ideas for painting & drawing

As I get ready to start another semester of classes, I have been giving some thought to what direction my work will take. I have two semesters left, and a senior exhibit and I've nothing to show yet!  I have been playing with different images of trees, some are photos I took myself and others I have collected from stock photographs. I have a tree in a local nature preserve that I am especially fond of, and I think I might work a little more with images of it through the seasons and in different weather, lighting, etc.  In the meanwhile, this is what I played with today.

These are digitally manipulated images of the same image of dead trees, but I am going to try to do them in acrylic paint, oil or chalk pastels and graphite pencil.

The next three images are from a picture I took of my favored tree, and I think I will explore these further in colored pencil and paint, either water color or acrylic...or both!

I *had* to stop by Michaels today to pick up a few things, so I of course was *forced* to walk through the paints and brushes and canvas (oh my) and I think I added about two dozen new items to my wish list (or the just as soon as you have a 40% off coupon in hand list!)

Now off to pick up the boy from school...weiners and potato chips for supper...and a night of stitching!

oh, and I spent my Christmas money...I'm such a nerd.
I had been looking for-eh-ver for a Ronon Dex (Jason Momoa) action figure. FINALLY the Season 3 set showed up on eBay.  Unopened even! (and look! Sheppard!) Now that might not be a whole lot of fun for me, as I really want to set them in strategic places in my little office/creative space for inspiration and the occasional unscheduled gate activation. I will figure it all out later. Right now, I'm just over the moon that I found them after such a long search!
My sister snatches up Star Wars stuff, me, I'm all about the Gate.

light in the woods

On one of my many wanderings about Rasmussen Woods,  I snapped a few pictures of the sun coming in through the tops of the trees.  

I have started looking at some of the pictures for a variety of reasons; to ready myself for my upcoming painting and drawing classes, (even my printmaking class!), to keep working on some of my digital painting skills, and to see what I might piece together for future needlework projects. 

Most know of my fascination with trees. They are often the subject matter of my sketching and I have folders filled with pictures I have taken and others I have come across in my web wanderings. 

This morning I found myself well into coffee pot #2 playing around with these images, first in Photoshop and Illustrator, and then in Pattern Maker.  Kind of weird and different, but I'm kind of diggin' the results.

Cross Stitch Version

 (I really liked this one!)

Cross Stitch Version

It is finally snowing!  Not the big fluffy flakes, but hey, at this point, being through December with nothing on the ground, I will take whatever I can get!  Off to stitch for awhile, and then I might just go tromp around in the wonderful white stuff!

Creative 365: Day 38 Digital Play

{1}

{2}

{3}

{4}

{1}Original, cropped bits of larger images

{2}Original with Paint Shop Pro Mosaic Glass effect applied

{3}Original with Paint Shop Pro Speckled Brushstrokes, Sandstone and Hexagon Tiles effects, 315 angle

{4}Original with Paint Shop Pro Sculpture effect and Seamless Tile applied

Also working on some new Etsy things tonight...had an idea come to me in the middle of the night, woke up, jotted it down and now lets see if I can construct it! ~winks!~

Creative 365: Day 28 Dryer Lint

So today I took pictures and scans of this.

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Dryer Lint!

 I played around with the  image, added some digital effects, merged it with some other manipulated images Here is what I came up with.  This is a project I will probably revisit! 

The dryer lint made its way into my bin for future paper making.  Off to stitch, well, eventually. Right now though I think will take advantage of the gray skies and take a nap while the house is still quiet!

Creative 365: Day 16 Digital Icicles

Yesterday I snapped a few pictures of the icicles hanging off the roof of my house. I knew they would all be melted away by the afternoon. It got me thinking about digitally melting that ice I caught in the photos.

What I ended up with was not so much a melty thing, but textures, and that is alright too. I will probably play a bit more with the icicles to see what other effects I can achieve. Meanwhile, I've tucked these into my texture file.  I have been thinking about broken things lately, and have some images of broken glass that I think I can combine with these for some interesting manipulations. 

Now off for more coffee, another Golden Girl rerun and some stitching!