My Eternal Gratitude...

 

You have my eternal gratitude (you know who you are) for telling me that my artwork is good.   I can't even express how much I appreciate your constant encouragement.  May you reap what you have so generously sown, dear hearts.

Why do I use the same colors over and over??? Must change. Must change!

After scanning some really soft acrylic-painted backgrounds,  I added brushes in Photoshop Elements.  I love, love brushes!  Can't get enough of them!  Then I played with layer styles.  These two use both overlay and hard light styles on their own layers. 

Here I used several Rhonna Farrer Vintage Photo2 brushes and added more color to the heart.  I really liked this light blue, which I found accidentally while playing digital color and brushes

Yay! Early Christmas from Mary Ann Moss

A happy Christmas gift from Mary Ann Moss: she's discounted her Stencilry and Stenciled & Stitched classes  for the month of December!  I am so in.  I've been wanting to take more of her online classes, since Remains of the Day was such a kick, and this was just the impetus I needed.

Yeah, more crazy art to come in the new year.

I'm also taking Roben-Marie's new mini workshop, Sewing Paper Gift Bags.  These bags are adorable, and Roben-Marie is as engaging as ever while showing how to create them. 

I hope you're finding some really fun things to do during this December.  Don't stress.  Relax. Decide what's really important and what feeds your soul and do those things. 

Blessings, Deborah

Inspired to collage

Jane Davies' book, Collage Journeys, inspired me to make this

  from this

 

 

and this

from this.

It really is a journey.  Thanks, Jane.

Inspired by Jane Davies' Collage Journeys

http://www.janedaviesstudios.com/collage.html

I just bought Jane Davies'  Collage Journeys, and I'm really enjoying her perspective.  She has a lot of examples of her own work and the work of other collage artists--all inspiring. 

You can find lots more on Jane's blog. 

 

more mayhem and collaged text backgrounds

Although I haven't been posting for a few days, I have been creating!  Life has been busy with Thanksgiving and some health issues...again.  But I'm back online, thank the Lord. 

This first one was fun with the big circles.  The next two are the collaged text backgrounds with gesso and inks just like Roben-Marie taught us in our Mixed Media Mayhem class.   They may not show up as well in the photos, but they turned out great, just like she said they would.  Honestly, who'd have thought I could make such pretty things?  Thank you, Roben-Marie. 

Oh, and I added some swirly rubber stamps that I bought at Hobby Lobby today.  That place is a wonderland and I could have spent a large fortune in there.  Luckily, I only spent a small fortune.

I don't think I'll ever get tired of this...

 

Tonight I just made a couple of simple painted background papers.  I just used Adirondack color wash inks with some gesso brush swipes.  I added a bit of  punchanella and a foam stamp that I really like.  I got it, along with a coordinating stencil, at Lowe's when they had decorative and faux finish paint supplies. They don't have them anymore, but Hobby Lobby has some pretty ones. 

I don't think I'll ever get tired of painting these.  Love, LOVE doing this; it just makes me happy.