Distracted!

I haven't gotten much done lately. I had a nice long 4-day holiday weekend, but it was filled with distractions, including this big one...


My granddaughter Annika is 4 months old already, and as far as I know, this is the first photo anyone has gotten of her smiling AT the camera. My son is holding her across one arm like a football, and I sat under his feet to snap this pic. I kind of got the feeling that he thought I was a little nuts, but I think catching this moment was worth a small loss of dignity.

I spent most of my play time with my continuing experiments in Photoshop Elements. I have just discovered Actions. Oh my!

It was nearly dark when I took this next photo, but not nearly dark enough to produce the image I had planned. I was experimenting with long exposure times, so here the sky looks as if it is still full daylight. Oh well... I'll try again next year.


My daughter snapped this photo of herself after having had her makeup professionally applied...

... and this is what I did with it.


I did some basic editing on my own, and then applied an action called "Gothic Glow" that I found at ATNCentral. Lots of fun toys for Photoshop there! They don't all work with Elements, but some of them do, and just looking around on the site was an education. It took me 3 days to figure it all out, so I guess that this counts as my latest "finished project", LOL.

I'm not done with this photo quite yet, but I wanted SOMETHING to post this week. Hope everyone who celebrates had a wonderful 4th of July!

Almost there

I had intended to post before we left on a camping trip, but now I'm glad I waited because I see that this piece isn't quite finished after all.

I am pretty happy with it for the most part, though I curse the moment I thought that #$%^&* octopus would be a good idea. I am about out of ideas as to how to make it look better, but oh well. I see I also need to add a few more highlights to the seahorse and a little more depth to her hair.

Hmmmmm... a bit more green in her tail might also help to set off the jewel a bit better. That jewel and those bubbles were SO much fun to paint!

I've already started another piece using this technique. It is VERY different, as I am DETERMINED to break out of my "pretty" mold. I'll post a WIP photo here soon.

Happy Father's Day

I hope Father's Day was filled with the joy it ought to bring for everyone who reads this. I know there are bad fathers out there, so perhaps for some the day is painful instead, and oh! I am so sorry! But I am blessed with a wonderful Father of my own, and blessed again to be married to the wonderful father of my kids. I don't tell them how much I appreciate them nearly as often as I should, but I hope they know how much I love them anyway.

Another blessing of the day was the special music number at our church. One of our men sang Stephen Curtis Chapman's "Cinderella" while 3 sets of dads and daughters danced. It was so beautiful and touching I had to bring along the new camera -- I hope I didn't bother anybody. Look though... no flash!


Who WOULDN'T want to give this darling little princess a big twirl?


These waltzers looked as if they were floating. The grace and ease with which they danced was a pleasure to watch.

Alice danced the part of the 3rd daughter, the bride-to-be. I confess... I cried.

Jake isn't much of a dancer ordinarily, but he held his end up. Aren't they a beautiful couple? He's going to have a hard time of it when he real Wedding Waltz plays, and I don't mean with just the steps.

I'm so glad the clock hasn't quite "struck midnight" for us just yet.

I have a new camera...

...and I am beginning to wonder if I am smart enough to use it, LOL! Actually, I am becoming more confident with my "eye" every day, but remembering which settings to use (without having to stop and think about it...) well, I'm not there yet. I will keep at it though. I may never be the next Annie Lebowitz, but it won't be for lack of trying.

The other night we had an evening from Eden dropped into the miserable excuse for spring that is Oregon in 2008. Jake told me that there were ducklings on the lagoon, so we took advantage of a lovely evening to walk out to see if we could spot them.

Our first mistake was to take Sailor the dachshund with us for the walk. (Seriously... what WERE we thinking! Ducklings... and a dog? aghhhhh...!)

We hadn't even cleared the barn yard before he spotted a cat and went into full voice! (That's Chrissy, the Calf Barn Cat. Does she look at ALL worried to you?)

