A Merry Christmas to One and ALL!

Enjoy the Holidays, Everyone!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Photo Painting Image

Here are the finished images 

Baby Blue  and 

Luna looking Up

Compare them to their  WIPS   below to see the difference!

Photo Painting Exercise

Hand-Colouring Home Printer Photos HOW-TO:

I printed  out my own black-and-white photos to colour with Epson Durabrite inks on Epson Glossy Photo paper.....just de-saturate your coloured ones to turn them into black and white..

The pens and inks I used to hand colour were rated permanent, smudge and bleed-proof....and were they ever! ( Faber-Castell Pitt artist pens- use the brush tipped ones - and  Staedtler Lumocolor pens , Pioneer Gel pens )

The TWO most important things I learned from doing these was:

1.    DO NOT  use pens DIRECTLY on  Glossy Photo paper.....it looks awful, frankly.......covers all the shadows and gradations of tone up!

The exception is gel pens, which add nice highlights here and there ( see car chrome and cat's whiskers )

2.     Instead USE a damp -not wet - flat sable brush to transfer inks from the tips of your pens TO the paper surface

EASY , no?

I  have uploaded both the experimental first  WIP set and the final work to compare and see the real difference those TWO little easy steps make !

QUAN YIN - Chinese Goddess of Compassion

Quan Yin - The Chinese Buddhist Goddess of Compassion is one of 4 cards created for the WATER elements exchange on ATCS FOR ALL.

Patroness of Fishermen, she is sometimes seen standing on water over a lotus- symbol of purity- and a protective dragon-or overcome sea serpent - about her....she is also seen depicted carrying either a vase of merciful water to pour out to those in need , or a willow branch.

Digital design of about 9 layers

Summer 2010 Exchanges I"ve been in!

I haven't written here, but I have been busy creating art!

The other cards in these exchanges - usually 3 different out for 3 back - can be seen over on my ATC"sFOR ALL Gallery page

Some methods:

Constellations were done on coated  scratchboard paper with cp and gel pens...found the surface is so slick anything used to colour photographs  ( like Marshall's photo cps ) works on that surface very nicely!

Tried "scraping" first and found it not my forte'!

The Tiffany lamp postage stamp was built around a last century French fashion illustration, with added collaged elements

The "Apple twins" are a face doubled and cut out.  Image courtesy of WACKY STUFF ,  of FLICKER.

The "Nuptial Visit" is a PD Theatre image I collaged over a water-coloured background over which I embossed feather shapes with cp for the wall-paper.

"The Newfangled Invention " actually WAS an invention...!!

I placed it in the early 1900s, but it actually was invented in the early 1930's...the inventor remains a Frenchman, but with his HEAD SWAPPED for a more EDWARDIAN-looking fellow, following STEAMPUNK-  period"conventions"

Three pictures were combined and layered to make it , and I decided designing it to look like an old studio photo of the period would be fun!

Lu Hai and the three-legged toad

Title: Lu Hai and his 3-legged Toad

1 in a series of 4 designs done for an Asian-themed exchange on ATC’s FOR ALL.

( The link here goes directly to my Gallery, there , to see the rest )

There are many versions of this theme of the good luck and riches toad and his human companion.

I chose to combine 2 Ming Dynasty images of the story I found in the Smithsonian Museum online; the main image is shown here, untouched and as as I downloaded it.

Quite the fun challenge to “clean it up” a bit - left some of the bottom stains in for effect - and frame it with a colour-changed border of a Chinese silk painting I got years ago.

My intention was to print it - and other Asian designs I did - on silk, but found the silk version of light art works much muted; ( nice for Lu Hai- but not the others ).. even with more saturation and set to best printing mode... and the darker prints were just too dark...AH me!
Cotton dulled all prints
Mulberry paper worked well with the darker, but soaked up the lighter!

So with Epson pigment ink and on Epson photo paper it remains!

Vintage Lace

I loved creating these ...and I love the result!

