'Anyone Who's Known...' excerpt from my original poem

Howdy and Welcome,
These images are from another page in my art journal #2.

Digital collage of images below - using MS DIE

Whole page from art journal #2 -

the calligraphy is an excerpt from my one of my original poems

Page portion from art journal #2 -

close-up showing journaling in foreign languages

(German, ancient Greek, French, my take on ancient Cuneiform).

Also I added a little bit of musical notation.

fyi in my dreams I speak French and I often wake up with original music playing in my head!

Page portion from art journal #2 -

close-up showing tile made from a TH clear plastic tile wrapped in a piece of aluminum repair tape (from hardware store) that I embossed (using texture plates and my Big Shot), painted with Ranger acrylic dabbers and a little light sanding when dry.  I prefer to use the acrylic paints rather than alcohol inks. There is also a strip of mesh tape (from the hardware store.)

The edges are bordered in scrapbook paper scraps - I save the strips when I trim scrapbook paper. I also organize and store scraps by length and type. But that's for a whole other blog post!

Note: before working on any of the pages in the sketchbook, I covered each page, front and back, with 2" masking tape - to give the substrate more strength in preparation of all the stuff I was hoping to do. If it had been watercolor paper I would not have used the tape all over, maybe on the sides as a border. Love those 'paper tapes' from 7gypsies and tissue tapes from TH.

P.S. You know in all the art journal magazines and articles, they never mention how MUCH PREP goes into making this type of art. I spend a lot of time organizing and prepping, before I even begin to paint!

What do you think of this page? Have you ever experimented with writing foreign languages or writing music notation in your journals?

Thanks for visiting - please stop by again when you have a moment or 2.

Peace,

LuLu

'Summer Breeze' Challenge

"...in every lovely summer's day I'll always think of you - Sarah"

2.5" x 3.5"

Mixed-media - hybrid digital collage, glass, gel pen

'I'll be seeing you in all the familiar places

that this heart of mine embraces...

in a chestnut tree or a wishing well...

in every lovely summer's day

I'll always think of you...

I'll find you...' 

- lyrics of a Sarah Vaughn song

Ingredients:

Kimberly's digital sketch, my scanned original photos,

my scanned vintage ephemera,

my scanned custom flower embellishment,

glitter glue, gel pen, digital software products.

Howdy and welcome.

This is my entry into Kimberly's Summer Breeze challenge. The original line drawing of the lovely lass is done by Kimberly. Then I altered the drawing with my custom digital artwork and scrapbooking embellishments. Altering this image was fun - and challenging!

All the patterns and background are my original creations from my original digital scans of vintage ephemera and from my original photos. (I prefer to work with my own art and not have to worry about copyright issues. Using my own work is so much more fun, too.) I worked back and forth between Microsoft Digital Image Editor and Photoshop Elements (PSE). Many layers, lighting effects, contrast, saturation, gradients and levels of transparency were used.

After I got all the frames, patterns and backgrounds the way I liked, a heart was added. Then lyrics were added from a Sarah Vaughn song I'd been listing to on my iPod while waiting at the car repair shop. Her gaze seemed to echo the song's mood perfectly. That was serendipity.

After printing the digital image on photo paper, I sealed it with soft gel  medium gloss (Golden) and let dry overnight. Next day, I added glitter glue (Stickles)  to her hair, to her bangles and 3 dots on the left, then added dots of red gel pen to the heart and strands of hair.  Then let dry overnight.

Following day, I scanned the embellished image and changed the image size to standard ATC dimensions. Next I created a digital flower brush in PSE using a scan of a flower embellishment I'd constructed ages ago for scrapbooking. I applied the digital flower brush three times on the right, applying a shadow to each of the 3 digital flowers, and applied gradients on each flower, too! 

Signed it and submitted to the challenge. Then I went on vacation!

Later, I may post some step-by-step images of my process.

Don't you just love the pattern in her dress? It's made from a Photoshop brush I whipped up. Have you tried to create any digital brushes? Have you used any store-bought brushes from digital kits? What do you think of these patterns and backgrounds?

Thanks for stopping by - and I'd love for you to come back again!

Peace,

LuLu 

Atlas - carrying the weight of the world

"Carrying the weight of The World"

Original Digital Collage

3.5" x 5"

This digital collage was entered in Three Muses challenge. It was created using two image editing software products - Microsoft Digital Image Editor and PSE (Photoshop Elements). Created going back and forth between the 2 programs using 5 images (scans of vintage photo frame, vintage map, sheet music, animation registration grid, an old earring), lots of layers, masking, transparency settings, contrast, saturation, lighting effects, and gradient transparent colors. (approx. 2 hours)