Dragonfly

Found this great old image and had to use her in this digital collage. I added dragonfly images and many layers of art paper and artisitc filters to create a gauzy effect.

Soft Light Falling

This is a digital collage I made using a photo I took last weekend at a lovely pond that was swollen with rain and and fulled with moss. The photo had a soft somewhat eerie light to it. I added this image and some text for a vintage mood. This is for the Digital Whisper challenge (Soft).

Faerie Dream

This is my entry for the Mixed Media Monday challenge where the theme this week is "eggs". I made these (paper napkin eggs) last year and decided to use them in a digital collage composed of photos from my backyard (birdhouse, and a beautiful nest that we found abandoned, and a faerie garden sculpture). A bit magical in color and content!

The eggs are really fun and easy to make. I used large eggs and pricked the top and bottom with an embroidery needle to make two holes to blow the contents of the eggs out into a bowl. (Be sure to make an omelet or a great scramble afterwards)! Run water through the egg to clean completely and then let them dry. Now for the fun, I simply brushed my Golden Gel medium over the entire egg and started to apply torn bits of decorative paper napkins (there are tons of beautiful designs out there) or tissue paper (remove all other plys from the colored layer) and press firmly ; the glue makes the tissue shrink and adhere perfectly. You get a wonderful swirled marbelized effect. Cover the whole egg (the holes will disappear). I have kept mine out all year (away from direct sunlight ) and they have stayed beautiful.

Ravensong

You know who you are

bird of darkness.

Your soul goes deep

through myth and time.

You know your song

it tells a tale of woe.

Knowing full well

all who encounter you

rise with the night.

This is my entry for the Darkness Inspiration challenge (The Dark Birds- Raven and Crow). Multi-layer digital collage with Dover images, background (scrapbookgraphics), artist papers and artistic filters in Photoshop.

Artisan

Woke up real early this morning and made this entry for the 4x4 Friday challenge. This digital collage is made from personal photos taken in New York and San Rafael, (Italian Street Painting festival) and a magazine image. I wanted to capture the spirit of the street artisan with all of the movement, color and sort of chaos that represents urban art. He be jammin'.

The Water Bearer

Over the past couple of weekends we have taken some really nice Sunday drives and I have had the opportunity to take a lot of digital photos. One stop was at a wonderful winery in Sonoma County and I took a picture of the side of a beautiful old building ( well, a new building) that looks like old Tuscany, complete with shutters, statues and vines. I used this photo as the background for this piece and added an old vintage image that seemed to look a part of this scene. I also added some vases, stone medallions and a bit of greenery. I really liked how the reflection in the window from the surrounding grounds was picked up naturally.

Darjeeling

This is my entry for The Three Muses challenge this week where the theme is "A Cup of Tea".
I must confess I am a total 'coffee' person, but I do love the idea of the ceremony/ritual that surrounds tea. Tea comes from exotic, mysterious, artful places. It takes time to prepare, savor and complete a tea ceremony- which has enjoyed a huge revival in the past 5 years. So many wonderful blends are available now and I have bought a lot of pretty packages filled with wondrous descriptions of ingredients....but alas I have drank very little.
I bought a beautiful clear teapot where you drop this strange looking dried up pod into the pot, add boiling water and voila- a beautiful pot of herbal tea and I have lots of cute tea sets from Chinatown (that look great but are seldom used). But, with all of this attraction to tea ( and its acoutrements) I still return to coffee; hot, hi-octaine and fast to get me going!
I created this digital collage (with all of that pretty packaging in mind) from a photo of one of my own inherited teacups along with labels and photos of spices that I own- I'm thinking Darjeeling spiced Chai while I relax amidst the verdant beauty of an Indian garden courtyard.......sounds great huh!

Pacifica

This is a collage made from a lovely image provided by Digitalwhisper and some of my personal photos from an island cruise we took several months ago of coral beds, ocean sunset and palms. Artistic filters added in Photoshop.

The Flower Girl

This is my entry for the Mixed Media Monday challenge "Vintage Children" . This collage is made from tie-dyed fabrics (scanned) artist papers and vintage images (Dover). I multiplied the color and used pinlight effects with reduced opacity which gave it a crayon or pastel on canvas finish.

An Evening At The Blue Note

This digital collage was inspired by listening to some wonderful jazz the other night in San Francisco with our adult son (who is a professional jazz saxophonist). The sounds of jazz music are in my best description soothing, sophisticated and thought provoking. Pop music is great but it has a fleeting, frantic pace which at my age starts to make me nervous. I used cool, calming colors and tried to recreate an intimate and festive feel to this piece envisioning an evening out at a Jazz club called The Blue Note.

