Living My Dream

I know this is supposed to be 5 fact Friday, but I decided to have my own list

of five.

Have you ever thought, "Wow, this is a great day to move toward my dream".  I feel like 

I do it every day.  Though I'm of retirement/Medicare age, I'm the happiest I can remember.

It's the little things that give me joy now such as a Starbucks coffee

or an E-course or receiving the latest Photoshop Elements magazine in

the mail!  I feel healthy and great even if some of my joints are a little

 stiff in the morning!!  So I feel like I'm living my dream.

My Yoga teacher is a Reiki healer and I learned the other  day in her class the 5 precepts.

1. Do not worry

2.  Do not be angry

3.  Be honest

4.  Be humble

5.  Be compassionate

Doesn't sound that difficult does it?  I think I'm very compassionate, but once in a while I have to 

remind myself, like when someone cuts me off on the freeway or when someone is 

outright rude (I really dislike rude behavior).  

Same goes for anger.  There are those times when I feel my neck and face flushing with 

anger or irritation.  Must work on these precepts.

I'm continuing with my custom pattern work in PSE

I wanted my image to be a bit more realistic rather than abstract.  With that in mind 

here is my original (should have done a mouseover).

and the artsy version below

This piece was almost like working in a coloring book.

PATTERNS AND TEXTURES

This past week I worked on patterns and textures.  This image is my entry for Texture Tuesday.

This week there is no theme - just "free and easy" as Kim calls it.

I used my custom ginko brushes and a texture or two.  Those of you who know 

me, know I collect Buddhas.  I shot this photo at my friend's home on her patio.

There's always a sense of peace and tranquility that goes with the Buddha.

I also dabbled in making my own patterns, and one of the things I'm learning in Ann Passmore's class is 

how to make my own patters and also how to use them.

Here's a sampling of textures I made.

 I put several images together and used pieces I

cropped from the main image.  I tried all different

blend modes







I did the famous Xanthe circle here and added

some text for fun.

Then I took my original

and cropped a bit of it so the main flower would be the focal point.  I selectively added pieces of pattern 

to different areas and pumped up the saturation to get this.

Won't you stop in at Kim's linky party and enjoy some various works of art?  Better yet, join in the fun.

I've learned so much from Kim and other wonderful teachers.

5 More Facts About Me

Here are 5 more facts abut me.  I don't want to overstay my welcome here but I think this 5 Fact Friday

  is only for the month of August.

1. My favorite colors are purple and green or any shade or variation thereof......could be pink and green

or purple and teal.

2. My favorite treat is an espresso macchiato and morning bun from Starbucks.  My hubby and I bike to

  Starbucks on Sunday mornings and sit outside with our coffee and breakfast treat.

Oops, the cup is empty and I ate the morning bun already .  

3. My hubby and I share a love of animals.  We have two cages of birds on the patio.  

His cage has cockatiels and Bourke's parakeets.  

My cage has budgies.  This is a pair of my budgies in a breeder

 cage.  They had five babies.

4.  I love being retired and having my alone time.  I'm a bit of an introvert at times.

5. However I also enjoy the company of friends......lunch or coffee with a girl friend or getting together

 with family.  You probably know from my post here, that I recently met up with two of my blogging

 buddies.  That was really fun because they "get it".

I'm linking up with the others at

 

Why not play along...it's fun.  

Using My Paintings as Textures

I saw this tutorial on Melissa Gallo's site and I fell in love with the look.  I was so ready to buy every

 painted texture she had.  I stopped for a breath and realized I could do something like 

her examples using my own paintings.  If you don't have your own paintings, do consider buying her

 outstanding textures.  I may still buy them.  And by all means watch her tutorials.  Here's what I did.  I 

used this original painting

over the image

and played with filters, blend modes, levels to get this

I then converted the painting to black/white and upped the contrast.

I added my image which I had converted to B/W as well.  Then I played with filters and blend

modes. Also added layer mask and removed a bit of the "texture".

I like the stark graphic look of this.

And here's one more where I used a texture from Karen of Vintage Findings.

and the texture for the image below I made from taking one of my photos and using 

the impressionist brush on it.

It keeps the colors and washes them around to give an  impressionistic effect.  On both of these I

 removed a bit of the texture but left some because I like the effect against her skin.

I plan to do this with more of my paintings.  Do I hear the call of my "real" brush???

IT'S THE LINEAR BURN!!

This week is a freebie week for Texture Tuesday - no theme - just use Kim's "Dream It" texture.

I had some fun with this because I played around with her texture and with my image. I used the PS

 impressionist brush on the original image to get a beautiful watery look which I then merged with

 Kim's texture.  The progression 

is below.  

And here's a larger copy of the finished product.

The blend I used on this was linear burn.  It really makes the colors brilliant and does a great 

reveal of Kim's texture.

I posted again using the impressionist brush to make a texture and you can see that 

post here.

Select the Texture Tuesday button on the right in my sidebar to see more examples using Kim's texture.

