Pink Saturday Is Not Over Yet!

Saturday is not quite over so I'm going to go ahead and post my Pink Saturday contribution before I'm officially too late! I have three images this week to share with you pink lovers. "Aries" is true and through digital art with a multitude of layers. I softened it by adding swirls, circles, and sweet peas. I thought it would look more girly that way. I also changed the colors from red-tones to pinks just for Pink Saturday.

Below is a watercolor print painting. I stumbled on this technique quite by accident one afternoon. Water dripped on the original black and white print. I thought I had ruined it until I found that I could just paint with it instead. In this image, I painted several layers - allowing each layer to dry before adding another.

This one is a watercolor/acrylic painting I completed several years ago. I slightly changed the color in photoshop to a brighter pink. Now it's more fitting for a perfectly wonderful Pink Saturday.

I do hope you had a terrific Pink Saturday! Don't forget to hop over to Beverly's for more Pink!

You can click on the Pink Saturday image over there in the right sidebar. :~}

Snow, snow, snow - no more

Don't let this blue sky fool you! Yes, it was beautiful but you know that cliche, the calm before the storm? Well, the storm (third in progression) started just minutes after I took this shot. You can see for yourself what the last two days has brought us. Be ready for lots of black and white! LOL Hey! I started you with color first!

This is one of my favorite images! You never know what you're going to get with bad weather conditions. I was amazed at how this turned out. No, we didn't get tennis-ball-size snowflakes.

Remember all those lovely planters I shared last summer with you all? Here's a couple of them and I seriously doubt if anything will grow back after this much snow. Guess I should have covered them for winter. I do think it's cute how all my little solar lights got new white hats!

My trees form a really cool arch in the snowy winter. I'm going to have to play with this image in photoshop and see what fun items I can embellish it with. Could be fun!

This bush will come back! It's a salmon colored azalea and it's been here for over 20 years.

This one will also return in the spring/summer. It's now a mature Rose of Sharon and I absolutely love it. It is however being held up with a large 2x4 stake since it really does not like the weight of the snow.

Oh my gosh! After snapping this one, I felt so guilty that the feeders were empty that I just had to go out and fill them up...and by then it was snowing yet again!

Toby absolutely loves the snow. Here he is patiently waiting for me to finish filling the feeders so I can throw the ball. Unfortunately the tennis balls sink in the snow and it takes him forever to find them. Maybe I can find something a little lighter to throw.

I wonder if he is thinking "You said ball! Not another picture!" He does seem to be showing his attitude face! LOL

This might be his next thought..."I guess I'll just have to eat some snow while I wait for that ball to get tossed" Although I don't have a pic to show you - I did throw a larger plastic ball for him a couple of times. Only a couple times because he wouldn't bring it back to me and I had to chase him all over the yard for it...many times.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and either stay warm if you have Winter or cooled off if you're having Summer.

Happy Pink Saturday and Valentine's Day

Happy Pink Saturday the weekend before Valentine's Day~! Here are the Valentines I created for Pink Saturday. Hope you enjoy them.

AND a crossword puzzle for all you puzzle enthusiasts...In pink too!

For Pink Saturday and the WeLoveDigitalArt March Challenge

The We Love Digital Art Group offered a March challenge with the theme of Alice in Wonderland so I created this "Very Important Invitation"...AND being that it is "Pink" I thought I would share it with Pink Saturday as well. I do hope you all have a fantastically pink weekend!

Collage Obsession Challenge - Transformation

From the above image to the below transformation

The original Geisha image is from Dover Publications. First I turned it to gray scale so I could use the emboss filter. Once that was finished I turned it back to RGB and added a gradient from red to purple. I added some custom shapes, more filters, bevel, outer glow, and lighting on multiple layers. I used the perspective tool to bring the bottom sides in. Then I gave it just a little texture. AND there you have it - a new transformation. You can go to the following link to view more transformations:
http://collageobsessionchallenge.blogspot.com/2011/02/collage-obsession-37-transform.html

Plug-ins for Digital Art

Thanks to Deborah from WLDA...I have some new plug-ins to play with and I have. Here are two images I used incorporating the lattice composer filter.

I worked on this first image for the Green Paper Challenge. You can view other challenge entries at: http://greenpaper.typepad.com/green/2011/02/february-collage-challenge.html

You can see that I used the filter to create vertical slats in the above and below images. Then I used the Jama 3D plug-in as well as perspective filters in the below image. I had so much fun and yet I've barely scratched the surface of what these new filters can do.