Jake's legs are much longer than mine, so he got quite a ways ahead of me as we walked up the hay alley to the gate that would let us out into the lagoon field. I like that "artyness" of this shot. (Oooh, it's in focus too!)



I was playing with my telephoto lens... this cow was a good 6feet away from me, but just look at all the detail captured in her face. She is a sweetheart Jake says -- you can see it in her eyes -- and I can almost smell her sweet grass breath from the photo.


When we got across the field to the lagoon we saw 2 nests of ducklings floating peacefully on the water with their parents, but by the time I got my lens to focus, they were half way across to the other side. The adults have long since flown away...


In an effort to try to end around and get a better shot, Lydia took Sailor under control. Too late. The ducklings were GONE! (We thought we saw where they went, but by the time we got there... nothing.) I still love this picture though. Can you SEE the tension in Sailor's body and how badly he wants to leap down and give chase? As if a dachshund could ever run fast enough to catch... anything, LOL!


As we walked back to the house, I decided to take a shot of Mt. Hood, seeing as how it was actually visible for the first time in months. I knew about the foreshortening effect of the telephoto lens, but I had no idea it would bring the mountain THIS close. This will be something fun to play with in the future.



One last treat for the evening... a guy in a personal aircraft flew by over our heads. My old camera would never have gotten a shot like this.


I know I have a lot to learn, but I am looking forward to the lessons.

Finished?

I set myself to finish this painting today, and I *think* I did. I'm not sure. I'm going to let it sit for a few days and then look at it again to see what there is to see with fresh eyes. In the meantime, here it is: "Blue Butterfly Spirit: a tribute to Laurel Burch."



I have worked on the mermaid collage since I last posted photos. I'm teaching myself to use a new camera though, so I was happy enough to get a decent photo of just the ONE painting today.

I do have one last little Being to share though. Remember the mask I made for my daughter's prom? Her best friend since first grade elected not to wear a real mask, but to do her make-up in such as way as to suggest a mask. I was completely blown away by the photos, which immediately suggested a doll to me. I don't have permission to post her photo yet, but I can share this cloth-over-clay mask. Meet "Diana, a Dance Sprite".

The mold is "Elodie Whisper", from an original sculpt by Sherry Goshon. Darn it, will I EVER learn to catch an accurate photograph of an item embellished with Pearl-Ex?
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I won!

I need to stop jumping up and down here for just long enough to post these pictures. I am so excited! (Can you tell, LOL?!) I just got the e-mail telling me that I won both First Place in the Advanced category AND Viewer's Choice in Doll Street's Dark Fairy Challenge. I love this doll so much... it's nice to know other people like her too.

Without further ado, here she is. Meet Nightshade and her little pet Arachne.

I may try photographing her again. Or at least taking a close up of Arachne. I just couldn't figure out a way to show all her details.

Her head is cloth over clay. The head began as Jean Bernard's "Mother" mold. Her body is a heavily modified version of Sherry Goshon's "Cinnamon" made of a cotton/lycra blend fabric which was then gessoed and painted with acrylics. I collaged dyed tussah silk and flash onto her body as a kind of leotard, then added a skirt, bust ruffle, and sleeve drapes made of needle-lace.

Her wings are made of china silk and wire heavily painted and embellished with microbeads. Her boots and corset (and the nightshade vine) are made of apoxie sculpt, and her hair is tibetan lamb. The nightshade berries and the spider are beaded. The instructions for this very interesting and fun-to-make spider can be found here.

Whew!

I was going to post some more photos I took with my new telephoto lens, but those will have to wait. This was much more fun!

Between our crazy-busy schedule and the crazy-awful weather we've been having, I haven't been able to do much more than dab at my paintings now and again. I had hoped to be done with both of them by now, but at least I'm making progress. I have only a few more bits of base color to lay in on my Laurely Birch style painting before I can start adding the details and bling that make her paintings so appealing. I've already begun to add some gold metallics...

Hmmm... gotta fix her lips and chin too I see.