Rites Of Spring

This is my entry for the 4x4Friday challenge " Spring Equinox." One of the major sabbats that celebrates the turning of the wheel from midwinter into spring- where light and dark are of equal lengths. My digital collage is composed of symbolic images: Eostre (the maiden of Spring ), the egg( new life) the rabbit (fertility) and flowers (renewal of the earth ).

Empire

The topic at Theme Thursday this week is "masculine" an element I don't ususally lean towards in my art collages- I really tend towards the feminine- so a good challenge for me! I created this digital blending with old script and stamps as a backgound overlayed with historic European building images. The Roman sculpture from (Dover). Color screening was used along with reduced layers of opacity for an aged appearance. Yep he's definately masculine enough!

Masquerade

This is my entry for the Three Muses challenge where the theme is (incognito/ disguise). I envisioned this young girl attending a butterfly festival where her subtle effects and mask allow her to blend in.

Haunting

The Collage Obsession Challenge this week gave us this wonderful church/graveyard image and I decided to do a ghostly bit of digital collage. Background textures from scrapbookgraphics and spirit images from Dover all blended in photoshop.

Madras

Digital play with fabrics, layers and altered images. Batik, madras and Henna design all created by reduced opacity and pin light filters for a Bohemian character.

The Goddess In All Things

"Salutations to the Goddess who dwells in all things as their innermost nature, salutations again and again."
This quote is from an ancient Indian chant which speaks to the goddess as air, water, fire and earth; a tree , a spider a grain of sand. She is in all things- the feminine face of God. She transforms everything she touches and spins the complex web of life that sustains us. This is my 4x6 entry for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge (Goddess).

The Forest Spirit

This is my entry for the Art Creations Friday challenge which provided us with this beautiful (Waterhouse) image. I was working on a "Greenman" piece using photos of my backyard and a greenman garden sculpture ( he is the shadowy green figure who oversees the forest) when this lovely maiden comes along to help me finish my digital collage. I added a little owl and artistic filters in photoshop. Background from (Scrapbookgraphics).

Wild Heart

I had fun blending images to create this digital collage which I envisioned Diana/Artemis the Huntress in her element . Background from (Scrapbookgraphics, image from e-vint.com.). I scanned, cropped and added digitally colored bow and arrows and layered in color for background flora. Too fun- makes me want to venture into the forest!

Society Page

The theme this week at the Three Muses is (Newspaper). My collage is built from a current newspaper background and old clippings from a 1927 "womens" society page that my grandmother had saved (not sure why) but it was amongst her old photos. The image is from flickr-free and I added the color flowers from my own photos.
It's unfortunate but it seems that the day and age of the newspaper is definately passing on. With real-time news on the internet and TV, newspapers cannot possibly keep up and readership and subscriptions are disappearing rapidly. We have lost several local newspapers in the the past year. My husband and I still subscribe to our county paper for local interests and happenings, but it is funny how we sit down and already know most of what's going on in the world from the internet. Despite high-tech we still enjoy our coffee and paper ritual together in the wee hours before heading out- old habits die hard!

Hollywood

This is my entry for the Collage Obsession Challenge (Movies) and a bit of a tribute to the Oscars and glamorous Hollywood of years ago. Image is Dorothy Lamour from a 1944 film poster. I added lens flare and vintage curtains along with some metallica for a little bling!

Sahara

This is my entry for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge where the theme is (Travel). My digital 4x6 postcard is made from using a fashion magazine image, digitally cut sunbursts from a painted journal page, old map images and text. Gradient filters and reduced opacity used for a sandy , worn look.

Global Dream

This is my entry for the 4x4Friday challenge which is celebrating International Women's Day (March 8th). Women naturally bring a sense of Grace and Community to the world which spans all nationalities and beliefs. If we embrace the feminine in all of us there would be greater peace and nuturing of our planet. Hopefully celebrating the essence of women on this day will bring us closer to a more compassionate and patient world. Let's walk lightly and with sensitivity .

Amusements

This is my entry for the Theme Thursday Challenge this week (Art Words). Art, Poetry , Dance and Music - all words of inspiration and delight to excite the muse within us. The base for this piece is from one of my journal pages over layed with an image from Dover. Hand painted, rubber stamped, foiled and assorted artist papers all scanned and blended in Photoshop.

Alice & Co.

This is my entry for the Collage Obsession Challenge this week. I used the beautiful image given (stonework entry and stairs) and overlayed personal photos of some moss and floral groundcover from my yard. I decided to add Alice and her rabbit friend (Dover) for a fun fantasy feel . The pocketwatch is also a personal photo. All mixed and layered in Photoshop.