These are the digital copies - the ones mailed for the exchange are of fabric.

Printing the images on silk fabric for inkjet, and adhering them and the lace with sheet adhesive worked very well!

Can't wait to see what the mail brings for me!

Exquisite Corpse

Meet Geraldine 

( not the transvestite one from Some Like it Hot - before that )!

A 3 part image to be mixed-and-matched in a swap called Exquisite Corpse.

She was inspired from a photo of an early stage and screen actress named Geraldine Farrar; done with cp/fine line marker and metallic pen on Bristol.

Her pose and attitude reminded me of a Mucha model, so I followed his lead in the decorative detail, though substituting silver for his lush gold.

Newest ATCS Traded

Thought I"d show what I've been up to, Art-wise, besides digital -work.

I've been in a series of exchanges over at the ATCS FOR ALL Web-site over the past few months; shown above are some of them!

I quite like the set-up of the ATCS FOR ALL trading site... you join a swap -  numerous varied themes are always on the go - and usually have a time limit of 6 weeks to 2 months to complete either 3 0r 6 pieces of art to swap for...3 for 3 or 6 for 6.

The host master/mistress chooses what they consider like for like effort &/or ability wise.. after having been in a fair amount of swaps now I can say that I think generally, the host decisions as to how to swap OUT - whom to whom - are fair, more than not.....You send in to them, and they swap all received cards out to the other traders.

The prime  advantage for me is because I am only making a limited amount of cards within a discrete time span - I usually opt for 3 for 3 -I feel I personally end up actually doing BETTER WORK...it keeps my initial interest fresh and alive!

I truly believe that attitude works both ways; affecting other participants as well!

Time To Leave

TIME TO LEAVE was created for the occasion of the first year anniversary The Three Muses Challenge site.

The sailing  ship is actually the BLUENOSE, a yacht of considerable racing fame for Canada...if you've ever seen our dime, it's on it......the girl a shepherdess from a last Century British Victorian painter of pastoral scenes.

My husband commented it must be a ship of crazy seamen going full tilt from such a shallow harbor.....but I reminded him looks can be deceptive; especially if you're starting to experience a sea-change, of sorts , as I think this lass longs for!

Happy May Day , one and All!

TITLE:   Reader Rock Gardens

SWAP:   Vintage Spring/ ATC'S FOR ALL

I researched Historic Houses in the Calgary area from at least 85 years ago to make the sources Vintage. Calgary was only declared a city -of 4000 souls- in 1884; so most Vintage homes are of the 1885-1925 era.

Couldn't help throwing in a famous cowboy's homesteader's cabin about 150 km from Calgary, though!
I also tried to match the era of the house with flora and fauna that would likely have either naturally grown or been planted in the area at the time.

THE HOW:

I designed the cards digitally in layers; then printed the underlying house layers on adhesive cotton that went over a base of a green floral print which I had distressed.
A layer of waxed paper went under a transparency printed with a floral overlays.

Constructing a card that way is quite new to me; so I've learned a bit from the experience..know better what to do next time around!

AS OF APRIL 30, 2010 , THERE IS STILL SNOW ON THE GROUND HERE...WE WERE HIT BY A SLEET STORM THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY, AND SNOW YESTERDAY MORNING!

THAT'S CALGARY!

HappyTomorrow-is- Earth Day, Everyone!

Quaking Aspen Forest  in Early Spring / main imagery from land near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, others from the US and Canadian Forest Services, and in the Public Domain  /  Digital work of 19 layers

Originally created as one of my cards for the Magical Air Elements swap at ATC's For All

Busy at ATC's for All!

I have been busy creating Art- digital and otherwise- for some of the themed swaps courtesy of the members of the  ATC's for All( AFA ) site as of late.....

I have a GALLERY over there featuring cards I created for some of the swaps I have been involved in.

I will be uploading a few examples to post here,  in the near future!

The one posted above, Winter Tree is a photo transfer onto film, adhered to paper I made out of watercolour paper scraps and white cabbage!

