Week 6 - Weekly Art Challenge - Blended Photos

I'm late posting my Week 6 art challenge. I'm hoping life will return to a normal routine soon. We finally got to bring our granddaughter home from the hospital on Wed, after spending her first 2 1/2 weeks of life in the neonatal ICU at the hospital. She was a preemie - born a month early. She's doing well now and steals the hearts of everyone who has seen her. The nurses and doctors were wonderful! We are working on a signature quilt for her - the medical staff were so happy to sign a block for her. Waiting on a few more people to finish their blocks, but I'll post a photo of the quilt when it's finished.

With spending so much time at the hospital, I didn't get to do any painting, so worked on blended photos on my tablet. I focused on blending photos of my grandchildren with nature scenes that I had taken. I'm still learning what all I can do with the photo-editing program, Pixlr.   

Photo of a foggy winter morning in Ohio highlighting a bare tree, blended with a closeup of our new granddaughter's face. A heart overlay was added. The face is difficult to see after the blending, but I like the overall effect.

An Arizona sunset with a starry night overlay blended with the same photo of our new granddaughter's face. A border of swirls was overlayed. This blended photo makes me think of her dreaming of  all the possibilities for her life - "the skies the limit"! 

Photo of a palmetto leave taken at a quilt retreat in CA last year blended with a photo of our 9-month old grandson. Added an overlay of  'xoxo' and a border of a key variation. He looks cute peeking through the individual leaves.

Some of my photos came out interesting and some not so good, but it's fun to try to blend very different photos, as well as similar photos. I like the various effects that can be created by blending photos. I still have much to learn, but it sparks my creativity. Eventually, I'd like to print some of the blended photos to use in mixed-media artwork and some to turn into quilts. I have more exploring to do before first!

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

Cactus Flowers and the Sunset

Hedgehog Cactus taken at sunset taken over the weekend. 

My husband and I were walking our dogs this weekend. The neighbor's hedgehog cactus has just started to bloom. The bright pink flowers against the olive cactus and sharp spines with the sunset highlighting the petals -  wish I was a better photographer or had a better camera! Thank goodness for photo-editing software!

Close up of hedgehog cactus bloom. 

Close up of another hedgehog cactus bloom. 

The clouds created a beautiful sunset that same evening. 

Looking to the east.. The mauve against the deep blue makes me want to dye fabrics in these colors. 

Sunset over the weekend. I love the bright yellows and oranges against the lavenders and blues.  

Sunset over the weekend. 

I enjoy taking photos of sunsets and sunrises - well, sunrises when I can pull myself out of bed that early! I love the way the colors mix and blend. I also enjoy taking photos of flowers, especially close-ups. They are so full of color and come in so many shapes and sizes. Studying the colors of nature helps me to pick colors for quilts and artwork.

Late January Sunset

My husband and I walked the dogs tonight to the local park during sunset. I took my camera with me and shot a couple of photos. I love sunsets. I would probably love sunrises just as much, but I just can't get up that early.

Taken from Shawnee Park in AZ

Taken from Shawnee Park in AZ

Taken from street on way back home. I love the plays of the mauves, 

purples, yellows and blues. The sky would make a lovely painted fabric

for quilting. May have to try my hand at that sometime. 

Sun Rays in the Evening

As my husband and I took a walk last evening, the sun was just beginning to set. It was such a beautiful view that I had to share.



The sun was very bright with a brilliant yellow horizon under the vivid
blue sky. Sunbeams radiated outwards. I like the trees in silhouette in
the foreground.



This view was taken with a wider angle. I didn't get the yellow horizon, as I
 wanted to capture the sunbeams radiating out into space. It was a rare sight here
 in the city. I wasn't sure they would turn out as well as they did in the photos.



I edited my photo with Pixlr Express and played around with various overlays.
 I liked this one adding a nebula to the background. It fits so well, that one could
almost believe this was the actual photograph, instead of an altered photo.

Another AZ Sunset

You're going to get tired of sunset photos, but I love them. I love the contrast of oranges, yellows, and reds against the blues, purples, and mauves. Sometimes they are subtle and sometimes they are so bold and in your face.  You wonder why there aren't any sunrises? Well, I just can't get up early enough to catch those!! It's a personal flaw. I use to be an early bird when I was in my 20s and 30s, but as I've gotten older, with health issues, I've become a night owl! So sunsets, instead of sunrises, are more my speed!

Here's a couple more photos that I'd like to share that I took last night.

Sunset with bright yellows, reds, purples, mauves,
and  lavenders taken from the front of the house.

Sunset with bright yellow, reds, lavenders, purples,
and blues taken from the back of the house. 

Monsoon Season In AZ

Rainy Days. Created in FotoRus.

We're having a rainy monsoon season this year. It's nice to have so much rain! When we first moved here from upper state New York, I couldn't figure out why people ran to the windows or outside when it rained. It's just water! After being here for almost 25 years, I understand! Now, I'm the one running outside or to the window to watch the rain!  With an average yearly rainfall of 6", we can go months between rain and storms.

I love taking photos when it looks stormy outside.  The first photo I created from a new app that I found called FotoRus. I've been having fun playing with it. You can create magazine style pages with your photographs, collages, picture-in-pictures, as well as editing your photographs.

Bright blue sky peeking through the many storm clouds. 

I was surprised when I downloaded the photos to the computer.  I loved the drama in this shot -the bright blue contrasting sharply with the grays, yellows, and purples - the swirling motion in the upper left. This is one of my favorite pictures  I may check into getting the sky printed onto fabric.  It would work great for skies in quilting landscapes.

Stormy clouds as the sun is setting. 

 Again, I like the play of the oranges and yellows against the dark blues and purples of the sky. It almost seems surreal.

Sunsets in Ohio

Besides clouds, I also love sunsets. These are a few shots I took while we were in Ohio.

From in-laws front yard looking across the street.  Sun is just starting to set.

Returning to in-laws after visiting friends. The brilliant yellow sun is
beginning to set, casting the whole sky in warm reds and oranges. 

Stopped along the road to get this shot. I love the vibrant reds and oranges.  They really stand out
against the deep blue and purple clouds, cool gray sky, and silhouetted woods. 

Clouds

I've always enjoyed watching cloud formations. Dad would watch them with us when I was a child and have us try to figure out what image the cloud looked like. I still do that to this day. I also enjoy just the clouds' shapes for themselves and admire the various colors that can be found in the clouds and sky. Following are some shots I took in Ohio from our parents' houses.

TR heading back inside before dusk after weeding flowers with Mom.
The mauves, lavendars, and pinks are rich against the blue-gray sky. 

Evening shot looking out across fields from parent's house.  Again, I love the pinks, mauves, and purples.

Another evening shot as the sun is starting to set. The warm oranges of the
sky and clouds contrast with the cool blues and grays of the clouds and upper
sky. I caught it early enough that the trees and house are not yet in silhouette.

The sun has started to set. The intense reddish-oranges of the sky and lower
clouds are beautiful against the purples, blues, and grays. The sun is
still casting hi-lights of bright yellow on the top of the clouds.  This is my
favorite shot of the ones posted today.