Week 7 - Weekly Art Challenge - Faces

Trying to catch up on my weekly art challenge posts. Our grandbaby is home from the hospital, my hand is healing from my hand surgery (my dominate hand, of course!), so I'm trying to get settled into creating again! Although, in the 4 days our grandbaby has been home, we've babysat two days and the other two days, I had to take her or her mother to routine check-ups! I'm not complaining about the babysitting - she is such a joy! She's so quiet, I can almost forget she's here! I'm hoping as our daughter and her boyfriend adjust to being new parents, things will settle down some. However, they may be moving in with us in a month, if they cannot find another apartment! LOL! life is always changing!

This week, I still haven't gotten back to my painting. I did do another drawing from Jane Davenport's book: Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces. I had started the first couple of exercises before all the excitement with a new baby (see posts here).  The next exercise is called "Grand Scale". Instead of the small, simple "Draw Happy" faces, this exercise scaled the drawing to a full page. She goes into more detail of placement of facial features and shape of the face. This is my result:

Face, 7" x 10", pencil and 0.005 black Sakura pen on mixed-media paper.

I like the facial features, although the eyes are too large and too close together. The hair and neck need some work, but those weren't the focus of this exercise. I do pretty well doing portraits from a photograph (I've actually done commissions in oils, acrylics, and colored pencil),  but to draw a portrait without a photo to look at is such a challenge for me. I'm hoping Jane's book (and I also bought her video recently) will help me to overcome these difficulties.

I hope for Week 8 to be able to finally start painting in my art journal for the Documented Life Project 2015 (DLP) with Art to the 5th Academy, that I originally set out to do for my weekly art challenge this year! I'll see what this week holds!


Keep creating!
Lynnita

Weeks 3-5 of Weekly Art Challenge

I have been off my game to say the least the past 3 weeks. I'm sorry I did not have a chance to update sooner on what has been going on in my life and why I have not posted any art work for my weekly art challenge.

Week 3 was just an off week. My daughter was at the end of her 8th month of pregnancy and having routine weekly appointments. She had 4 "routine" appointments this week. One with her regular OB, one for a non-stress test, as the baby is diagnosed with Down syndrome and a heart defect, so she's in a high risk pregnancy category, although she's only 26 years old. Then she was a weekly sonogram with a genetic, fetal diagnostic specialist. This week, she also had an appointment with the pediatric cardiologist to check the baby's heart. The cardiologist gave us a scare, as he saw something unusual in the baby's brain. But the fetal diagnostic specialist said it was nothing and gave us great reassurance.

Week 4 again started with my daughter's normal appointments - OB, non-stress test went well. I also had 2 appointments for myself, as I needed hand surgery to remove a ganglion cyst. I wanted to have it done so my hand would be healed before the baby came. I had to have lab work and a medical clearance from my primary care doctor. He needed a further medical clearance from my cardiologist because I have a history of heart problems. Seemed like this was getting a bit ridiculous for a 10-minute outpatient procedure!! I have a face sketched that I'd been working on from Jane Davenport's book (see previous posts), but haven't had time to photograph it yet. Figured I'd do this after seeing cardiologist and taking my daughter for her sonogram - both on Friday. Well the baby decided to have other plans for us!  During the routine sonogram, her heart rate plummeted. The doctor literally flew out of the room and ran back in, stating she'd called an ambulance and the baby needed to be delivered now! She also called the OB and the neonatal ICU doctor telling them we were on the way to the hospital. The hospital was 2 buildings down the street from the doctor's office! But my daughter had to go by ambulance. That was the longest drive of my life!!

By the time the ER doctor saw and evaluated our daughter and the baby, the baby's heart rate had returned to normal. After consulting with the NICU doctor, they decided to induce my daughter rather than do an emergency c-section, since the baby was no longer in distress. We spent the next 36 plus hours with her trying to labor, confined to a bed, and not being allowed to eat, in case an emergency c-section would still be needed if the baby went into distress again. Which she did 3 more times, but would then stabilize, so they'd let my daughter continue to labor. Finally, late Saturday, after the 2nd round of medicine for inducing labor, they decided to schedule a c-section, as she wasn't making any headway. So Sunday morning, our granddaughter was delivered via c-section. She was a month early and weighed 4 lbs, 8 oz and was 16 1/2 inches long. I was allowed in the OR during the c-section, so I got to see our granddaughter and cut the cord (wow- what an experience!!). Unfortunately, the baby was whisked away to NICU (neonatal ICU) before my daughter got to even see her.