It is ATC-sized, 1 in a series of 4 made for the TREES Swap I was in.  The other 3 can be seen in my Gallery on the site.

Memories of Varanasi

Memories of Varanasi is a card I created for a Travel exchange on the Wet Canvas site, it is a digital collage of about 20 or so layers using almost all personal photos from around the holy city of Varanasi on the holy river Ganges, which my husband and I visited in the 1980"s, long ago and far away.

Most of the incredibly carved buildings built during that time of the Moghul rule still stand.

TITLE:   Memories of Varanasi

CHALLENGE:  Architecture challenge from The Three Muses weekly digital challenge site.

The flower seller was on  the very first transfer image I ever made, and only the second ATC I traded. He fronted a card I called BEAUTY-found on my sidebar, here - as I found and still find him a sublime representative of it...and Grace..

Happy Valentine's Day, Everyone!

ATCS FOR ALL Site & Photography Festival Feb 1-28 2010

Went tonight to a First Thursday Gallery opening at one of my favourite Calgary little eclectic book arts loving Galleries where I made my first ever IN-PERSON-and-IN -THE-FLESH ATC exchange!

I traded with photographer Roberta Murray, who is also known as  uncommondepth  on the ATCS  for All website....I received a print of her fine limited edition  digitally enhanced Alberta parkland photo "Daybreakers" in exchange for my own ( Artist proof)  copy of "Eternity"..

Interesting to talk to an established Artist who  agrees that there is still prevalent a lack of acceptance for the validity and merit of creative photographic art enhanced digitally on behalf of still quite a few out there... 

I"m also in a mail art trade with another member of the site who does lovely digital art from Finland, trading a post-card size copy of my digitally archived but never printed or traded  "The Ghost in the Machine "

We're both quite interested in seeing how long mail takes from there to Canada -and vice -versa!

ATC's for ALL is a PRIMO site for all kinds of trades and swaps ever-changing and fast moving....

One can configure their own Gallery and thus display any cards they want to trade one-on-one; or join one of the active swaps ", there's also forums for swapping art other than ATCS...such as inchies, chunkies, bookmarks or the aforementioned Mail Art...

Have joined:

-a digital "round robin" 

-a 3-for-3 swap on TREES ( any medium )

-a 3-for3 on the theme "Air" ( any medium )

-and a 3-for-3 creating your own hand-drawn and coloured CHIMERA

For anyone at all interested in Art exchanges I most definitely say ...

CHECK IT OUT!

Eternity

Title:     Eternity

Swap:   Digital Art Quirks Group                             Theme:   Time

Challenge:     The Three Muses Quotation Challenge                                      

Layers:     9                                                                          

Source Imagery:     PD Images of a turn-of-the-Century "Alice by the rabbit hole "-possibly Alice Liddell,  Carroll's model for his fictional heroine;  Einstein's "clock" theoretical mock-up. and back-ground textures from the FLKR Free Textures Group,  sky and birds and waves photos in the Public Domain; Corinthian capital from Art History textbook page.

QUOTE:

Eternity is not something that begins

            After you are dead...

                        It is going on all the time....

                                                       - Charlotte Perkins Gillman

Traded with members of DAQ for their January swap.....a gold gel pen was used on the cards traded to highlight 1/2 the spokes of the wheel and the word Eternity.

Gillman's quote has a singular perspective on time that holds particular meaning for me at this point in my own personal scale of time. 

Printmaking Event This Week-end!

                     Hybrid Print/sculpture by Eveline Kolijn / on view at UAS

Intergraphia -  A Winter Printmaking Event runs Thursday night through Saturday Day this week-end in Calgary this week-end at various gallery venues such as non-profit, commercial, artist-run co-ops.  The above work, at Contexture: New Directions and Intersections in Printmaking at The Untitled Art Society Gallery on display until February 5th - is by Eveline Kolijn,  an artist I have studied etching with, who is a printmaker and Instructor at ACAD- the Alberta College of Art. 

See you there!