Now go have a full of wonder week!

My First 5 Fact Friday

I'm doing my first 5 Fact Friday -  it's a fun thing started by Kim Klassen at Reflections of you.  It's just

 as the name implies - write 5 things about yourself to share with the other participants.  We were part

 of the first Behind The Scenes class that Kim and Xanthe taught.  So here goes.....

1. I grew up in Chattanooga, TN. in this house.

2. My first car was a Nash Rambler (some of you might remember).....

photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

3. I purchased a used VW Beetle when I moved to So. CA.  I remember that it had a toilet paper oil

 filter. and I thought the car was pretty cool .

 It was red and looked something like the one in this photo, which is also courtesy of Flickr 

Commons.

4. I'm married to husband #2 who is considerably younger than I.  He, however. is not courtesy of

 Flickr Commons!

5.  I'm an E-Course junkie.  I've taken classes from Kim Klassen (and Xanthe Berkeley),

 Marie Otero, Susan Tuttle, Ann Passmore, Sharon Tomlinson and I'm about to take a class from 

Flora Bowley.

Until next week..........

Just for Fun

Our Photo Art Friday theme was "container"........

I can't say that this piece has anything to do with containers, but it's my pick for the

week.  I've been trying to incorporate more of my art/paintings into my

digital edits.   I did not save the .psd file, and I can't remember exactly how I 

did this, but enjoy.....

Linking to:

Looking Down

Texture Tuesday's theme is "Looking Down".  I took this photo at one of our local skateboard parks.  I 

used Kim's "cool grunge" texture and also added some grunge brush strokes.  The image was perfect 

for adding text which I wasted no time doing.  My son used to be an avid skateboarder, and this young

boy reminds me of that time in my  life.  I wonder sometimes how we live to become adults

but he had no fear.  click on the button below to go to Kim's linky party and see lots of other

 interpretations of this theme.  

The Gift

The theme for Photo Art Friday this week is "gift".  This "collage" is of my granddaughter (one of my

 greatest gifts)  smelling the

 heliotrope in my garden, imposed with a couple architectural photos.  

I like the linear overlays.  I used Topaz Adjust  to get the different finished looks. 

PSE cooperated for me.  I cannot figure out why it kept crashing

on the piece I was working on.  Maybe a corrupt file or??

Who knows? Hardware and software have minds of their own at times, don't you think?

Linking to

Only life can be divided endlessly and still not diminish.

~Anne Morrow Lindbergh~

Imagine

Hi everyone.....I worked so hard last night putting together an entry for submission to Texture Tuesday.  

After 12 layers, I attempted to save the file and PSE crashed.  I thought it was just a fluke, so I did the 

work again (I had saved it partially).  It crashed again.  By then it was  10:30 so I called it quits

Tried it again this morning and same thing.  

I'm posting something from my archives until I can get my problem resolved.

Have a great week and hopefully next week I'll be good as new.

Linking to:

The Theme is Doors

Photo Art Friday theme this week is doors.  Since I love doors, I have a stash in my archives.  I pulled 

this one, cropped it and played with it.  It is the main entrance to the Xavier del Bac Mission in Tubac,

 AZ

Following are the steps

1. Duplicate the image
2. Blend in soft  light
3. Levels adjustment for brightness
4. Pdpa soft reflections  texture blended in hue
5. Simplify layer, clone out some spots
6. Radial noise gradient
7. Lens flare filter
8. Layer mask to remove gradient from exterior of building

Linking to Photo Art Friday.  

Click on the Photo Art Friday button on my sidebar and you will get to see the other artful entries.

  

Blog Buddies

 This week was an in-person week.  I finally got to meet two of my blogging buddies, 

Geri and JenEve

Geri lives about an hour away, so we met Monday at a delightful mediterranean restaurant sort of at the

half-way mark.

She has me so excited about iPhonography, I've finally made the decision to buy an iPhone.  I'm

waiting, however, to see if Apple introduces a new one in September.  I've waited this long.....what's

another couple months.  We talked non-stop for a couple hours and discovered that we have much

in common.  We had one of the wait staff take our picture and unfortunately, the exposure is not the

 best, but here we are in all our glory!  You can find 

Geri's blog Eat Paint Learn here.  I love all her tips and tidbits of information both on diet and techie

blog stuff.

JenEve and I met this morning for coffee at Starbucks.  She lives about 10 minutes from me.  We met in  

the Behind the Scenes class that Kim Classen and Xanthe Berkeley are teaching.  Our creatiive

journeys are similar.  She is a delightful person to talk with.  We chatted about mixed media, camera

   gear and Photoshop.  She has attended many art retreats.  I was excited to hear that she  did a 

workshop with Flora Bowley, one of my favorite  artists. You can find JenEve's blog here. 

And here we are together.  

 JenEve and I talked about doing a photo walk together.  

I hope I'll get to spend more time with my in-person blogging buddies!