I signed up for a class on Doll Street by Linda Misa to learn her style of collage painting. This is a FUN technique! I'm afraid that I got a little carried away with my background paint layers so you can't see much of the original collage any more, but I am still very pleased with the way the background turned out. Right now I'm a little stuck trying to decide how I want the mermaid's tailfins to look...


Family business called us up to Washington State earlier this month to attend our new baby granddaughter's baptism ceremony. My Dad even flew in from Iowa! I hadn't seen him since my Mom's funeral, and I didn't realize how very much I had missed him until I was able to hug him again. I couldn't resist having a group snapshot taken, even this is the sort of photo I usually avoid.


While Jake was holding Annika after church I couldn't help but take notice of their matching haircuts. This kind of photo is much more fun to set up and capture. I laughed my head off when I saw what I had done in the playback. I'm afraid that I have proven to my DIL once and for all that yes, I am a little demented.

One thing leads to another

I had so much fun working on the little beaded fetishes that I sort of got on a roll with beading this week. This is good because a lot of little annoyances came up in other areas of my life, and the repetitive stitching and the sparkly little beads were very soothing. I finished the two pink ones.

I plan to add a strand of beads between the "hands" to use as a hanger. I think they will look nice hanging on the bulletin board by my desk at work.

If you want to try one yourself, the templates can be found here, as well as a gallery of other beaders interpretations of the designs. I have just one tip -- don't stuff the shapes too full. Not too floppy either, but just full enough to hold a shape. Mine are a little fat, especially the one with the butterfly bead.

I started beading the little orange one, but while rummaging for more bead colors I picked up an old project that will eventually become the centerpiece of a new collar. I finished the bead embroidery this morning with my first cup of coffee. Now I just need to decide which color I want to do the edging with. It's going to be a pretty dramatic piece.

One thing I have noticed is how much faster I have become at this. That second fetish just flew off my fingers! Practice, practice, practice... if only everything were so much fun!

Just one last thing -- I finished my Dark Fairy doll and submitted photos to be judged. Now I just have to wait for the results. I will post photos as soon as I am allowed. Wish me luck!

Waiting on Drying Time

I truly believed I had finished my Dark Fairy Challenge doll last night, but then I thought of one more thing I wanted to do, so I guess it's fair to say that the obsession continues. An obsession it has become! I worked straight through the weekend on it (OK, I did manage to get a little laundry done, but we went out for pizza again, LOL) and it has consumed every leisure moment so far this week as well. I am loving every minute of it.

I'll be able to share pictures soon -- the deadline for entries is next week -- but in the meantime I want to put up what I've been working on to pass the time while the the layers dry.

This first photo is of the canvas I posted a while ago with the decopodged gingko leaves. My intention is to create an image styled after the work of Laurel Birch, specifically the "Swan Goddess" from her Legends book. The leaves are adding such a cool textural element under the paint, really adding to the piece as a whole. I want to wait to work more on this one though until I can concentrate on the painting and do it real justice.

So far, so good!

These little guys I found on my beading desk. I have no idea when or why I began them, but I knew right away that they would make a fun pick-it-up-and-put-it-down project for me to play with that wouldn't suffer too badly if I got distracted. I can't believe I've almost finished the big one already!



Hey, I just discovered that this is my 180-something-th post on this blog. (Oh my!) I believe I will offer one of these beaded beings as a drawing prize for my 200th post. Sounds like fun to me!

Undercover creativity

It has been a busy and exciting week, and I am deep into the creation of a new doll, one quite different from any I have made before. Unfortunately, I can't share pictures here yet because it is destined for a challenge on Doll Street. It is coming along better than I could have hoped for though. I am experimenting with many new processes, and while none of them have turned out *exactly* as I had planned, each one has worked well in ways I couldn't have anticipated. Very exciting!

I do have a few things I CAN share -- both of the girls have Occasions this week, so I made them each a piece of jewelry to wear. We went to an absolutely wonderful bead shop in Poulsbo, WA last month. They had a delicious assortment of incredible sterling silver findings, and I HAD to have some, so I let each of the girls choose a pendant and a clasp for a necklace. I was amazed and amused at how the girls' choices reflect their personalities.

