Sunday, May 24, 2009

lastest art projects

I have been busy lately making several new items. Here's a couple. The first was inspired by this photo I took:
It was taken a year ago April. We went on a camping trip here in Southern Oregon. The day we left was sunny, but the next morning we awoke to snow. I have to explain though that we are no longer what I call "hard core campers". We do not tent camp. We have an 8 ft camper that has it's own bathroom and we can turn the heat on when it get's cold.... so I don't know if you can really call it camping but we love it! This particular trip we spent surfing the web, watching DVD's, reading, and I was doing artwork. (We still call it "camping"). Anyway the first day I took a walk and shot many pictures of flowers, bees, birds and nature in general. The next day I got the idea to do the same walk and take the same pictures with the snow. Got some great shots and have been working on a book documenting it, but that is still in progress.

I recently decided to paint a picture from my photo and this led to the following collage: I used my ripped up Reader's Digest technique for the background (see earlier post) and then made two copies of my orginal painting. The first I glued down directly and the second I cut out the bird and the branches and attached them with raised foam adhesive to give the image dimension. I then added the swirls and words on the edges using a graphite pencil (spray with fixative after this step to seal and prevent smudging). Then I glued on a birds nest bead I had made. I know this looks more like a winter project, but sometimes I end up going down a road that takes me to an unexpected place.

The next project is the card I made for my Grandmother's 89th birthday. We celebrated it last weekend and this card just popped out of my head! I made it in about an hour. I don't know about you, but I almost never beat any speed records when I am making something. The only way things go fast is if I am making a duplicate of something I have already made and usually I get bored with that, so it doesn't happen often. Here's the card:

I mentioned in an earlier post that I love Photoshop and this is why; I started this card with white cardstock and the bright pink cardstock. That's it besides my computer and printer. The drawings I had done awhile back and had the images in my computer. I made the dotted paper by using the pattern function in Photoshop. The roses were scanned into the computer already colored.. I just printed them and cut them out. For the bird I used the brush function on some blue patterned paper I had made. Again I printed and cut him out. Made the faux twill ribbon and typed the words on and cut out. Glued it all together and the last thing I took a black fine tip marker and doodled the scroll. She loved it!

Well, that's it for now. Thanks for visiting. Denise

4 comments:

Robin said...

Love your bird collage...so beautiful! Sounds like you are a digital pro unlike some of us that are digitally handicapped!! Your card looks wonderful!

Zeborah Loray said...

Beautiful combination of digital and traditional media.

Sandy said...

Denise,
What a joy to read your blog. Your enthusiasm for your art shows through and you have such a talent with finding and altering inexpensive items. Well done!

connie said...

denise,

love the bird photo! and your piece is beautiful!