No Worries About Yesterday

This is for the challenge from Artarazzi.  They gave us the beautiful image of the woman, and the only other stipulation was to use the color orange.  Thanks for looking.

Autumn Years

Challenge from SoArtful Challenges this week was to make something with the theme of lipstick, powder and paint.  I thought of this as we seem to think beauty is only in our youth.  I think we are more beautiful in our senior years..even if it doesn't show so much on the outside.  Yes, we still use lipstick, powder and paint,  although the miraculous use of digital imaging can be better than the makeup.  :-) 

Lovely award from June

What a wonderful award from June! I was so pleased to receive both of these from June, and they certainly made my day! Thank you June..it is very thoughtful and very much appreciated!

Thank you June!

This beautiful award is from June and I know I'm supposed to pass it on, and I will within the next few days.  Thank you so much, June..I do appreciate your thoughfulness!

Do You Believe?

I had fun with this one. She just isn't sure if she should believe or turn away. Such a problem. :-)
The lovely and thoughtfull woman is from Art Creations Friday for this weeks challenge.  Thank you for the great image..it was fun to work with.

Sorrow and Lonliness

I love this challenge...because I had an immediate idea of what I wanted to do..LOL  This is for Art on the Darkside and the challenge is Birds.  My first thought was Edgar Allan Poe and the Raven, so I had to follow through with it and this is my take on birds.  It's a great challenge..thanks, June.  

Deceived

This is for the Art on the Darkside challenge.  The theme is evil eyes.  I don't know about evil, but it is scary. :-)  I love reading mysteries, so that's kind of where my mind went.  

Pitfalls of Passion

Wow..this was workout.  This challenge is from SoArtful Challenges and it turned out to be a real challenge for me!  I made 4 different designs, and finally decided to settle on this one.  It was a good workout and I did have fun with it.   The background design is from MAS and my apologies but I don't remember where I got it from.  Click on the above link if you want to see the original challenge. Thanks for looking.

Love is for All

What a fun challenge from Artarazzi this was.  Vron supplied us with a picture of lines that we had to use plus the finished piece had to have the color red in it.  I deformed the lines until they were swirly, then decided I had better put in the lines, too since you couldn't tell anymore that there were lines.  :-)  I played around with this for hours trying to figure out what looked best, but I went with this one for more of a fantasy piece since I hadn't done one in a while. 

The figures are Paint Shop Pro tubes from MTM-Brigitte, who shares them through Top Design Tubes.  The other tubes are from groups that no longer exist.  I have been doing my own from photos for about a year now for some commercial work, and it was fun to look through all of these again and play with them. :-)

Thanks Vron for this great challenge! 

Kreative Award

I want to thank Virginia for this beautiful Kreative Award she passed on to my blog.  It is so appreciated!  Thank you for thinking of me.

I would like to pass this on to the following blogs.  I so enjoy looking at their work and creativity. It is inspiring.

Birgit

Ann

Willy

Hanne

Chris

Soulful Eyes

This is my play with the little girl image from the Art Creations Friday challenge.  Thanks to ACF for some great images and ideas to play with every week. 

Colors of the Rainbow

On this Rainbow entry for SoArtful Challenges I chose to use some colors of the rainbow. The swirleys in the middle are  a font called Florals 2, and the two side swirls with florals are from Kansas.  I had fun playing with this and I hope you enjoy viewing it.  Thanks for looking.

History Being Made

Tomorrow, January 20th we will see history being made with the inauguration of Barack Obama as our 44th President.   It is an exciting and hopeful time, and I wanted to put something together to celebrate our hope.

I also took the opportunity to participate in the Artarazzi challenge  hosted by Indybev this week.   The swirl element I put in left hand lower corner to be a part of the fireworks, and it can be hard to spot as I used a soft light for the blend mode so it wouldn't overpower the graphic. Thanks, Bev and Artarazzi for the challenge, and thanks for looking.  

Memories

I have been so busy this week with work being done in the house that I didn't take the time to post anything since Monday.  Today I noticed the challenge from Art Creations Friday.

The image of the young school girl provided  for this weeks challenge reminded me of my mother.  I had to do something with it and this was what I came up with.  The other photo is a picture of my mother when she was about 20.  This is all digital,  done in PSP with layers, masks and misting the images to blend more into the background.  I enjoyed working with this wonderful image of the young girl.  Thanks to Art Creations Friday for the challenge.

Secret Admirer

This piece is for the challenge at SoArtful Challenges.  They provided the picture in black and white of the woman and the challenge was to make something using that image.  This is my digital entry using layers, blend modes, brushes and tubes to create this scene with a grunge effect.  I love doing blends and had fun working with this...gave me a good workout. :-)  I hope you enjoy viewing it. 

Winter Fun

We got snow this year in Portland and it was lovely and fun for the kids.  Schools were mostly closed the week before the Holiday vacation started, and with so many streets not being plowed it ended up not being so lovely for many of us.  I was so thrilled to see it melt away and to feel warmer temperatures (high 40's and low 50's) along with the rain.  Yes!  I can handle this.  I moved here from San Francisco, so rain I is something I'm used to in the winter months. 

This was a picture I took of my grandson during his first experience with snow, and I made a digital painting from it.  He was so excited...he got to go sledding with a friend of his from day care/school and he and his dad built a wonderful snowman and he thought the weather was just fine. :-)    Fortunately it doesn't happen often.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday!

Winter Frost Moo

This is for the challenge at Make a moo or two.  I had never made a "moo" before, but had to try it.  I saw some real beauties as I was looking around.  The theme is Winter Frost and I took this picture and split it..one for each moo..and then added the tubes of the children and some snow.  I've always loved this picture and have used it for a couple of my pieces.  I hope you enjoy it and thanks for looking! 

My grandson is going to gymnastics this morning, so I'll see you all later.  Have a wonderful day!

Garden of Dreams

My first challenge!  This challenge is a background from Art Creations Friday.  They provided a beautiful background to work with and this is what I came up with. 

As I was playing with it, I  envisioned young dancers in a garden of flowers and went from there.  I see this as an Outdoor Theater with a young ballerina in the background watching and dreaming.  I had a great time working with this background and I hope you enjoy seeing what I did with it. 

Time to Start

I decided it was time to start a blog. I've had this since 2005, but never did much with it.  I love working with PSP, and have seen some blogs with challenges and thought it would be good to enter some of them and get my creative juices flowing again. 

I am grandmother to a 3 1/2 year old grandson and I love having him around!  Tuesday and Thursdays I take him to swim classes, and his first one was Tuesday.  He was shy, and would sit on the side of the pool, but wouldn't get in.  The pool must look huge to him so I sure do understand his hesitation.  Out of the five kids that were there, only 2 would get in the water and play, and they had taken the class before.  Leo loves the water, so I know he will jump in when he's ready.