Celebrating 300th Post with Animation

Woo HOO! It's my 300th post and just in time, I learned a nifty editing technique from Kim Klassen and a Beyond Layers lesson.  Now I know how to make an animated image. It's a visual party.

The pictures are from my February journal page inspired by Amanda Jolley and her Joy Journal Project. I'll write a separate post with more details on the page techniques.

I think I'll celebrate with a nice hot cup of tea sweeted with honey. Now which tea shall I select?

Framing a Fall Walk



Brookside Park, Ames, Iowa

 In my effort to get back into the practice of editing images for Beyond Layers assignments, I chose a shot I took with my HTC Thunderbolt last fall on a glorious Sunday when Hubby and I went for a walk at a local park.

The point of the assignment was to add frames to our images which is just what I did to help draw your attention toward the biker on the path.  I had a similar shot with no biker, but the human element made this seem more interesting to me.

The light was quite bright and scattered across the image - even in the shadows.  I played with the levels and added a color layer to help boost the warmth I felt that day.

Next I added two frame layers.  One is quite broad and is not very obvious.  I used it to darken the outer part of the image and make the center seem brighter in contrast.  A narrow dark border was added to finish this off.  Both borders are heavily feathered to blend into the shot.

I like knowing how to make this vintage-style border that is similar to a quick action I can do with the PicSay Pro app on my phone.

Zing Zing Zing

I'm back to blogging and I hope to make this a regular practice again.  This quick post features a digitally altered image of my new journal cover.

I decided to join Amanda Jolley's Joy Journal Project to help me get back to art journaling.  Our prompt was to choose a word for 2013 with further instructions.  In December I was watching episodes of the BBC program "As Time Goes By".  One of the main characters sighed that the ZING had gone out of his life.  I love the sound of that word.  ZING
I had a much more serious word in mind - STEADFAST, but ZING wouldn't let go.

This journal has bristol board pages and recycled cereal box covers.  I will bind them with my Zutter.  I may also include other paper in the journal since I'm keeping the pages loose for now.

Pieces of scrapbooking papers were adhered to cereal box cut to size.  I added smears of gesso, and stamping.  Die cut flowers were added.  I will probably add doodling to the covers as well as time goes by.  The insides of the covers are the plain side of the boxes which have some gesso and glazes of color on them with a finish of matte medium.  I can easily embellish them in a variety of ways as time goes by.

I'm also planning to get back to digital image processing and have signed up for more of Kim Klassen's inspiration with Beyond Beyond.  This was the first processing I've done with PSE for a few months and I can't believe how much I've forgotten.  I have several weeks of lessons to pour though to get caught up.  This image was altered with a bit of texture layering and blending modes along with some added text.

More Magnolias - Vintage Style

One of the challenges of photographing Magnolias is finding a focal point when the whole tree is bursting out in blooms.  Last week there were just a few buds fully opened and I was able to get this shot by holding the camera above my head.
It's busy shot, but I was able to bring out the foreground blooms with the help of Kim Klassen's texture layers.  I added a couple layers of The Veil to the uncropped image.  Then I chose a selection to crop and add more texture.  Music Lovin' and Lilly were added to this image.  All layers were adjusted with blending modes and varying opacity.  I erased the texture from the focal blooms on all but one layer of The Veil.

The day was overcast, so I needed to adjust the levels before adding the texture layers.  There had been a soft rain earlier that afternoon.  The wet branches reflect the light grey of the sky.

I'm a huge fan of limited color schemes when I paint, and I like that this image has a limited palette.  The bits of green are a sweet bit of complement to the pinks of the magnolias.

I'm submitting this image to Texture Tuesday, the Pink Edition.  I hope you'll go check out the other images here.  You can see my Flickr stream here.

Magnificent Magnolias - O Magnify the Lord

It's color week in Kim Klassen's eCourse, Beyond Layers.  Wednesday's color was pink.  The timing couldn't be more perfect.  Look what I saw just outside the door when I left work!

The magnolia blossoms look like hundreds of votive cups and the branches are like arms lifted up to Heaven worshipping the Lord God, our Creator!

I did very minimal editing to the images... just level adjustments to lighten up the shots.  The sky was overcast yesterday, so the lighting was quite soft.
The story board template came from Kim's eCourse.  I'm still learning how to use it.  I want to change the top middle image, but haven't figured out a short cut to doing that yet.

Whisper Truth to Myself

It seems ironic to me that I'm posting this image today.  It's the first day of Spring; a time to celebrate the bursting forth of the renewal of green.  I took a tour of my flower gardens today.  I tossed most of the dead sunflowers off to the side.  We are having a record setting heat blast in Iowa, and there is a premature surge of new life in the garden.  Plants that don't normally produce new growth or buds until later in May are displaying infant leaves.

