July?!?!

I cannot believe it has been so long since I last blogged! Surely that must be wrong?

Well a new year approaches. No resolutions ... but an intention or two ... to fiddle more with my arty supplies, to update the blogaroo more often, to FINISH the numerous classes I've signed up to - more on them later! Also to be less wasteful - with money, with food, and to recycle more.

I have to go watch the Strictly Come Dancing final, but I haven't finished fiddling about here. On the lookout for a different background and will add some more links and stuff. A general makeover! Hurrah!

Storyboards

That's the lesson today from Jessica! Here's mine :)

More photo-editing

I have become obsessed with editing photos since doing Jessica Sprague's course, and have done pretty much nothing else! So here's the last two lessons:

Day 10: Project from start to finish:



Day 11: Selective/Spot Recolouring:



Hopefully some more arty stuff coming soon ... because these arrived yesterday!

Photo-editing Day 8!

I love this technique ... and this was actually something I knew how to do! But I've added texture, a brush and a grunge frame to my photo and also used the blending modes ...



And as it was my friend Leigh's birthday on Saturday, I decided to make her a little whimsy mixed media painting. This was done on a 5x7 box frame canvas, mainly with Reeves water soluble wax pastels but with some other bits too. I am not very patiently awaiting the arrival of my Caran d'Ache water soluble crayons!

More Photoshop

Jessica Sprague's class is fab! I'm really learning such a lot and loving the cool effects! I think I might do her other photo-editing course when I finally get some money (new job! Hurrah! no more nursing for me, and I can't wait to start my new little job as a secretary to a child psychiatry team!). So anyway, here's my latest efforts:

Lesson 3: A vintage, hand-tinted look, with frame and brush:



Lesson 4: clipping mask



Lesson 5: Frame and texture (I'm not sure about the frame on this one!)



Lesson 6: TTV mega-challenge ... I LOVE this effect!



I can't wait to see what next week brings!

Photoshop fun and mumpy boys!

I signed up for Jessica Sprague's free photo-editing class, and my goodness I have learnt so much already! I've had Photoshop CS2 for absolutely ages, but I only really use it for resizing and occasional basic colour-editing. In two lessons I have doubled my knowledge of the programme! Here's what we've done so far:

Lesson 1 - add a frame and wordart:



Lesson 2 - brushes:



And for those of you desperate to see Mumpy Boy ... here he is! In my defence, Freddie ADORES it, and he is the one who insisted on a square face, so I take no responsibility for the mump look lol! I do quite like the spray-painted background though. I think I shall stick to painting pretty girls in future :) (for those of you who haven't seen my pretty girl, have a look at the previous post!)

And more artiness!

Well who would've thought it?!

I discovered the amazing Tam a while ago on youtube and loved watching her videos. Then I found out that she had run a World of Whimsy course that I had somehow missed (not sure how as I follow her blog and all that?!?! lol) BUT luckily she decided to sell the DVDs of the course to those who couldn't make it the first time round. And here is the result!!! I made this for Natasha's new bedroom (not yet in existence!) which is going to be orange and white.

Oh, please excuse the bad photo. I did this on a box canvas, which doesn't really fit in my scanner, so I had to photograph it, which hasn't really picked up the colours properly. I've tried to adjust a bit in photoshop but I'm not exactly a pro at that either lol.



I have to confess to having two attempts at the background. The first attempt just turned into a muddy mess, so I gessoed over it and started again ... second time round was much better, but still a little touch of 'muddying' in some areas. I did this with Reeves water-soluble pastels (and some acrylics and a spot of stickles glitter glue), which worked ok, but now I realllllllyyyy want some Caran D'ache water soluble wax crayons!! I neeeeeed them, but the hubs hasn't picked up on the hints yet! I might need to become a bit more obvious lol ... Also the word 'yourself' is disappearing a little, so I need to fix that I think.

Dave says he never imagined I could do something like this, Natasha loves it and now Freddie wants one for his room too ... how on earth do I draw a boy though?!