The baby's echocardiogram came out as expected - same heart defect as seen in sonograms and her brain ultrasound was normal!! Whoo-hoo!! However, she would need to remain in NICU for several days.

Now my daughter was in the hospital and the granddaughter in NICU, so I spent most of my time at the hospital. I had hand surgery mid-week, but still spent the night in NICU, as our "son-in-law" had to return to work.  By the end of the week, our daughter was discharged, but the baby is still in-patient.

Week 5 has still been spent running to and from the hospital, as well as to and from my hand surgeon. Our granddaughter has been moved to a step-down unit and is doing very well. She is feisty and has won the hearts of all the nurses and the doctor! We are hoping she'll be home by this weekend, if she continues to do well!! My hand is improving and I got the bandages off and am allowed to use my hand again!! Yay!! I can draw and paint again! It's been so hard to try to do things with my left hand or with only one-hand! So I've been unable to do any artwork or sewing the last 10 days, anyway, even if I hadn't been spending most of my time with the grandbaby at the hospital.

Getting to hold our teeny granddaughter in the NICU unit at the hospital. 

Hopefully, life will get back to a schedule and I can get back on track with my weekly artwork. I do have my Dylusions Journall now to catch up with the Documented Life Project (DLP) by Art to the 5th Academy.  Thank you for your support and prayers!


Keep creating!!
Lynnita

Week 2 of Weekly Art Challenge - Blended Photos

I am still waiting on my Dylusions Journal to start the Documented Life Project (DLP) by Art to the 5th Academy.  For 2015, DLP gives a prompt each week to create an art journal page. I've been wanting to do more mixed-media art journaling and thought this would be a fun way to meet that goal. Posting my results each week will also help keep me on track. However, I'm off to a late start, since my journal has been back-ordered. Thankfully, I've found another place to order it and hope to have it by the end of next week. (Thanks, Deb!)

In the meantime. I've been continuing to play with my photo-editing app, Pixlr Express, on my Android tablet. The first few photos are ones I took while in Ohio in December and played with the enhancements, effects, and overlay features of the app.

Foggy, cold morning. Picture taken from the driveway looking east.

The same foggy, cold morning. Taken from the front yard looking east. 

Looking out through the ice on the driver's window of the car at a tree beside the driveway.

The program was updated recently with a "blending photos" feature that I've been exploring. This feature allows 2 photographs to be blended with different effects - darken, multiply, color burn, lighten, screen, color dodge, add, overlay, soft light, hard light, and difference. I'm still learning what can be created with these effects. These are a few of the photos I've blended.

Combined the first foggy morning photo with the iced car window photo,
using the multiply blending effect 

Combined the 2nd foggy morning photo with the iced window photo, using the difference 

blending effect. More of the texture from the ice shows in this combination. This effect 

reminds me of an interference pattern.

I blended the iced window photo with one of the "Draw Happy" faces I posted
last week (see post here). This makes me think of a mixed-media painting. I like
the texture and color the iced window photo adds to the black and white sketch.  

Combined the tree from the 2nd foggy morning photo with a palmetto photo I took last
year in CA at a quilting retreat. I used the multiply blending effect.   

I combined the above blended photo of the palmetto and tree with another of the "Draw Happy" faces I posted last week (see post dated Jan 10, 2015).   I used the "add" blending effect. I really like the results of this combination. I can see printing this on fabric to use for an art journal cover or to create an art quilt. 

It's exciting to create new "photos" by blending them. I really like the results and can see printing some of the blended photos onto paper or fabric for mixed-media art, fiber artwork or quilts.  I'm just starting to explore the tip of the iceberg, as I haven't even begun to check out all of the "Overlay"and "Effect" features of the photo-editing software after blending two (or more) photos. The sky's the limit!!


Keep creating!
Lynnita

Week 1 - 2015 Weekly Art Challenge

I want to continue doing a weekly challenge this year, but it's taken me awhile to decide what I wanted to do. I thoroughly enjoyed Blue Twig Studio's weekly sketch challenge last year and want to do something again this year.  I can see in looking over my sketches from last year's challenge (see posts here), that taking time to sketch weekly helped me improve my skills. Also, it was also a lot of fun! I enjoy creating Zentangles, too, and thought about doing these daily, with a weekly sketch thrown in. Even though a Zentangle can be created in a short amount of time, I was afraid it would be more than I could realistically accomplish when I examine everything else in my life at this time.

