African Sunset - Valentine Challenge at Digital Whispers

You can read the complete poem here This is a lovely poem by Helen Masido Mwambi.
Thanks to Katlovestock at DeviantArt for the model.Click here for her website
Painting is an ink painting of mine.

Freebie background paper CU use OK

Here's another background paper I created for you CU use OK No credits needed but would be nice.
It's JPG 300 dpi

Click here to download file from 4 shared

Never mind Alice, I'm in wonderland

Don't you just love it when you learn something new?  It's probably common knowledge, but I had no idea that I could import my own textures into photoshop.  I've always like the texturize filter but dislike that the tiles repeat too often for my liking. Also the limited textures available seldom match what I'm trying to match up with. The image below is a classic example of this.  I purchased some Alice in Wonderland book illustrations at Nicerane designs.  I introduced my little grandson into the picture.  It was cute but he kinda stood out like a sore thumb against the noise filled background of old fashioned printing methods.  I tried the usual textures but they did not look right.  It was at this point that I discovered I could import textures.  I will be making a lot of use of this in the future.  I used the posterize filter to remove the photographed look.  Instead of returning to the filter, I decided to copy and paste a selection of the main picture and placed it over grandson image, reducing opacity and setting filter to overlay blend.  I repeated this with part of the mushroom.  I'm quite happy with the effects I achieved.  Much better than just plonking the photograph into the vintage image.  I think he blends in much better with that magical environment now.

CU freebie Background Paper

Here is the freebie I promised.  Hope you like it.  Please give credits and link back to me would be nice. Do not sell for money.  Thanks

Click here to download file at 4shared

Week two of Journal Magic Class - Marie Otero

When oh when is this illness going to depart? I'm still feeling wretched, but my partner is 10 times worse. Our ever failing NHS pawned him off with a doctor at the hospital because our local surgery decided to close for training.  Could this not be done in their own time?  £100000 a year for GP salaries and they are offering less of a service than ever before. Would be nice to have a fluent English speaking doctor too!  The substitute GP managed to mis-diagnose bronchitis, but did get the conjunctivitis correct. Thanks to that overpaid goon, he is now worse!  Anyway, enough politics. I'm just frustrated that I haven't had time to set up my political blog and neither have I been participating in the Digital Whispers challenges.  I have made time for the Marie Otero classes though. Who would have thought that tutorial could be so much fun?  For me they are normally just a means to an end, but Marie Otera makes the learning process fun.  I can now create patterns amongst other things, as well as my own brushes.  I'm going to put the paper I created up for a freebie.  I rather like it.  I'm still very much at the hit and miss stage with creating patterns.  You would be hard pushed to know that the overlay on my paper was a carefully constructed pattern of feathers.  No matter, I'm pleased with it and hope you will be too.
Here is what I created in week 2.  Can't wait for week 3

Digital Journal Magic taught by Marie Otero.

Aaaargh It never rains but it pours. No sooner is my father out of hospital, than my other half is off sick with a double virus. Conjunctivitis and laryngitis. I think the dreaded lurgy is visiting me now. I'm feeling wretched today.
So much for creating a new blog design.  I've been busy trying to retrieve lost files.  Got most of them from my emergency external hard drive so things could be a lot worse.

Started an online class with Marie Otero last week and learned so much.  I'm loving it.  It's unheard of for me to follow a tutorial so rigidly.  Well I changed the title, but not much else.  What usually happens is that I get bored or stuck partway through tutorials and just wander off and do my own thing.  The tutorials were so clear and easy to understand though.  I'm not too keen on the white outlining on the first image.  I'm a bit of a stickler for extracting images with a pen tool, and tend to use shadows rather than pen outlines.  I loved the doodling part and got quite carried away.  Was so pleased with my bird and crown that I re-used it in the second image that I just doodle, inspired by all the new techniques I've learned.
Not sure how I'm going to get on with masking.  I've never gotten to grips with it before so this will really be a challenge.
Anyway, enough of my prattling.  Here are the images I've created.

