The Painterly Look

This week's Photo Art Friday theme is "the painterly look"......to create something that looks like a piece of fine art from a photograph.

I duplicated the original in soft light, added one of my own textures in hard light 100% opacity, barely removed a bit of it from the flowers.  I added another layer of my texture in hard light at 63% opacity and then played with filters.  Sorry, I can't remember which filters I used.  I think I also used a Topaz Adjust  filter that gave it a more painterly look.

Makes me feel like one of the impressionists!

Have a great week and check out the other painterly looks at Bonnie's Pixel Dust Photo Art.

Creative Journey

Our assignment is to create a timeline for our creative journey.  I loved this because it really made me

stop and think just how far I've come. When I was in grammar school, I used to love to color

and do all kinds of art work.  It was never really encouraged.  In fact I can think back even further to 

before I started school.  My mother used to give me finger paints to play with on a 

rainy day.  That was really a treat.  I also remember summer camp and arts and crafts.  Recently I found

some old papers my mom kept.  One was a "report card" from my camp.  The counselor

wrote "Marilyn does not seem to hold much interest in hiking and sports.  She is 

much more interested in painting and crafts".  I had to laugh  -- I showed the inclination from a young 

age.  I just didn't start until my 50's.  

This is the journey.......

I started rubber stamping thinking I would save all kinds of money making my own greeting

cards!!!   What a laugh.  Years later I had spent fortunes on stamps and various must-have

supplies.  I graduated into different mediums, and it has all been a lot of fun.  I have become addicted to

photography and digital editing.  My how time flies when I'm having fun!! I did not include this year. 

I'm taking yet another class with Kim (and Xanthe) and continuing on with my photo edits in  

2012.

Why I Love Blogging

Hi y'all.  I'm taking a new class called Behind The Scenes (button in the sidebar) given by Kim Klassen and Xanthe Berkeley.  They are both so talented and are sharing their knowledge of blogging with us lucky participants

I have to say that blogging is embedded in my psyche.....

I actually did a post on my blog in August of 2010 titled “Why Blog”.  Since then I’ve given

 it a bit more thought.  Forgive me for repeating, but many of you never saw the first post.I think it started after I retired and had some time on my hands.  I was starting to sketch and draw in addition to painting and collage.

  I had joined Danny Gregory’s Yahoo group “Everyday Matters” .  That was my first group and I was in a whole new world.  I was talking with people from around the world.  I saw that most of them had blogs and they used them to display their artistic endeavors.  I immediately wanted one but had no idea how to do it.  My techie son was still alive at the time and he helped me with the rudimentary elements.  He died a few months later so the rest I gleaned from other bloggers (they are all so kind) and through trial and error.  I still don’t know HTML but I’m a terrific cut and paster!

I love my blog so much. it’s like my child.  It’s a part of me . It would be the one thing I would hope my husband would keep and read after I’m gone.  He’s much younger than I am, and I always assume I will be the first to make that transition. LOL!!

It’s a diary of sorts -- mostly images -- some writing.  I’ve made a few online friends along the way.  I know some of my friends just don’t get it.  It’s one of those

 “she has way too much time on her hands” things. But....I really don’t do much with Facebook and I never learned to Tweet!  So this is basically it for me.  I know a lot of my friends are not artists and really don’t get what I do even though they are very complimentary.  We’re just on different wave lengths!  The blog has brought me closer to other like-minded souls.  I’m so inspired by others’ art/photography and by their creativity with their blogs.  If I see a blog I’m attracted to, I try to figure out how they got that particular look.  

Like Kim, it’s so much a part of me I have to blog.  Of all my possessions it has the most meaning and is the one thing I would be devastated to lose!

In the morning after I get home from the gym and shower and dress I can sit down with a cuppa and catch up on my email and then blog hop.  I also like all the creative classes I’ve found by way of other bloggers.  I also participate in a couple weekly challenges -- Kim’s Texture Tuesday and  Pixel Dust Photo Art’s “Photo Art Friday”.  I’ve purposely kept those to a minimum because there just isn’t enough time.  

I laugh when I tell my friends how glad I am to be retired and how there aren’t enough hours in the day, and they give me that envious look because they don’t really know what to do with their time.

For me blogging is all about the connection and the community. 

  

Grandma's Backyard

Not really, it's actually my friend's but her yard always reminds me of my Grandma's backyard.  She has a very small yard but she makes the absolute most of it.  I thought this would be a good image to share for Texture Tuesday.  I can't remember which texture I used - possibly "scripted".  It's been a while since I did this edit.  I like it so much I think I'll change my blog header.