I am torn.  I know from life experience that this just ain't right.  There could be snowstorms in the next few weeks.  More likely, killing frost and freezing temperatures will come. I haven't been liberated from these thoughts to celebrate the early spring to its fullness.

Honestly, I do have fear.  Fear that fruit crops will suffer.  Our crab apple tree stood naked all winter because last spring a hail storm destroyed its blooms when they should have been pollinated.  There was not one marble sized crab apple on that tree. I missed the kisses of cranberry red against the winter sky.  I missed the flocks of robins or cedar waxwings stripping them away in late winter.

So now I must pray, knowing the Lord IS my helper.  He can and will help me through disappointments and loss.  He has been faithful in the past and he will be again.  Sara Groves sings it so well.

This image was shot in my winter garden.  I processed it with Photoshop Elements 4.0 to convert it to black and white and enhanced it with Kim Klassen's texture layer Flourish.  In Kim's eCourse, Beyond Layers, we were prompted by the word "whisper", which is what inspired me to choose this image from my archives.

Kim will be offering another round of Beyond Layers and I highly recommend this course.  There is technical information as well as artistic insight and exploration.

I Love Chicago!

Vintage, painterly effects applied

I love Chicago.  Every time I see this sign I smile.
It was lots of fun applying the latest homework from Beyond Layers to transform the ordinary shot into this warm vintage style image.

Straight from the camera

This was so much fun, I think I'll do more...

Makarios - Blessed - Happy

The Greek word 'makarios' is often translated as blessed or happy.

What a joy it has been to give my images new life using the editing skills I'm learning and by applying Kim Klassen's texture layers.  In Beyond Layers, Kim recently prompted us to consider choosing happiness.

In Bible study, I learned that the Greek word 'makarios', usually translated as 'blessed' in the New Testament, can also properly be translated as 'happy'.  Makarios is used several time in the familiar passage known as the Sermon on the Mount.  Ever since learning that truth, these words have been inseparable in my mind.

This excerpt is from the Holman Bible Dictionary:
"In the New Testament, the word “bless” often translates makarios, meaning “blessed, fortunate, happy.” The special characteristic of New Testament uses of “bless” and related words is close relationship to the religious joy people experience from being certain of salvation and thus of membership in the kingdom of God."

The Carefree Beauty Rose grows on a shrub that my husband and I selected for our anniversary many years ago.  It graces our garden with blooms from early summer through fall as long as the deer and rabbits leave it alone!

I applied screen adjustment to the image which helped unify the lighting since the background was very dark compared to the bloom in full sun. Kim's texture layer, Felicity, added extra character that I desired. This layer was adjusted with hard light to help bring out the grunge along the edge and yet maintain the lightness of the bloom.  If you like this look, you really must check out Kim's site!

Ranger Alcohol Ink Story Board - Beyond Layers Homework

As the saying goes, there's more than one way to skin a cat...

This past week I learned a different way to make photo collages in the Beyond Layers Year of Art Full Inspiration being taught by Kim Klassen.  She provided Photoshop and PS Elements templates that are SO easily personalized.  I'm anxious to learn exactly how to make this type of template... Kim, I'm being patient...

I thought it would be fun to take some of my archived "project in progress" images and insert them into the template.  Easy Peasy.

Just before starting this post, I decided to add the Beyond Layers button to the sidebar.  I saw that Blogger has added a few new gadgets to the blog design page, and I chose one that shows my most popular posts.  (Scroll down to the bottom of this page when you're done reading.)

NOW THIS IS WHAT IS TOTALLY COOL AND I HAD NO IDEA...
A previous post when I stepped out this exact card is on my top ten posts list.
As Michelle Ward would say, "How Cool Is That?"

So go to the previous post if you want to know more about my alcohol ink project.
Stay tuned for more story boards.

How I Came To Call Myself an Artist

How do you know you are an artist?
When do you claim the title as your own?
When do you believe it?

It’s common that those around you can see quite plainly what is right in front of you. But you are blind to it.  Or, you see it through too many filters…

- unbelief

- false modesty

- pride

- fear

- comparison

Since I was a small child, I’ve delighted in making things. I’ve been attracted to beauty and nature and textures and colors and music. I didn’t just want to see them, I wanted to feel them. I never thought of myself as an artist, and the idea of being an artist wasn't even a reasonable thought.
Mom saw something in me and as Santa (or herself), she gifted me through the years with many crafts, teaching me to sew, embroider, cook and bake. She believed in me and even handed over the task of birthday cake decorating to me at a young age. She signed me up for junior high art class.
Even though I enjoyed learning techniques and working with art supplies, I was intimidated by other students whose art I considered to be better than mine.

By now I had convinced myself that I wasn’t an artist. Never really considered that I was one because I wasn’t good enough.
But I still liked to make stuff.