Another weekly challenge I had thought about participating in was a weekly photography challenge that would help teach photograph skills and editing photos. I would love to improve both of these areas. However, I don't have the required DSLR camera or Adobe Photoshop and can't afford either of them currently.  So that challenge is out for now.

Lastly, another area I want to improve is my mixed-media skills. I found an online challenge for a 52-week art journal called  the "Documented Life Project 2015" (DLP) at Art to the 5th Academy. They will be giving a prompt every week to create an art journal page. I thought this would help me explore my art journaling more, as well as, be fun to do.

After much thought, I've decided to to the Documented Life Project (DLP) 2015 with Art to the 5th Academy for my weekly challenge.  I'm going to be behind one to two weeks, as I'm waiting on my Dylusions Creative Journal to arrive via mail. It was supposed to be here in 2 days, but so far it's been almost 10 days. Hopefully, I can catch up in a short amount of time once the journal arrives. In addition to the DLP, I will post my sketches, drawings, Zentangles, photos and digital artwork as I create them - I am just not going to commit to having these done on a weekly basis.

With all that long explanation now out of the way, since I can't start the DLP without the art journal, this first week I worked on some digital artwork. I used Pixlr Express to create the following digital artwork made up of blended photos or photos and drawings. I took all of the photos myself and drew all the drawings. I hope to print some of these on paper and use in my art journal once it arrives!

Photo of a rose with the morning dew (see post dated May 21, 2014) blended with a photo of a palm frond. Both photos taken  at Vina de Lestonnac in Temecula, CA, May 2014. The palm frond creates an interesting texture across the rose and rosebud. Overlays added more color to the background.

Photo of winter berries covered in ice blended with a photo of a funny looking tree in the middle of a river. Both photos taken  in Toledo, OH after a snow storm on Dec 6, 2011. Overlays added the bubble texture, while the red lines bring focus to the berries and tree. 

Photo of the winter berries covered in ice (taken in Ohio, Dec 2011) blended with the photo of the palm frond (taken in CA, May 2014). I like the contrast of the radiating straight lines from the palm frond with the round berries and organic shape of the ice covering the berries. Overlays added more color to the background.

Photo of a carpenter bee blended with a photo of a yellow flower. Carpenter bee taken in Chandler, AZ  (see post dated Mar 20, 2013). Yellow flower taken at my parents in Lima, OH in July 2013. The flowers the bee was hovering over blended with the yellow flower to create a unique background. The carpenter bee seems almost transparent. 

Photo of sunset blended with Dragon Rider drawing. Sunset photo taken in Chandler, AZ 

on Dec 4, 2013 and dragon rider drawing created in Dec 2014 (see post dated Jan 1, 2014). 

I cropped the sunset photo and saturated the colors to make them more vivid.

Same blended photo as above, but the blending is reversed. I like the way the reversal 

changed the colors of the sky and changed the black/white drawing into colors. It 

creates entirely different emotions than the previous digital artwork. This one seems 

more fantastical and otherworldly to me.  What kind of planet has a green sky?

Another sunset photo taken July 16, 2014 blended with a fairy dragon drawing (see post dated July 30, 2014). The colors of the dragon are almost lost in the sunset colors and he seems transparent as well. I added a bubble overlay to give an appearance of a moon behind the dragon's head. 

Another sunset photo taken  Sept 17, 2013 in Chandler, AZ  (see post dated Sept 18, 2013) blended with Mesoamerican dragon drawing (see post dated  Jan 1, 2015).  An overlay created the starry sky. This was one of my favorite dragons to draw. I like how he appears to be soaring across a night sky, barely visible as the sun is setting and the stars are coming out. Only a select few that believe in dragons can see him!

I enjoy editing photos and playing with all the various features of the programs. The various overlays and special effects are fun to experiment with. I also like changing or enhancing the colors to create different moods with the digital artwork.  I'm beginning to feel fairly comfortable with Pixlr Express. The company keeps adding updates, such as this photo blending feature I focused on in this blog. I'm still learning all the possibilities with Adobe Photoshop Elements. I do not find this program as intuitive to use and I haven't found a good book to help with the learning curve. The company has online tutorials, but I'm always having to re-watch them. I'm learning this program slowly.

Thanks for stopping by!
Keep creating!
Lynnita