Won't you please pull up another chair and sit with me.  We'll have some lemonade and cookies.....

I started Kim and Xanthe's class on blogging today.  I'm really excited to learn more and share with other bloggers.
For more information click on the link in my sidebar "Behind the Scenes".
And for more fun I used Kim's new texture "reverie" on this image of a rose.  I like the pink cast and the dreamy look it gives.  She has the tutorial for her gerbera daisy image using this texture in the "Test Kitchen".

Go  have yourself a beautiful and artful day!!

Vintage

Our theme for Photo Art Friday this week is to edit an image for a vintage piece of art look.  Maybe not a piece of art but surely it is vintage looking.  Reminds me of something out of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".  Actually it's a building in "Oldtown" San Diego.  The original first......

After cropping to get rid of the structure in the foreground and cloning out the shadow, I desaturated it a bit and added Bonnie's "age it" texture.  I removed some of the texture on the building.  I simplified and  duplicated that layer using a  soft light blend.  I then added a Nelly Nero action called "antique overlay" and the text.  Lastly I added the photo corner frame from PicMonkey.

I'm happy with the results and maybe it does look like a piece of art.

Linking with 

and encouraging you to visit Bonnie's linky party to see more vintage artwork.

Last Minute

I almost did not get anything done for Texture Tuesday.  I've been

 a little preoccupied and lax about posting my entries.  I've decided

 to post some different images with 

 text.  I also played around this week with Anna's image and 

attempted to make it look more like a portrait.  So nice that

 textures can do away with busy backgrounds.

First, Anna.....isn't she gorgeous!  Don't tell her, though.

I don't want her head to get bigger than it is.

Now for the images with text...

I did manage to use several of Kim's textures on these.  Follow me

 over to Kim's party to see all the beautiful texturized art.

Just click on this badge.

Negative Space

That's our theme this week for Photo Art Friday.  While I do understand the concept with regard to art, I was hard pressed to find an image I thought fit it.  

I did, however, like the spaces in and around the driftwood and what
appear to be bamboo stalks in this display.   I also like the simplicity of it.  I used the gradient map with special effects......thank you, Bonnie.

I then applied Bonnie's  "quartz" texture.  It looks decidedly different from the original.

Here is the original

You will really see many different interpretations of  this week's theme if you 

hop on over to Bonnie's site. 

Have a lovely week!

New Things

No Texture Tuesday this week, but I worked on some new things.  I took some photos of peonies I brought home from Trader Joe's.  They were really disappointing -- only one opened.  The rest just sort of crashed.  I tried some different processing on this one peony.  I used Kim Klassen's "canvasback" texture plus Bonnie's "golden bokeh" texture on the first image below.

I practiced outlining my font below -- don't want to forget  how to do that.

I thought I would post some of my work for a Photoshop "Selections" class I'm taking. Go to this link and click on"online courses" to check it out. I really needed to learn the skill of selection and extracting.

I first selected the foxglove from another photo I had and then applied it to one of my paintings.  I actually used it three times in different sizes.

Then I played with different filters to get the different looks below.

Then we learned how to make our own masks from scratch.  We selected one flower out of a group and placed it on a background with copies of the flower made smaller.  That formed the larger corner image.  We then made it into a sillouhette and so on..... to get the look below.

Another thing I learned how to do was work with selected shapes, rectangular and elliptical.  For fun I did some color blocking and messed around with these two....

It's a really fun class, and I learned so much.  I plan to take more of Ann's classes.  The first two classes are free, so how can you lose?

  

Dogs

What would we do without our animal friends?  Mine happen to be dogs and birds right now. Over the years I've had many animals.....a horse, birds including an Amazon parrot who spoke Spanish, cats, fish, dogs, hamsters and who knows what else.  My husband is even more of an animal person.  He keeps geckos, blue tongue skenks, tortoises and turtles.....no snakes, thank goodness.  We both have aviaries on the patio...budgies and cockatiels.  As long as I can remember I've always loved animals.  They are a bit like our children.  At the very least they are members of the family.  

This week for Photo Art Friday our theme is black and white.  Because I'm immersed in a Photoshop class right now, I'm posting something I did a while back.  I don't think I've ever posted it...a picture of Lotus, our greyhound we lost last Christmas.

You're invited to see more black/white art at Bonnie's website.  Just click on the link below and enjoy.

 
Have a great week!