In college, my Home Economics curriculum included a basic art concepts class as a prerequisite for a required interior design class. Wow! I really felt out of my league. But I enjoyed the art exercises just for the pleasure of working with paint and scissors and glue.

A part time job in a needlework shop gave me ample opportunities to feed my creative spirit. I began the job with a few basic skills in embroidery and knitting. By the time I graduated college, I was managing the store, teaching a variety of stitchery classes and even helping to design very simple cross- stitch patterns! I took comfort in stitching detailed counted cross-stitch patterns because the designs and colors were already determined by the designer. I didn’t think I could draw, let alone paint anything as beautiful as these cross-stitch designs.

Over the years, I also played with quilting, custom sewing, and crafts. I taught myself jewelry making and started my business, RGR Designs.

But paint lured me. Oh yes it did! I told myself that when I was older (over 40), that I would take lessons. But in my early 30’s I took an adult ed watercolor class with less than impressive results. In the meantime, a great friend invited me over to paint on sweatshirts and wooden ornaments. Well, that wasn’t so bad. Designs were available that we transferred to the fabric, and patterns could be traced onto the wood. I could do that, so I was off and running. I was hooked and wasn’t satisfied painting simple folksy designs for long. I found instruction booklets using craft paints for flowers and even watercolor techniques.

Still, I was not an artist.

A local watercolor artist’s work caught my attention. She painted flowers with such intensity I could hardly believe my eyes. She was teaching an adult ed class and I signed up. Now I was learning to paint the way I had hoped. My skills with the medium needed lots of work, but I was headed in the right direction. In addition, I met a great group of women who also love to paint. We met regularly to paint and encourage each other.

Oh, surely I was an artist now. I belonged to a group of painters and we even showed our paintings in public.

Are you kidding ? I was convinced that for someone to call themself an artist, she must have her art hanging somewhere important or make lots of sales. That wasn’t me.

At this point, I developed some photography skills. I learned from the recent watercolor class that I really needed my own reference images. I was still stuck on the idea that I couldn’t draw well and therefore I needed to enlarge my images and trace them on the paper before I painted. I was also building my jewelry inventory and photographing it for promotion.

Without going into a lot of detail, this thread of art in my life was just a layer over deeper issues. A critical juncture was finding out that I would never give birth to a child, would never give my husband our offspring... Devastating to the heart of a woman. But the good news is that my heart belongs to Jesus Christ and He gives me the strength and the tools to overcome even this heart ache. In obedience to Christ, I began a daily practice of gratitude.

During my drive to work with nearly ten miles of rural landscape, over the course of several months, I observed elusive bits of beauty and gave thanks to God for them. That winter, I began to notice nuances of color in the dead landscape that had previously been all dull and grey to my eyes. For example, I delighted in seeing the shades of muted reddish brown in certain grass varieties and how lovely they appeared against the straw colors of other grasses.
Each day the sights were different with the changing angle of the sun or cloud cover.

Then one day on my way to work the truth hit me.
It was a gift of great significance.

i am an artist
I am an artist
I am an Artist
I Am An Artist
I AM AN ARTIST

I realized that I had been thanking God for artistic aspects of what I was seeing; the juxtaposition of complementary colors or analogous color schemes, texture and value contrasts, shapes, rhythm. I was processing what I saw through the lens of an artist and expressing my gratitude in those terms to the greatest artist, the Creator.

Thanking God for giving me joy through these elusive and often temporal glimpses had been the tool to open my heart more fully to God, and He helped me see and accept who He created me to be.

It feels good great to be able to say I am an artist.
By saying I’m an artist doesn’t mean I think my work is better or worse.
In fact, being an artist is not about what I make.
It’s about who I am. How I see the world and process it.

Having said that, as long as I remember who I am, then I am free to make art. I have fewer mental distractions than I did in the past. The self critic has not been totally silenced, but I am a work in progress.

I’ll continue to follow my curiosity, develop my skills and be an artist.

P.S.  After my great epiphany and  I started sharing my identity as an artist, you know what I heard most? "I knew that." 
Reminds me of the story about a girl who wore ruby slippers and woke up with a bump on her head.


 Note:  Image edited in PS Elements 4.0 and includes Kim Klassen's texture layer Evolve.

If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.

I've been sorting through image files and playing with the new skills I'm learning from Kim Klassen.  You can still sign up for her Beyond Layers Year of Artful Inspiration.

This is an image I shot in Marshalltown, Iowa on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon when Hubby and I were admiring the architecture of its downtown area.  I was drawn to the color of the door and all the lovely texture created by the peeling paint.

Today I was challenged to choose a simple shot and alter it just enough....  After tweaking the light levels and hue saturation just a bit, I added Kim Klassen texture layers that were adjusted with blending modes.
Do you remember Milton Berle?  I thought his quote was just the right finishing touch.