Day 207

So Bonnie is hosting the Friday Pixel Dust Photo Art again and this is one of the photos I took this week.  I used her Spring Light Canvas texture along with a greyscale canvas texture and the blending modes.  I was going to add a saying/poem, but decided it was beautiful without any words. 

Update: Well darn, I was all gung-ho and it doesn't start again until August 2nd.   Oh well, I enjoyed making it! 

Day 102

Bonnie's challenge this week for the Photo Art Friday is "Shadows & Light".   While I was exploring the yard over the weekend, I ventured into the garden where I found what was suppose to have been a Mammoth Sunflower.  Unfortunately, it didn't make it's normal size but it had dried naturally on its stem and was leaning against the wood fence.  Perfect photo opt! 

Day 95 & Day 96

I missed Bonnie's challenge last week st PDP and this week her challenge is "Collage".  I love collage, all sorts of collage, but photos of collage are not something I normally do.  I have been doing a series of photos that I call: "Lost & Found" which are of items I find at the local park on my daily walks.  I gathered up some of the things I found, such as the broken pine branch that still had pine cones attached, along with a beautifully shaped seed pod and a few dried pine needles.  I assembled them on one of the picnic tables, to create this first collage.

The second collage is one that I built in the front flower garden a few years ago and I always try to capture it year after year when the new flowering buds first open in the spring.  It looks very peaceful & zen like to me.
There are days when the neighboring teenagers sit on the lawn and talk to each other after school and I worried that one of them would dismantle my creation given time.  To my surprise, one of them left me an addition to the structure.  The small white stone tucked in at the right.

I never worried about the neighborhood until a few months ago when someone came onto my porch and stole one of the black metal stars I had hanging outside my front door.  I blame it on someone who perhaps just moved into the neighborhood, a young teen maybe, someone who wanted it and took it for a prize to show off to his friends.  Perhaps it was a challenge given to him by a peer, who knows.  It was along the lines of a prank I'm sure.  So to find this new addition to my collage of rocks, gave me a sense of good Karma again.  "What goes around, comes around."  Thanks!

Day 81

Self Portrait is the theme over at PixelDust this week.  I did share earlier some other avatars, but this one is definitely my alter-ego avatar.  She is originally a canvas piece that was covered in Asian script.  A foam wig head was cut in half and applied.  Several layers of stamping, drawing, inking, etc. were done to create the patina collage.  The bulbs on her head are the ideas that are constantly floating around in my head.  While these are not light bulbs, but Christmas ornaments, they created the illusion of light bulbs for this piece.  Of course the glasses completed my look.  So this is me, or I should say, my altered me.  Frozen in time.  You may have seen her before since I use her as my on-line presence.  She's my avatar on Facebook, Pinterest, ning groups, galleries, anywhere that an avatar can be used.  Heaven forbid I would ever have to or want to change her.  Would take me all day! 

Day 78-79

Over at PixelDust this week, Bonnie's challenge was a portrait.  Next week, a self-portrait.  I like to create avatars which represent my alter egos.  I have quite a few of these little thumbnails in my folder now.  This image is a headband that I designed for my Jewelry book that came out a few years ago.  It is a hand painted copper patina, wig head on a wooden base.  I use these wig heads in my assemblage art quite often since I'm not, nor ever have been, a portrait artist.  They allow me to use the human head as a generalized element in my 3-D work.  I wish I was always this peaceful and calm.  Something to work towards this year.  Tai-Chi and Yoga anyone?

 The 2nd image is another avatar that I haven't used yet.  It is of a necklace I made for a competition that required you to have your display for sale.  I made this for myself, so I didn't want to part with it.  It's made using jet black & amber jade which is the perfect accents for the focal element. 

The avatar I use everyday, which is posted at places, such as Facebook, my ning groups, photography groups, etc. will be shown next week for the self-portrait challenge, because I can relate to it more than the ones shown here.

Reflecting on these two avatars, I noticed they are jewelry related which is insane because I rarely wear jewelry other than earrings and a wedding band.  I did say these were alter egos!  I hoard vintage jewelry with the plans to recycle them into something more stunning.  Some day...

Day 68

The Photo Art Friday challenge was to create another abstract using Bonnie's textures.  Well, I piled them on!  Here is the list of textures that were used to create the background for this layout: 1. Antique Me, 2. Cobblestone Road, 3. Dropped Petals, 4. Sweet Thoughts, 5. Scratched Lens and 6. Soft Reflections.  I cut and pasted parts of these textures to get the layout covered then I applied a hand-painted and stamped detail from my art studio.  With blending modes, each layer was altered and here is the final design. 
This 2nd image is of the first version using nothing but Bonnie's textures and some brushes.  I'm so glad I kept this because I can see using it again in the future.  A quote would be nice, or maybe just one simple word. 

Day 61-62

The days and weeks are flying by so fast and it's Photo Art Friday again!   I enjoy Bonnies weekly challenges that she posts over on her blog.  Her challenge this week is Vintage. I love working with the old black and white  images from days gone by.  Usually one of the hundreds of cabinet cards in my collections or the 50's Polaroids that my own family took.  The people depicted are/were real, live people struggling through some difficult times, or living the good life, depending on who they were.  They are beautiful in and of themselves, but I still like to play around with the images by adding some color, textures and in this case, some amazing shadows.   Here is my favorite: A chroma negative effect of the same image.

You can also scroll down for yet a totally different look of a mid 30's farm bureau black and white photo from the Library of Congress archives below.  That was created via many saved altered layers so that I could keep the writing visible in the placards they are holding. 

Day 53

It's Photo Art Friday again over at Bonnies BLOG  This week her challenge is the word: Connected.  Since I posted the image earlier this week, (The Farmers Winter Field below) I will have to see what else I can come up with. 
Several weeks ago I was playing around with an assignment from Milliande's Self Exploration Workshop and this is another painting I did using some of the shapes from a doodle I made.  It says, "It takes a Village to Raise a Child".  I think it's appropriate for a challenge about being "Connected". 
This was my hubby's favorite of all the paintings I did last week.  Myself, I like the "3-Sisters", posted below. 

Day 46

Another Photo Art Friday over at Bonnie's.  this week she gifted us a texture with Bamboo to use. 
I couldn't decide which one I liked the most, so here are two of my favorites. 

Day 39

This week over at Photo Art Friday, Bonnie challenged everyone to use several of her textures to create a collaged image.  The one texture that had to be used was her "Dropped Petals" texture which I used as the substrate or base of this collage.  Then I layered & blended "Vintage Craqueture" with "Heartache by the Numbers".  The parade march silhouettes are images I duplicated to create what appears as men walking.  The one man looking in the opposite direction sort of looks like Alfred Hitchcock.  Have you seen the new movie about Hitchcock and leading lady?  I watched the oldie a few weeks ago I think it was called "Tippie" or "Tippy"on Netflick.  Interesting story. 

Day 32

Minimalist is the theme for the Photo Art Friday this week over at Pixel Dust Photo Art.  I started working with this image yesterday but it still isn't quite right to me.  I think it needs a cartoonish style with black bold lines, so I will run it through one of my apps to see if I can't accomplish that but over-all I love the look of a vintage Chevy!