made into art.  With that in mind I'm sharing my photo I will use for our Christmas card.  Some of you saw it with a different background and I decided to jazz it up for the holidays.

Below is a photo I took last year of my DIL and grands standing behind my front door.  They used it for their Christmas card.  I have doctored it a bit to look a little more artsy.

From our house to yours, I wish you the best of holidays!

Poinsettias - Vintage

I did some more playing with Nancy Donaldson's garage textures.  Depending on the photo used, the end results are so uniquely different.

Life is a Celebration

Our theme for Texture Tuesday this week is "Celebrate".  I have much to celebrate.  I celebrate every day that I am lucky enough to be retired from my work life.  I can choose to spend my days as I wish.  I celebrate that I can go to the gym every day -- today was a yoga class and the daily aerobics..... and play with my art which, at the moment, is mostly digital art.

I celebrate most importantly my best friend and spouse, whom I was lucky enough to meet 10 years ago.  I celebrate our life together.  This is a lot to celebrate since I had been widowed for a couple years...... and at that stage thought I would just spend the balance of my life growing older with my grands!  But the Universe had other plans for me.  I celebrate waking each day with all my parts moving still......LOL.

So in honor of Kim's theme......I'm really "out there" this week!  

Even though these are pots of succulents......let's just pretend they are sparklers for celebration!!

Have a great week and don't forget to visit Kim's blog to see all the incredible art.

Here's my recipe

Pots of Succulents

After seeing Nancy Donaldson's great cow image, I followed her tutorial and came up with my succulent image grunged up.

She is kind enough to give away her textures on her Flickr site.  Visit her post on this and see what you can do with a photo and a couple of her textures. I'm going to work on a couple more photos with some of her textures to see what I come up with.

The Camp

We frequent this little "shopping center" in Costa Mesa.  It's called The Camp, and it is straight out of the woods.  Whoever dreamed up the concept was brilliant.  The concept was well executed.  I always feel like I'm away at summer camp when I enter here.

There are wonderful little restaurants including 118 Degrees where nothing is heated above 118 degrees.  The thought is that heating food above that temp destroys the enzymes.  I'm not sure about that but their food is scrumptious!

This little street sign tells us directions to find various eateries and shops.

This antique truck lives here in this funky parking lot which marks the parking places with words like "Eat Your Vegetables, Live Life in the Fast Lane, Dance Often" etc.

The landscaping is eco-friendly and water wise.

Even the recirculating fountain here is eco friendly.

This shop was closed the day we were there.  It's a flower/gift shop selling handmade items including art.  The "flowers" are succulent arrangements in various really cool pots.

There are many examples of "yard art" here including this little teardrop camper.  How cool is this?

I grunged it up  with a Nelly Nero action "Grunge It".

Another example of eco-friendly is the rooftop garden here which provides insulation for the shops inside.  There is a great shop in this building called "Seed".  Everything for sale is handmade by local artists, and there are some incredible buys.

Patagonia also lives here.

Outside The Old Vine Cafe are large sequoia trees with lights hanging in them like this one.

The stairs to the second level of one of the buildings are painted as you can see below

All in all it's a delightful experience.  The shops fit the concept.  At the top of the stairs is a yoga studio.  So be sure to wear your Birkenstocks when you visit.

See you soon!

Making Buttons

Just checking to see how this looks.

Next up is the final class for Marie Otero's Photo Magic.  It's creating a banner/header.   If I'm not posting here, you'll know I "fell in".  Don't worry, I'll be back as soon as I get my homework done!

Catching Up

I've been absent for a while because I've been so involved in Marie Otero's Photo Magic class.  Here is my entry for Photo Art Friday a bit early because of the holiday.  I'm going to post some examples of what I've been doing.  (Notice I'm not posting a work from my archives, but I'll do that another time.)  

This one involves extracting the subject and placing on a different background.  I used Kim Klassen's  "Canvas Magic" here.  After I did this I found a great video tutorial on Photoshop Elements site on how to do a really clean extraction....... ( I mean you can see a halo around their heads and I didn't quite get the area behind the left arm of my grand on the right}.......but you get the idea.  This.......

   

from this......

and this....... 

from this.....

We also learned to make our own bokeh and various watermarks.  And we worked with gradients.  Below I've used the same gradient as I did for the candy machines.  

We worked with radial blurs here........

from this.....

I needed to make this image a square, so I cropped the bottom part of it.

There's much more and I'll most likely be showing you some more examples in the days to come.  

Meantime......everyone, be sure to stop by Photo Art Friday on Friday to see the goodies.

Linking to

Jump for Joy

Today's theme for Texture Tuesday is "Two".  I should have titled this "Double Your Pleasure" to fit with the theme.  I found this technique in my latest issue of Elements magazine.  It really is a simple technique, but it took me longer than I had anticipated simply because part of the process is extracting the subject image. That is not one of my strong suits.  Arrgh!

I used Pixel Dust Photo Art's "Medieval Magic" texture, Kim's "February Magic Edges" texture, and a stencil brush by Marie Otero.  The font is "Quilted Butterfly".  Join us over at Texture Tuesday and Photo Art Friday for a cuppa or a glassa and a tour of some magic art!!

I'm linking to:

 and

My Love Affair with Roses

Photo Art Friday's eTheme this week is to try something different, something we haven't previously done - a new technique perhaps.

My roses seem to be doing so well even though the nights have been downright cold for Southern Calif.  I played for two days with different textures, filters, blend modes.  I really like this one SOOC.

I do believe the Double Delight is my absoute favorite, hands down.  It has beautiful form (the perfect point that opens magnificently.  It has a luxurious fragrance.  It has incredible variety -- no two blooms are ever quite alike.  Some have more red.  Some are almost white with just a tinge of red on the edges.  And some have quite a bit of yellow when they are first cut.

I love all kinds of flowers and foliage in the garden, but it's really hard to beat roses.  They really add joy to my life!

I love the subtle look of this with French Kiss' 

"Stone Blush" texture and French Kiss' "French Script" brushes.

and then there's

this look with French Kiss' "Stone Blush" and "Purple Prose" textures.  I'm in love with this look.

or maybe

this look with FK's Stone Blush texture and French Script brushes plus Topaz Adjust filters.  Don't they just look delicious?

Then there's this fun look I got by using Topaz Adjust filters. 

Everyday's a special day when I can spend time playing with Photoshop.  I love that I can take the worst images that I would have discarded and make them star quality!

Oh yes, I almost forgot.  I'm taking another class with Marie Otero called "Digital Photo Magic".  The beautiful Double Delight below is from my week 1 projects.

and finally something a little different for Photo Art Friday. I used Kim Klassen's "Canvas Back" texture.

Hope you are planning on checking out the exquisite art work from everyone participating in 

Photo Art Friday.

I'm linking to: