I’ve seen the light!

No, I havent’ found religion. Bu I have taken a class to learn how to photograph my jewelry properly. And oh, what a difference. And most of it has to do with the light! Duh!

I haven’t even bought a fancy light set up, I’m using the wonderful natural light in my house here in Palm Springs! Yeah, another bonus of living here, this wonderful light makes for wonderful photos.

Nest, I need to unearth  my tripod, for which I haven’t had much use in the recent months. But it’s here somewhere, and it will help getting even more crisp photos.

In the meantime,  you be the judge. My jewelry has never looked so good on the screen! With a bit of light adjustment in Photoshop and voila. I’m posting Before and After photos, those are always fun!

Wow, what a difference! Here’s the next one. I really love the colors on this bracelet, and I just couldn’t capture them before.

 

I do like the black background.

But look at these colors. It’s a beaded embroidery cuff, with a gorgeous blue agate in the middle, seed beads, lochrosen, silver beads and pearls.

Now doesn’t this make your mouth water? Yes, it takes thousands of beads to make one bracelet. It takes me about 3 full days to complete one.

And the latest bead free form peyote. In this type of design, there is no support for the beading, one just weaves and adds at the fancy decides.

I was in the mood for another chromatic design, in the view of Goth or Steampunk. This necklace is beaded with Toho Treasures. They’re called Treasures because of how much they cost, I think. They are the flatter square looking beads. I used a simple black velvet button for the closure. There are black pearls, black Swaroski crystals, some bugles beads of various sizes. It is quite spectacular on.

It would have been so difficult to photograph properly, you can imagine, black on black, without this new instruction. Yeah, Jim Lawson. Great course.

 

Halloween

I don’t celebrate Halloween, yet this digital collage happened. I was drawn by the castle gates, and one thing led to the other.

My dragon friend, this one is for  you.

 

Photoshop

I've been playing with photoshop, making 2 cards. They look relatively simple but they each have a dozen layers. Complex program indeed, but well worth the time to learn it, if you're going to use it regularly.

Next is this one: it's very versatile, because I can add anything I want on that armchair and it fits all sorts of themes. I'm sending it next for our Inspiration cards in my art group, as the theme: finding money in your pocket. I'll put a stash of dollar bills on the armchair.

New Photoshop montage

It's been a while since I did a Photoshop montage, just for the sake of it, as opposed to preparing a picture for a painting.

I've been focussing on painting and preparing my 28 Fat Book pages for the Art and Soul retreat in Hampton.

I've also finished my 3 paintings which I am submitting for the Art House True Color competition. No photos yet. Coming up. :-))

Photoshop to the rescue

Rick St Dennis, you`re my hero. I`d been complaining and asking about taking proper photos of my art.
This kind gentleman over at Altered_stART suggested that I retouch my photos to the original colors of my paintings in Photoshop!!!!1

Duh! Why didn`t I think of that, since I use Photoshop for everything else...

That will indeed do the trick. Keep posted for proper colors on my future images. Yeaaaah!

More Photoshop

I've been reviewing my Photoshop montages of this year. There are more than 200 to date, starting in May...

And in the middle of all that review, I got creative and some montages were screaming to be made.

I call this first one, The Fool. It's made up of photos from an artist I love, B.Reynolds and my ubiquitous balls, and a few manipulations.

The next one is Cabin Fever, with photos from istock and xce to which I subscribe. The rose is from the Dali painting.

And those who follow my work will recognize that cat, he's everywhere.

Finally, I made this one, on the theme of Death. To me, Death is a joyous thing. It's only sad for those who stay behind. We selfishly want to hold on to the person, the pet, the relationship, for our own sake, disregarding the person, pet or event concerned. I've helped many people make the transition. In Joy, not sadness.

Photoshop portrait

I've been playing with a Photoshop tutorial and of course
I love type so this was perfect for me.
It was really not too hard, and took probably 3 hours.

I'm quite thrilled with the results and with myself. ;-))

Now what can I go play at?