This one is Alice's, which she plans to wear to her first prom tonight. The pendant is a large pearl wrapped in silver, and the dangles are kyanite and pearls. They are strung together with seed beads, more pearls, and Swarovski crystals. That clasp is so beautiful that it should be featured in a necklace of its own, but I stuck to my word and let her put it on her necklace.

My Lydia is crazy about dinosaurs, so she was excited to find a pendant of fossilized ammonite. Her necklace is make of jade, dyed quartz chips, and "Vitriol" Swarovski crystals which are the coolest color, a green that flashes purple in the light.

We chose the colors to go with the dress I made for her originally, but she ended up wearing something else for the banquet. She still loves the necklace though.

I'll share one last picture before I close for today (and go check and see if my doll is dry enough to work on some more, LOL.) This is Lydia at her coronation as Marion County's Dairy Princess-Ambassador for 2008. She has been working toward winning the title since she was a little girl when her aunt was the princess. Congratulations Lydia!

Time to play

I confess to being disappointed that I won't be able to take the credit for Lydia's dress tomorrow night. No lack of ego here, LOL! But it was such a headache and took up so much time... and I just got a call from my oldest son -- he and his wife are going to be able to come down from Washington to attend the banquet with us. NOW I'm excited and relieved that she has a lovely dress to wear and I don't have to sew any more.

Time to play!

I truly believed that I was finished with my contribution to this month's Altered Clothing round robin project. I got to work on this fabulous vest -- isn't it amazing? I found some wild and lovely orange/fuschia irridescent silk to use as binding for the armhole edges. The colors work perfectly with what has already been done, and there was enough left on the bolt to buy some extra to make something for myself as well. (I don't know what yet, but it was too fabulous to leave behind.)

I intended to mail it on last week, but my contact person was in no hurry to receive it, so I kept it long enough to do a little more to it. I cut a few more bias strips to use as ribbon and sewed them to her headdress with beads. NOW I feel I have done enough and will put it in tomorrow's mail. Whew! Another one done.

Next Saturday is Alice's first prom. Their theme this year is a masquerade, so I volunteered to make her mask. I haven't had this much fun playing with glue and scissors in a long time!

I began with a plain black plastic form from the craft store (like the one on the left in the photo) which I cut into a more pleasing shape and sanded down. Then I added paint (layers and layers of paint!) feathers, paperclay, microbeads, glitter, rhinestones, and varnish. I see by looking at the photo that I want to add a little more shading around the paperclay shapes.



Unfortunately, she is getting dressed at a friend's house so I won't be able to see the whole costume in person. However, she is going to take my camera along and get pictures. I have threatened her with dire things if she forgets!

Lost It

It's been over a year now since my Mom died, and I thought I would go back to work on the portrait of her as a young girl that I started before I knew she was so sick. I am happy with the skin tones, and the way the background is taking shape, but I have lost the likeness. It's still a cute picture of a girl and a kitten, but it isn't Mom anymore.

Thank goodness for digital cameras! These instant pictures really help me see where I go wrong. Anyway, since this photo was taken, I have painted out the eyes, which have somehow grown apart (!) and will wait for the paint to dry a bit before I try again.



Have I mentioned how much I adore the smell of oil paint, LOL?

I have been frantically sewing on a dress for Lydia, but I bit off WAY more than I can chew. The pattern is much more complicated than I anticipated. The technical aspects I can handle -- it only takes a little patience -- but the fitting is driving me insane. I do believe we may go dress shopping this weekend after all. The very idea fills me with so much relief... I don't remember dressmaking EVER being this stressful before.

In the meantime, I finally thought of an idea to use the beautiful gingko leaves my wonderful sister-in-law sent me. This is just the beginning...



They are such gorgeous things!

Spring Break?