You can find these plug-in filters at http://www.redfieldplugins.com/ and the best part of the deal is that they are free use! How cool is that? The download was super easy and it only took a few minutes.

Chinese New Year - Year of the Rabbit

Creating an image for the Chinese New Year began last year for me when I entered a challenge. Since I love Asian design, I decided I would try to create something in this theme each year. Here are my two images for this year - The year of the golden rabbit - 2011

Hope you all had a great weekend and that your coming week will be as great!

Chinese New Year and Pink Saturday

I wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year! February 3rd was the first day of the "Year of the Rabbit" and it continues through to January 22, 2012. Below are a few images I found online that I just had to share starting with a desktop calendar image. I thought I had saved the link but I can't seem to find it now. I'm sure you could find it if you just search "Year of the Rabbit".
Along with that cute desktop calendar I also found these rabbit stamps from Guyana. How fun are those?

Now this cutie rabbit had a name attached to it of Dianka. I would assume that is who created the image. This rabbit looks like she is thoroughly enjoying the new year.

And here is an Asian Rabbit Landscape by John Novak. (I think) I love the gigantic rabbit in this Asian theme image. It reminds me of some of the early Asian sci-fi's. Don't you just love the pink lanterns, flowers, and bridge?

AND that brings me to the color pink! It's another Pink Saturday! Don't you just love how I combined the Chinese New Year and Pink Saturday? ; )

DM Studio Challenge #3 - Photo Prompt

Here is the challenge image above and my modification below.

Hi Everyone!

DM Studio offered a new challenge this week - it's another Southwest-type theme image so you know I just had to try to create something with it. After many bloopers, I finally came up with this one. It's important to me that I keep the integrity of the photographers image. And by the way, the photographer, Kevin King graciously allowed us to use this photo...and apparently added; "Use them all if you want." You can find out more and view other images at:

http://dmstudiochallenge.blogspot.com/2011/01/happy-new-year-challenge-3-photo-prompt.html

I miss the bluebirds

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again and that is exactly what the bluebird did. He tried and tried to make the house nice enough for a future wife but he just couldn't succeed. For a few years, one by one kept rejecting the home. Then finally one liked his place and for the next two years they had many babies.
I so enjoyed watching them come and go. I read an article about bird houses needing to be cleaned out once a year so there wouldn't be any chance of disease or bacteria that could be fatal to the birds so...once I thought the birds were gone for the winter, I decided I should clean out the house. To my surprise when I opened the front... the wife was staring right back at me. Obviously I apologized to her and quickly closed the front. Then I waited. I waited until right before spring...before there were any sitings of the two love birds or so I thought. I carefully lifted the front panel but again, to my surprise, I found 5 little blue eggs waiting for momma to return. So again, I closed the front panel and just prayed they wouldn't get sick. It must have been ok because a while later there were several young ones learning to fly.
This memory inspired me to find an image of a bluebird which I did find in my Dover Publications folder...again. I must add that I have been very lucky with Dover Publications free samples. I added the heart, another background, a lighting effect, and several custom shape frames from Photoshop CS.

"The Heart of Nature"

A place within my soul

Some say there is something mysterious, mystical, and magical about the Southwest and I would have to agree. Perhaps it has something to do with the ancients, the ones who enter the realm of consciousness and touch the soul...especially to the visionaries who have opened their mind and spirit to them. There is one place that I visited that granted me the gift of a past vision - one that many have experienced in that exact location before and after me. I still wonder today why they revealed to me a vision of their past. Really - Why me? What was I to do with this information? I wonder if I'll ever know. I do know that everything happens for a reason so because of that I will continue to hope to understand someday. For now, when I feel their presence, I immediately draw, write, or go to photoshop for an intuitive experience. Yesterday, I found this image saved in my file from Dover Publications. It was in black and white and it seemed I was guided to give it just the right colors and enhancements in photoshop. So here is "Coyote Dreamer" from me to you. I hope it touches your soul as much as it does mine.

"Coyote Dreamer"

A new tile for 2011

I recently watched the movie "Eat, Pray, Love". It inspired me to find an image I could add my own touches to. Still staying with vivid colors, and I might add, a color combination that I seldomly work with...here is my "Eat, Sleep, Play, Pray" tile.

I wish you all the blessings of time. For you to have enough to do all the things that bring you happiness and joy in your life. Namaste.

