Monday, May 30, 2011

More Digital Illustrations - Part Deux and Blue Sky Joy

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Yesterday, we finally saw the sun, after two weeks of mostly rain and cloud cover.  I remember fondly my first May in this part of Alberta five years ago when it was sunny and in the mid 70's (20's) with clear skies more often than not.  I rushed madly to garden and spruce up the yard, thinking I had a limited time.  By the end of the summer, exhausted from overworking in the yard, I realized I had brought my memory of 'weather' from central Alberta and in hindsight, I could have relaxed a lot more had I known how much better the summers were here. 

The rain and cloudy cool days gave me reason enough to create more new illustrations containing either new or re-released images from Holliewood Studios, Tumble Fish Studio and Art by January.


From Art by January -






Another from Tumble Fish Studio (with the funky phonograph from Finecrafted Designs)


"Strangers in the Night" - digital illustration


Now, on to the gardening obsession!

This year, having decided to build gates on either side of a raised garden area in our yard (to keep out the deer), I have renewed my enthusiasm again, and have returned to the earth, hoping to harvest some herbs and vegetables successfully without fear of finding them munched up by our four legged white tailed  herbivores! For those of you new to this blog, below, one of several photographs of our frequent visitors.  Pesky as they are, the sight of the deer never gets old and I still have the instinct to run for the camera nearly every time they arrive. 



My irises (transplanted from our home in Edmonton) are finally showing evidence of flowers and this year I decided to photograph them in various stages of  bloom.    Starting here!

1st photograph - May 29


Below,  a photo of the same plant in 2007.  They hold a significant symbol to me as a reminder of my hometown  now transplanted here - like me.

2007 Irises



How does your garden grow??


Woops - I forgot two!!


Untitled
Image Credits - Holliewood Studios - Knock on Wood (with lots of filters and digital painting)






Seven Svelte Servals Silently Sitting - Art by January
Image Credits here


New Digital Illustrations - for release Monday, May 30th, 2011 - Part One

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The majority of the images I've used  below can be found at http://www.deviantscrap.com/ including a new designer "January" who paints all of her images!  Look for Art by January


Ella Fitzgerald - "Nothing But Blue Skies, From Now On" Digital Illustration
Image Credits - here




Van Gogh - "There is no blue without yellow and orange." Digital Illustration
Image Credits here



"All Creatures Small"  Digital Illustration
Image Credits here (Art by January)




Thanks for looking and don't forget, if you haven't already to enter the draw - two more days!
See the link on the sidebar.






Saturday, May 28, 2011

Hope Springs Eternal

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Hope Springs Eternal - 8 x 10 inch digital collage
Image Credits here



Just a reminder - The draw for this month's "surprise" will take place on Wednesday, June 1st so there is still time to leave your name!  Enter here

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Tumble Fish Studio images back at Deviant Scrap

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I am really trying to not have this blog sound like one continual advertisement for Deviant Scrap, but... since I am on four of the Creative Teams there  (one that will be announced at the end of this month) what can I say?  I sincerely think each designer I create images for all shine and are perhaps the best of the best as far as digital image artists.   

Tumble Fish Studio has rejoined DeviantScrap after several months on Etsy and over the weekend listed several of her sets of images at Deviant.

 Illustrations I created using primarily  Danceathon, Bodacious Letters and Couture Glamour below -

"Dip"


"Dress Rehearsal"


"A Reunion"


Best of luck to you Marsha and thanks for always being on the leading edge of digital design!

Full details of image credits here.








Checks and Balances - Behind the Scenes of Creative Teams

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Although I've probably mentioned this before in a previous blog post, one of the responsibilities for being on a Creative Team is to post the work each artist does minimally to   their blog and on their Flickr site.  Today, since it is raining, I decided to do some 'checks and balances' in my gallery at DeviantScrap to ensure I have complied with these requirements.  This is a lengthy task as I have created over 335 images for various on-line designers over the past year!  Each illustration created has to have the actual url addresses attached to it along with it being posted in the gallery and in a forum within the staff area.  Prior to the designer's images being posted for sale, the image also has to be uploaded to the preview staff area, which necessitates it being uploaded to an independent photo server like Photobucket.   Prior to those tasks, the digital illustration itself has to be reduced  from its original created size to a size that doesn't exceed 600 dpi.  This then creates two images, and sometimes three that I store in my own personal files 1)original png, 2) original jpg, and 3) the reduced sized image.

So to summarize (if you're still interested) each digital illustration ends up being created 3 different ways and then the reduced 600 dpi is posted (in my case) at 1) Photobucket, 2) Flickr, 3)as a blog post, 4) in the DeviantScrap Gallery, 5) in the original preview staff area, and 6) in my personal CT link listing the Blog and Flickr url's. 

Not surprising, this does create the possibility for a few images to miss a few necessary uploads!  Luckily, the community of designers and teams at DeviantScrap are all delightful, low key artists, and there is never any pressure to comply with these responsibilities in the way of a deadline. 

Today, I'm 'reconciling' the work I have done for Evelyn - her design co. - Finecrafted Designs.  I'll apologize in advance to you  if these images have somehow made their way here once before.   Each image below has been created using various images from her work which is available for sale here.
















Please refer to this link for all image credits


Sunday Postcard Art

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Storks are the theme this week - take a look at the selection here


Stork Postcard - digital illustration

Image Credits:
Tumble Fish Studio, Lorie Davison, Mary Greene, Vintage Graphic Fairy


Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Meet Lucy and Paris and visits into my imagination....

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I really would like to be a grandmother....soon!  In the meantime, I have a tendancy to call my daughter's pets, my grandbabies...or...I suppose more appropriately, my grandfurbabies/grandfeatherbabies.  I think I'll draw the line there - can't really imagine having a grandlizardbaby...although I suspect I would rise to the occasion... grandscalebabies...of course.