Photoshop in winter

I'm back with Photoshop. Now that I've added 1Gb of Ram, I'm hoping it will work faster.

This is my version of "winter" for a challenge on ABC-alteredbooks. I guess winter for me always brings images of snow and cold.

I'll have to start making pictures of fireplaces, or maybe beaches in the sun to escape to.

Winter

The Yahoo group ABAltered Books asked for submissions on the theme of 'Winter'. This is a spread that I did for my art journal, based on a bit of poetry by Shelley, and some photos which I have altered, from my IFL membership stock.

Paul Chabas

I've been talking with some friends about my famous great grand uncle, Paul Chabas, who painted September Morn.

As I mentioned, he was the famous one, belonging to the Academie Francaise, which is a prestigious institution in France.

When I got my puppy, I had to go through the process of .. "the Name, the Name!!!"

My sister suggested Mr Paul, from the great grand uncle. Here's a montage I've done with Photoshop, to tie all the ancestry together:

I reserve the right to change my mind!

I'm a woman, and the word is that we're changeable. So I'm allowed to change my mind. How wonderful.

I said I'd never do an ATC again. (Artist Trading Card) because they are soooooo small. Only 2.5 x 3.5. That's inches, not centimetres.

So I did a few, a dozen actually for this challenge in one of my Yahoo groups. Send 6 of the same out, and some faery organizes for you to get 5 different ones back.
Then another member of this group offered to do a 1 for 1. Some of these little business cards for artists are little gems.
I guess it's a little bit like short stories compared to novels in literature. You condense your talent in a dozen pages, here you get to show (or practice) over a tiny space and not waste huge money on large canvases. So here's to jumping in.

The first swap had for theme: Ticket to ride, where our travels have taken us. Since I've traveled around the world several times, in both directions, I have a choice o f many photos.

The other swap, one for one, is pretty much anything goes. I've used my own photos, which I manipulated in Photoshop, or photos of my ancestors, great-grand uncles and aunts, and embellished them, as it's called in mixed media. And I must admit I had a ton of fun.
If you've been following my blog, you'll recognize some of the images. I cropped some of my digital creations to 2.5 x 3.5.





I guess that's one way to my creations seen and to get feedback.


... and a few more.

This is my great-grand mother and her brother and sisters doing theatre.

This next one is Mr famous Paul Chabas, with his contemporary namesake (with a Photoshop montage) Mr Paul.

This is Azay le Rideau, a lovely Renaissance castle near my hometown. Small, but so very elegant and graceful.

Two great grand aunts:

And a funny photo in Paris.

Having fun

I've been having so much fun creating art, I've hardly got time to post it here.
I did an autumn impression for one of the groups challenge, by modifying a diary entry I had made when I was in Paris.
I then added some Photoshop doodahs, and here you are: Autumn in Paris. Shot in May 2007, but aged and brought to the right colors. I just love Photoshop.

Visitor

A new Photoshop composition for this Sun Day.
Images are from www.sxc.hu.

Dream poem

The following montage was made in Photoshop to illustrate this poem:

If you're a dreamer, come in,
If you're a dreamer,
A wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er,
A magic bean buyer,
come in,

Shel Silverstein



The puppet comes from an advert for Cirque du Soleil.
The tatooed ladies are from a tatoo advert on google images.

The view in Paradise

Here is the view from my office. I did this montage in Photoshop, based on an idea by the Belgium painter Magritte.
It's made with layers, one of them being the window (which is not my real window, BTW), another layer has the 'real view' from my office, and another layer holds the painting on the easel, which is manipulated and altered with Filters/watercolor and grain paper. And voila!

Banner

If anyone has any suggestions on how to make my blog banner fit across the whole width of the page, I would be eternally grateful. I am admittedly Blog challenged. HEEEEEELP!

Come play...

One of the Yahoo groups I belong to posted the following challenge: two photos to... crop, join, edit, copy, alter digitally, make a card, an ATC, a book cover, anything we wanted.
Here is what I came up with.

I call it: Come play...

Publish Post