Oh, my poor neglected blog. I have been so busy this past month that I haven't gotten the chance to sit at the computer much. I have been sewing, but not much worth photographing. I WILL have stuff to share soon though.

In the meantime, I'll put up some of my other recent photos. I've been reading a lot working hard to learn Photoshop Elements, as well as the concepts of good photography. I have a decent camera and it really is about time I learned how to use it to its full capacity -- I hope to work up to deserving a DSLR soon.

We took the girls to the Coast for Spring Break last week. Now, when you go to the beach in the springtime, do you think it is unreasonable to expect a little fun in the sun? Well OK, this IS Oregon and they don't call us webfoots for nothing, but we had SNOW. It was too weird and amusing to get worked up over, but I still wish it had been just a *little* warmer.

This is the only sunset we had all 3 nights we were there. That black cloud on the right was on its way in to dump yet more snow on us.

We enjoyed our room very much, and got quite familiar with the cable channels on the TV. We don't have cable at home, so that in itself was a little treat. I'm not much for TV though, so I played with my camera instead. Look at me -- I *finally* understand F-stops!


















So maybe sharing portraits of my family's feet is a little weird, but understanding focal length has been a challenge to me for so long that I HAD to play with some alternative points of view just to prove to myself that I could finally do it.

And hey, does this family know how to kick back, or what, LOL!













I don't want this blog to become a forum for sharing too many family pictures, but I have to put up one more. I am so proud of this photo! This is Jake holding his granddaughter for this first time. Annika is not a tiny newborn, but doesn't her little hand look almost lost in his? (Jake's hands really ARE that big.)

The original was in color, but the image worked so much better when I rendered it in black and white instead. I think I want to crop it just a little more and maybe up the contrast a smidge...

My Granddaughter has arrived!

Are we there yet?

The one thing I have discovered about taking classes with Jean Bernard is that "Baby, it ain't over 'til it's over". Each project goes through so many incarnations, and each look is a complete and total change from the one before... it's enough to leave one dizzy!

Anyway...

I spent yesterday painting. Dibs here... dabs there... My *intention* was to work in shades of blue over a silver base to give a pewter-y fantasy effect. Sigh... I simply couldn't keep my brush out of the gold paint. Or the gold microbeads. (I LOVE those little beggars!!) I learned that putting gold metallic and copper metallic paint side by side on the pallette and using them together makes an utterly rich and delicious blend. Topped off with a highlight of interference gold... well, as you can see, my "pewter" chair... isn't!


This is what I have so far. I am much more satisfied with it this morning than I was when I quit working last night. I'm not sure it's finished yet though. I guess I will just have to let it percolate for a while.


I really REALLY love the colors on the underside of the wings. So... what do you think? Is it finished?

Whew...! I've been at it all day (don't you love weekends?!) The only reason I quit working on the chair is because there is a bunch of stuff that has to dry before I do any more. It's a good thing I have a loving a supportive family that also likes takeout -- notice the pizza boxes on the table behind the chair?

I'm sorry for the lack of contrast in these photos. I layered a piece of stockinette knit left over from a previous project to the wings. It was dyed BRIGHT fuschia, so while it gave a marvelous web-y texture to the surface of the wings, it was also horribly distracting. To tone it down I gave the whole thing a coat of metallic silver paint, which creates a horrible glare in the flash. Unfortunately it's too wet to move down in to my light tent, and I want to post this update tonight, sooooo... I hope you can see enough detail to make it worth the look.

Front view -- notice the smidge of fuschia left on the right wing. It's too bad I didn't take a photo before painting over all that color. It was seriously wild! The bits of white around the edges are new apoxy added after the coat of paint, and some coarse texture medium which will eventually dry clear. I'll give the whole thing a remedial coat of paint tomorrow, and then I can begin adding color. Making progress... woo hoo!


Here's the back view -- it has as much going on behind as ahead. I can NOT wait until tomorrow to play some more.

And finally, I know that hard winter still has a lot of the country in a tight grip, but this popped up in my garden yesterday. Take heart everybody -- spring is coming!