Lucy, is a Pionus Parrot and recently she and my daughter's girlfriend  moved into live with  my daughter and her beloved  Siamese apricot point cat, Paris.  Both Paris and Lucy are 'rescued pets', which makes them even more special to me.  Hayley reports the 'girls' seem to be adjusting well to one and other.  She thinks having  arranged  several mini-meetings  before they began to live under the same roof, this may be a key to their compatibility now.

I haven't yet seen the two of them together, but seeing this photo of them taken recently,  I let my imagination play the other evening.   Have you ever seen a cat fly?



Original Photograph




Flight Lesson #1 - Paris and Lucy
Digital Illustration



I guess it's  no secret, I have never lacked for an imagination!   A few weeks ago, Hollie asked her Creative Team  to dress up  the Deviant Scrap mascot, Betsy the Cow to include in the Deviant Muse eZine as part of Deviant's first birthday celebration.

 I decided I wanted to try to create something by hand, and well, one thing lead to another, and before I knew it, Betsy the Cow had begun to fade into the background, and in my head, I was reciting a very old song from my childhood.  It goes like this.... (you'll remember?)

There was an old woman who swallowed a fly,

I don't know why she swallowed a fly,
Perhaps she'll die.
There was an old woman who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a bird,
How absurd! to swallow a bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a cat,
Imagine that! to swallow a cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a dog,
What a hog! to swallow a dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a goat,
Just opened her throat! to swallow a goat,
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a cow,
I don't know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly
I don't know why she swallowed the fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a horse,
She's dead of course.

Oh what wonderful memories this song conjures up!  I can hear my Mom's voice and its varied inflexions, especially the 'wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her'! 


Here is the beginning of the  'cloth' version - I must have really gone into 'right-brain' mode because,  in retrospect,  the bird beak impaling her eye well, it hurts to look at it!  Sorry.






I am laughing as I create this blog post, wondering what Hollie must have thought when I fired this one off in an email to her....  see what I mean about ....the cow fading into the background?

Oh she was so  very gracious in her reply as she gently reminded me that the project at hand was to be a 'dressed up Betsy'.  I am embarrassed to tell you I replied back to her and suggested we........ (blush)...
Think Outside The Cow!      I am so sorry Hollie.   Can I blame it on my muse? 

Eventually,  I dragged myself back to the computer and dressed Betsy up.... 



Done.  Sent.   Then,  back to  my muses delight where  I started to sing the song.  But,  after singing the first verse, if I wasn't challenged with yet another conundrum!  Long story short.  Spider?  No Way.    So,  I substituted it for a snake.  Are you counting the creative licenses?   Note the Y upper left corner - as in Y would she swallow a fly?  I know, it's deep, very deep.  This is hard work man.







Act 3 - Cat and fly enter
 

Creative License #?  - Zebra worked much better than the horse on hand...





All Together Now 
 There Was An Old Lady - revised....with a bit of "I've Never Seen a Purple Cow, and I Never Hope to See One"...
Digital Illustration now in cloth...and seated next to my sewing machine...TBC


Thanks for reading!  Now - tell me, where has your imagination taken you lately?





Very Important Image Credits:
Holliewood Studios
Sherrie JD
Tumble Fish Studio
all at DeviantScrap.com
Lorie Davison
plus Two Dresses Studio






Sunday, May 15, 2011

More NEW Creative Team work from Holliewood Studios

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I think this post now brings me about 95% up to date with digital creative team responsibilities!



This one is from a collection released awhile back that I completely forgot about - called "Auntie Em"


And below, from a NEW collection called "Uncle Henry"


(the figure is from Deborah at Land of Nod)


all above images from "Uncle Henry"



Saturday, May 14, 2011

Deviant Scrap 1st Birthday! Creative Team Illustrations -

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Lots of Freebies this month over at http://www.deviantscrap.com/


Party Animal - 8 x 10 Digital Illustration
all images from "Let's Party" - Holliewood Studios


The DeviantScrap Mascot - "Betsy" celebrating "La Birthday"
Image Credits - Holliewood Studios




From Finecrafted Designs - "It's All Relative:





And again "Al" from Finecrafted Designs - "It's All Relative"




Friday, May 13, 2011

Once again, I bring you the visual gifts of butterflies in memory....

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After some thought of the consequences of bringing attention to only a handful of the 127 butterflies created by the students at Carstairs Elementary School, I decided it was worth it. 

Highlighting a few  is not meant to diminish the significance of the others,, but rather to illustrate the notion of how much we have to learn from others, regardless of whether they are 4 or 104.  In this case, age 9.

Expressing oneself visually through art as an adult does take confidence.  How many times have you heard someone comment "Oh I can't draw", or  "I can only draw stickmen..."  Sometimes even the suggestion of putting down  thoughts in symbol or picture rather than in words, makes even the otherwise  confident adult squirm.

What delights me is the absence of this self-consciousness in the art within the butterflies submitted by children  through The Butterfly Effect. 

We have so much to learn from these young,  pure and precious minds about leaving our inhibitions behind and stepping into and toward our hearts and souls, unplugged, naturally, without fear of judgement...

I was so moved when I saw these...
layered with  symbolism
the rawness 
and the abstraction
with innocent clarity

well, it made my heart weep.

Look closely, listen carefully.....I hope these inspire you to celebrate your freedom of expression....






Images of Butterflies for The Holocaust Museum Houston Butterfly Project
from the students at Carstairs Elementary School
Cartstairs, Alberta, Canada

The other butterflies can be viewed by pressing on the red butterfly located in the sidebar titled "The Butterfly Gallery"| or here

And again...thank  you  for your thoughts and comments.