Still Life Effects

I was playing around with some photographs (below) that I took at my painting class to see if I could find one that I wanted to oil paint when I decided to put one into Photobucket (it's free) and play around with it. I put it on the cartoon effect them put it over into Photoshop and changed the colors and got rid of the background and this is the final image. I also used a script digital stamp for the background which actually --I probably could have left that out. To get this effect I just put the image into the Edit mode in Photobucket and clicked the Cartoon button. Not all work so well but I think the more simple the shape the better it does.

Digicollage with one of the girls

This is a really fun thing to do when those days come when I can't paint anything or calligraphy anything or sew anything but I can always click around while I am watching TV and create some digi-art. She is a pencil sketch placed over one of my digi collages in Photoshop. Really easy and kinda neat looking. Maybe I will paint tomorrow or maybe not.

The Flower Goddess

The image above is with a filter from my "Totally Rad" program that really does put totally rad actions on photos and paintings. Pretty cool, huh? I could go on and on with the totally rad filters. The original is below.

She does look rather goddess-like and actually kinda Cher-like with all the flowers in her hair. I am so tired of painting hair the same way over and over so I thought I would try something different. The background is paint and stamps and brayers and more stamps and wax paper mono stamping and script stamps and toilet paper circles. I did add the flower goddess text in a circle in Photoshop just so I wouldn't forget how to do that. She has been enhanced somewhat in PS and just a few butterfly stamps added. I should be Christmas shopping rather than painting a flower goddess. Maybe someone will receive a Flower Goddess as a Christmas present! I probably will add some sort of quote but not sure about that. Have a wonderful day, my friends!

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!

Here, above, is the painting that I started with.
This (above) is straight from the website making the aged photograph. Pretty cool, huh!!? And actually that's all you get from the website. Below is what I did in Photoshop.
Here is the piece that I ended up with. I sent it through this website. It's all in Japanese so you just have to guess what the buttons say! Well, actually I think "choose file" might be in English but the rest is in Japanese. Then I added some color with the brushes on the overlay setting in Photoshop and added my calligraphy of Psalm 100 with about 50% opacity. Then I used the overlay brush setting again to color in the Poppies because the aged photograph is more black and white-ish as you can see. I didn't plan to make this actually --it was just one of those serendipity things. I love those magical serendipitous things!

Baby Marc is coming into town today so Nannie (that's me) is VERY EXCITED... and so very blessed....

Aged Photo Process

I'll explain how I did this tomorrow. It's a very neat website that makes a picture or photograph look aged. Pretty cool---but you have to read Japanese. Good thing I can do that.

Just kidding! :)

My soul waits...

I was reading a blog post that was a link inside someone else's blog which was a link inside that blog etc...( I guess you call this blog surfing) and this Scripture was in that post. If I could find that post again I would like it but I could but can't find it---but it was good. This Scripture was so fitting for that post--God's Word is like that. He can speak to all our circumstances. So I decided to write it, scan it and place it into this background that I created in the Layer Love background class but actually pretty much digi-brushed it and altered it quite a bit. Since I have been filming the Italic Calligraphy class I have been writing some quotes and Scriptures to add as some examples for the class. I am about finished with the filming of the classes--just need to do the capitals---then the editing begins....

Just one more--

Well, maybe this will be the last one. I think maybe I will see what these look like printed. I think it is a really good practice for making colors, shapes and my lettering work together. Maybe this has helped me with "real" collages. I will try some like this with real paper when I get home. Have a nice Monday!

Digi-collage lll--Are ya sick of them yet?

As you see I am addicted to creating these digi- collages. I only have a few background images that I am pulling from here on my laptop while up here in Greenville. I guess I could change he colors in Photoshop but I am liking these bright colors. They are beginning to look the same somewhat but I will just go ahead and exhaust this obsession with these backgrounds and colors and then move on. As you see I am loving the swirl and the heart and the dragonfly.

We are having a baby shower today and we made the most adorable diaper cake--out of diapers of course. I will take a picture of the cake and the table. We have worked hard to make everything special for Macaulay's friend expecting in November.

"CANNOT ESCAPE FEAR"

This is another piece set up in Photoshop with all my original lettering. The "FEAR" is in  the Roman hand that I have had saved in my calligraphic library for years and pull them out quite often. ( yea for cut and paste!) The Italic hand for the quote is from a font of my Italic that I created in Fontifier. Fontifier is a fun program but it is very basic and the spacing between the letters isn't good on this font. But I  squnched the quote together in Photoshop and then they look a little bit better. The background is a monoprint that I did in Charleston many years ago. 

Most of the day I have been putting handmade journals up on my Etsy site.  You can see them. They are "Excettera Journals" because you can use them for the excetteras of your life.

www.marthalever.etsy.com

hey cool--- just figured out how to make my Etsy site a link.