Dream in living color

Although I don't see the world in black and white, many seem to. Actually, there is no black and white in my mind's eye. When I think of black I think of every color there is which combined makes black. When I first learned how to mix on a painter's palette I came up with every shade of brown possible before I would get to gray and then black. Most of the time my black was not the darkest, deepest black that I wanted so now I just take the shortcut and purchase black paint.

And that brings me to the beauty of photoshop and how many colors are available right at my fingertips. I decided to start the new year with some very bright and vivid colors. The We Love Digital Art group offered a challenge for January with the theme of Wishes or Dreams and this is what I came up with. Hope you had a bright and colorful weekend!

Celebrating 2011 - Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!

I've decided to start the year with no resolutions however I intend to treat myself better, dedicate myself to my passions and art therapy, drink more water, exercise as often as I can, help others in more efficient ways, show more compassion towards...everything, treat the ones I love better, organize/create a new business, learn more about energy, sound, color therapy, and aromatherapy. Ok, so the list can go on and on and on! LOL There will always be room for learning and improvements. Anyway...I do so hope you all have a wonderful year full of new beginnings, passion, joy, love, and prosperity!

A Christmas Clone War

Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the house

Germies and troopers were gathered around

The battle was on and quite soon it came clear

That the only survivor would be Flu himself

Then what a dismay

When we learned of his clones

Marching in and making us even more ill

Now we're coughing and sneezing and blowing our noses

In hopes that we soon will be free of those germies

We've done all we can to ward off those clones

With aspirin and water and lots of good rest

We feel we are winning this battle right now

And the new year will bring us

A Victory at last

So, alright. It's not the best writing but considering how I've been feeling over the past week or more, perhaps you'll give me a little break on it? Although we had a lot of success in 2010, we also seemed to be residing with Murphy as well. Including this last bit on becoming ill. It sure did interfere with the best of plans. We originally planned on seeing Tron today and then go to our friends for the annual New Year's Eve party. Unfortunately we could not. Fortunately, we didn't let it spoil our Christmas too much. The ones who could come were all sick like us. And I have to add that we had the best prime rib dinner ever if I may say so myself.

Now I would like to step back just a bit and share my holiday creations with you that I managed to finish before I became ill. And I almost forgot...even being sick wasn't going to stop me from getting them posted on time BUT the internet did! Murphy was up to no good once again. Unfortunately, we lost our router...it died. Fortunately we had a new one so that problem didn't last long but it seemed like every time I would get a chance to get to the posting, I could not connect. It seems to be ok now so without further ado...my images along with Happy Holidays. I hope your holidays were magnificent!

Thanksgiving 2010

Well, I managed to finish a Thanksgiving image before Thanksgiving after all! I found the turkeys in this weeks Dover Publications Free Samples and the leaves were from custom shapes in my photoshop cs. I hope to get at least one more image finished for this holiday...I'm very anxious to start posting my new Christmas images. Hope you all have a terrific Thanksgiving!

Modified and improved...

I had a bit of fixin to do and now I'm much happier with the final creation. Hope you all like the improvement!

My entry to November's DM Studio Challenge

Before I show you my newest challenge entry, I would like you all to have the newest challenge link that I think is terrific and oh so creative.

http://www.dmstudiochallenge.blogspot.com/

When you visit Cindy's challenge blog, you will find a challenge image as well as a word prompt and if I understand it correctly, you actually can create two challenge entries...one with the image provided and one with the word prompt. I decided to use the image and play with a SW Christmas idea. I really had a lot of fun finding the embellishments for this one! With Thanksgiving quickly approaching, I don't think I'll have time to create something with the word prompt this month but there is always next month, right? I should create at least one new Thanksgiving image for the blog this year...at least I hope to.

Now don't forget to go take a look at her blog and perhaps create something for the challenge as well. You can view other entries from there too.

Halloween in November?

Even though I didn't post my newest Halloween images before Halloween here, I did manage to finish four and get them all posted for a challenge in my digital group. I honestly just did not have the extra time required to create and post much this past month. Even as I type this I'm hoping that the wind storm doesn't knock out my power. Hmmm, I guess it's the kind of weather appropriate for posting Halloween images! LOL So...here they are... I do hope you enjoy them!

Oh, how interesting this is that my last image is titled Windy Mummy...On such a windy night as this! Hope you all had fun on Halloween! And btw...since this has been such an odd year - please don't be surprised to see Christmas images before Thanksgiving. In fact...my next blog entry will have a new image for a challenge provided by Cynthia who I met through the digital group...and it just so happens to have a Christmas theme to it. : )