Friday 26 March 2010

Paper Whimsy Ladies

Four digital collages I created for the new Paper Whimsy group which I belong to (scroll down to see link on left hand side). All done with PW downloadable images for digital art....... see here .


Other bits and pieces are mainly from Designer Digitals.
I painted the wings myself.
(Please click on images for a better view.)

Wednesday 24 March 2010

Life........

Digital collage - photo from Wikimedia Commons (free), clipping mask from Lynn Grieveson at Designer Digitals plus various layers and textures.



I love this photograph of my MIL when she was a girl in the early 1920s (with her mother and siblings); she is the one on the left. Its a delightful composition - although a litttle precarious I suspect! She would have been 89 next month but sadly she died yesterday from heart and kidney failure - she had been in hospital for over 6 weeks.
So once again, in the space of only 2 months, my DH and I are grieving the loss of a parent and organising another funeral. But at the same time we are aware of how lucky we are that our parents both lived long and happy lives.


At the weekend we made this box between us (DH cut up the MDF and I glued it together). Today I am going to gesso it ready for decoration. It has a very special purpose.....I wonder if you can guess what its for. Maybe you need a clue?
Mmmmmm....... its not very conventional........and you might possibly be a little shocked when I tell you. Or maybe not? :-)

As you can see, its over 12" tall.
What do you think...........?

Friday 19 March 2010

More Digital Collage

Flower from Wikimedia Commons, clipping mask from Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals, quote from Marcee Dugger at Digital Scrapbook Place.......plus a few coloured layers and filters.


Cow parsley photo from my sweet friend Jo (Tanglefrost), scratched layer from Night-fate-stock at deviantART, grunge border from Katie Pertiet at Designer Digitals plus some of my own layers.


Tuesday 16 March 2010

Fairy Queen

I decided to do a challenge today and chose 'Art Creations Friday' - I love the image they gave for this week........ 'Ophelia' by John William Waterhouse. This is my digital collage version.......You can see the original here.

Monday 15 March 2010

Friends, Flowers......and More Felting


Felting has got me hooked this week! I'm having a go at making hand-felted pictures; this is one of my attempts (a copy of one of my digital pieces see further down the post).

One of my blogging friends, Jean, has posted a delightful video tutorial on felting silk flowers...hers are absolutely gorgeous. Click on her name and go and have a look. Here's mine.........I must go out and buy some prettier silk flowers, all my best ones are made of paper (I tried it with them and it doesn't work!!)I had 2 lovely surprises in the post recently......some gorgeous postcards (of her beautiful digital art) from my lovely friend Lynn along with some vintage buttons and lace........


......and a beautiful paper-collaged card (which you may have already seen on her blog). Lucky me!! Thank you so much Lynn.

Another wonderful surprise came from Lazy Kay (see her blog 'Bean Sidhe') She made a 'scrapbook in a tin' for a talk at her local art group and decided to make it for someone in particular...me! How kind and thoughtful is that? Its a memory scrapbook for my dad and she put loads of wonderful quotes in it. It was half-finished when I received it and she suggested I finish it off myself with photos of dad etc. There are loads of pages and they all concertina inside the tin - such a clever idea, I have done about half of them up to now.
Here are some of them........
Finally...I've been experimenting with printing my digital art onto fabric. The following two were printed onto fabric which I had previously coated with InkAID. The colours are much brighter...success! I'm still going to try out some other methods though.......



Monday 8 March 2010

Needle-Felting Workshop

Before I start I just want to say a huge 'thank you' to everyone who responded to my last post. I appreciate all your very interesting comments and I will let you know the results of my research into printing on fabric very soon.
Today I have been teaching a needle-felting class at The Beetroot Tree and I want to thank all of the 14 lovely ladies who came along. They showed such great enthusiasm and produced fabulous results! Above you can see the pre-felted pieces I made for them to work on (we cut them up into pieces) - we also used other starting points such as plain bought felt and wool top just on its own.



Not many of them had tried needle-felting before and they all produced beautiful pieces......either a brooch or a picture for a small frame or greetings card.

The Beetroot Tree has a fabulous shop and it didn't take me long to spend my wages.......

These are my latest attempts at making brooches ........ 'etsy maybes'.

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Nature Does Not Hurry.......

Mixed-media piece using the digital collage image from my last post.

I'm still struggling to get a really good reproduction into fabric. I've tried a few different ways and spent a fair bit of money!! Has anyone got any suggestions? This one isn't too bad.....its from Crafty Computer Paper and its on cotton lawn (you put it straight through the printer).

The circles are pieces of my needle-felting I cut up. The lace is from an old cotton tablecloth my mum gave me.......I ripped it into loads of pieces and dyed them all differently.

I'm not sure whether its finished or not - I think it needs more stitching.


More playing with Photoshop.....

Be filled with Wonder and Peace.....and Cosiness

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