Creative Collaboration with LeilaniJoy

I was going to Miranda's blog to examine some of her backgrounds and read what she had to say about them. The first thing I saw was an incredible mermaid creation that she had done as part of a Creative Collaboration Contest with LeilaniJoy. There were only two days left to enter the contest and it was something I thought would be so much fun. I spent most of the first day looking at resources to help me draw the faun legs on the provided upper body (three choices). I knew I wouldn't have time to do a background so choose the fairy personality (three choices) because it fit onto the wonderful mushroom picture either Ken or I took on our trip to Seattle. I don't enter lots of competitions but this one just grabbed my imagination.

Other than the sketches for the legs, clothes and hair all creative work was done in Photoshop. I'm getting fairly comfortable there and learning more all the time.

Images from Music - "You Can Leave Your Hat On"

 I've been in a mood to finish up old projects and finally decided that this one will never get the covers I had envisioned for it because it's perfectly fine the way it is with the painted covers. It's been so long since I made it that I do not remember where I first saw the book form. I have a lot of bookmaking books but think I saw this one in a magazine. The pages are 4" square primed canvas. I painted one side of each in teals and the other in burgundies, both sides edged in gold and all the paints were Golden acrylics. I zigzagged the edges together with gold colored thread and tried to leave enough room between them to make it easy to fold.The small collages were made with shiny sheer material, the images, and bits and pieces of stuff. They were assembled and sewed onto paper and then glued to the book pages.

The lyrics, of course, are from Randy Newman's "You Can Leave your Hat On". I love the stories he tells in his music and have more artwork inspired by his songs but this is the only one I ever finished. The images are from Tallulahs.com and possibly from Lunagirl.com and were purchased bundled onto discs. .

The "New Beginnings" Challenge

Today is the day that the new Sparkle and Glitter challenge, "New Beginnnings", goes up on the Sparkle and Glitter blog. After Christmas I had a bunch of new things to try. I colored the image, Francoise Clown, with my new Spectrum Noir pens. This is the third thing I've colored with them after the two cards in the previous post. I am not taking to them as easily as Rick did with his Creepmas posts but I do think this one shows a bit of improvement. Another new plaything was my GelliArts gel plate for monoprinting. My friend Pam and I played for a few days with our new plates. It's so much fun to find things to make textures with that the huge dining room table barely had room for a dishpan of water and our plates. The one I tore up for this journal spread was a deliberate attempt to make a light-colored background for my planned project. Additionally, I filled in the white spots with distress stains.



My third new thing was a pastel color scheme. It's not that I've never used it - but infrequently enough that it's quite alien to me.
The challenge goes for two weeks! Do you have something new you'd like to share with us there?

Learning to use Spectrum Noir - First Trys

So far in my sets of Spectrum Noir, I've only encountered one pen, BG1, that seems like it doesn't have enough ink! I haven't decided if I'll complain or just buy an ink refill. I find the pens a little difficult to use. Most of my mistakes (that I recognize as mistakes) are from picking up the wrong pen at the wrong time or not figuring out out what's what on the image. Those aren't issues in PS as a color can easily be switched with another color. Not on paper!!!
I'm not getting the blending very well either although it looks much better five minutes after I quit than immediately after I quit. I made two cards - one a Christmas card for my friend Pam and one a birthday card for my DIL - missed her birthday early in December.

I think I'll have as much trouble getting saturated tones with this media as I have getting the paler tones in Photoshop. Oh, I made the stencil on the second card just to see how hard that was. It was hard!

13 Days of Creepmas with Rick St. Dennis - Day 13

We made it!! Today is the very last day of the new RSD Creepmas Hop. I hope you've enjoyed seeing all of the wonderful Creepmas art on our blogs. It has been fun rolling out all of the new images, both on the Design Team blogs and every day on Rick's Airless Chambers blog!
I chose to lean toward traditional for this project but Rick said people seem leery of Santa Puppetier so maybe that's creepy enough. Personally, I wish everyone would love this image as much as I do - it's fantastic!

I took a picture of some of my dolls on shelves since I know lots of people think that's pretty creepy and spent yesterday afternoon messing with them in Photoshop. It's no secret that sometimes when you're working in Photoshop you have no clear idea of where you're going and the way you play during those times is how you learn more. There were some steps I took first like turning the photo into a stamp and then putting it over the image but what made this work was a blending mode I've never used before called Linear Burn. I know, I know...you don't know anything about Photoshop but isn't it a little intriguing that you can take an ordinary photo and turn it into a stamp?
Now enjoy the last few minutes of the hop and if you aren't ready to give up Creepmas yet, Smeared and Smudged's 12 Days of Creepmas goes alternate days until the 23th. Monique, Helen and Lady Brayton will have a blogroll for that hop on their blogs so check it out!!

13 Days of Creepmas with Rick St. Dennis - Day 12

Frequently I get in a rut about color combinations - love that yellow through orange and red to purple, especially if they're just a little dirty. But even I get tired of it once in a while. My solution is a pretty standard one - go looking for color combos in fabric or magazines, wherever. I did that for Sad Frosty's scarf yesterday and got hold of one I didn't want to let go of. First the project and then I'll show you my inspiration.

This is Rick St. Dennis' This is as Jolly as I Get . I put him on a page from a thesaurus after looking up grumble or grumpy or some such word. I used the Inverse Image on the word page to get a nice contrast for him. I do think he is just as cute as can be dressed up in elf's gear!! Then I discovered a scrapbook paper from a K & Company Christmas pack that matched him so that was that. The color inspiration came from an online search for "colorful winter scarf".

I actually used some of the patterns in Frosty's scarf yesterday but today I just used the colors. Aren't they pretty and so far from my usual.  This is Day 12 - just one to go, so really enjoy yourself on the hop today and tomorrow before we all caught up in Christmas! There's the bloglist ----------> Have fun!!

13 Days of Creepmas with Rick St. Dennis - Day 11

Welcome to Day 11 of the 13 Days of Creepmas with Rick St. Dennis. I've got a real surprise for you today! Okay, maybe you won't be surprised!  But I put this off so long with all of the elements done, just because I was afraid to try printing on tissue paper, that I am surprised I ever got up the nerve to try it.

My concept of Sad Frosty the very first time I saw him wasn't mayhem but an ice cream headache, specifically a snow ice cream headache. Maybe because I get a lot of those! I made the barely visible background with a quick sketch of hills plus Photoshop gradients and brushes. It was what was holding me up printing on tissue paper. It is on the outside of the glass window block. Frosty and a few lights are inside. The ice cream cone was made out of polymer clay. I had no idea how it would photograph but was so pleased with the yellow tones I got that all I added was a simple title, some snowflakes (brushes by meldir_ snowflakes) and a prefab Photoshop border!

I hope you're not creeped out by the total lack of creepiness in this post. The blogroll is on the right and you'll get to see more Creepmas if you follow along. --->