My little grandson

This was from a lovely kit at http://digi-loulous.blogspot.com. It's free if you sign up for her newsletter. I'm not happy with the shading on this one and the composition could have been a lot better, but I've been too busy to do much about it.  Besides, my tendency to overwork everything will likely just make things worse :-)

My New Grandson

The best Christmas present of all!

Final challenge for the Digital Whispers 12 Days of Christmas

This is the last of the challenges for Christmas.  We were provided with an image of a castle.  I think the idea was to use the windows to display all the challenges we have created for the Digital Whispers challenges.  There was no way I could fit these into windows. They would have been tinier than postage stamps, so I had to come up with the idea of frames.  Hope all the snow does not damage the pictures ;-)
This was so much fun and incredibly time consuming.  Had I not felt so ill during the Christmas period, I doubt I'd have been able to complete it.
Incase anyone reading this also suffers from sinusitis, I can recommend the raw garlic cure.  The difference today is just amazing, and I only started chomping on raw garlic yesterday.  My other half says you could strip paint off doors with my breath lol but it is worth it to get some relief.

Elements used in this were icicles and owl  from Holliewood's Christmas Morning kit.  Frames were from Kubivet.  Not sure of source for vintage girl.  I created my own snow brush to paint the frame and snow on items.

12 Days of Christmas Challenges

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas.  I got the best ever Christmas pressie yesterday - a new Grandson called Elias.
Our area has been badly hit by snow.  I love it even though it creates havoc everywhere.
Digital Whispers has been running a 12 days of Christmas challenge which has been both fun and challenging. The entries were just amazing.
Here's what I came up with.  I'll post some freebies soon of things I made for the challenges.
On the first day of Christmas:
Not quite a partridge in a pear tree, but :-)

 

For some reason, I can't post the image of a girl with a partridge, so here is the third one.  We had to create something using wings.  I chose to create the tree. The ice sculpture is from the Swedish ice hotel.  I duplicated the image.

I used elements from Holliewood Christmas Morning kit. Background arch is from Lorie Davidson Greyhouse Manor kit.  Robins are my own pics. The collie birds were provided for the challenge

I cannot recall where I got the cute figures and background from. If anyone recognizes these, please give me a shout.

We had to create our own background paper from feathers for this challenge. I had taken a photo on the 19th of a snow covered palm tree, so decided to use that with a blue glitter paper I had painted some months ago.
The paper was then to be used in the next challenge

Swans and a ballet dancer.  I had a photo of swans I took on the English canals, so used that.  I think the dancers are from DeviantArt website

So much for following tutorials.  This one for to make a white snowflake. I got rather carried away and ended up with crotcheted doillies instead, so hung them up inside the Christmas log cabin.

This was a ballerina challenge.  Bluesse provided the empty room for me to furnish.  The idea was that the ballerina had become an old woman and was reflecting upon her former life.  I simply ran out of time, so here she is, still in her youth.  She looked cold so I painted a fur wrap for her.

I almost didn't enter the 10 lords leaping challenge.  We were provided with a pic of a hanky.  Having the concentration span of a monkey at times, I wasn't really keen to do the tutorial to create an overlay from it.  Was glad I did though. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.  Then there was the problem of the Lords.  I'm still furious at the corruption in Government and that people who contribute large sums of money to the two main parties can buy peerages. This was going to be a nasty picture.  Then I had a braiwave that they needn't be real lords.  I have a terrific admiration for salmon who swim upstream against so many odds.  So I decided they were worthy to be lords:-)  The elements are from Indigo and the kit is Legends of Scotland.
This turned out to be my favourite challenge of all.

I love the classical bagpipes and thought I'd have a little fun with this challenge.
I used a photo real pipers, added crazy wild eyes and painted over their hair.  Braveheart eat your heart out lol.
Recalling a conversation I'd had with a friend, that bagpipes are not music, but instruments of war, I thought it could be fun to have someone bury their head in the snow rather than listen to the music.