Sepia Wood

I enjoy the process of blending two images together, so today 

I had a little play after not using photoshop for two weeks to see how much 

information I retained.

I'm happy to say it all came back fairly easy.

The above image is of a tree rubbing that I did, then gave it a watercolour wash.

I've used this image before in other works.

Here I used the watercolour filter on the rubbing, then added the tree

image and reduced the opacity to make it transparent.

With this image I used the graphic pen, which changed the colour and added texture.

Houses

I spent quite a bit of time last week playing with these images, learning how to make them using the shape tools, which was frustrating as I didn't get the results I wanted.

I asked my teacher if there was an easier way and from that conversation my world changed, the prospects where unlimited by just using the pen tool.

So today with just a little play around learning how the pen tool works I finally made my houses just the way I wanted.

Black Fish

Last night I played with some of my art in Photoshop to see what I could come up with.

The Black Fish is the end result.

This scanned image of ink lino cut stamp over watercolour looked very washed out, 

so I adjusted the levels to make it look sharper.

My quick sketch of a fish looked very dirty when scanned .

I gave it a bit of a clean all over using the dodge tool, then cleaned up it's face with the brush tool.

Wow! you can really notice the difference. I left the rest as I couldn't be bothered with all that detail.

I then cut out with fish with the magnetic tool, placed it over the other image and reduced the opacity.

Here I got this effect for the back image from the "dust & scratch" filter.

The fish I used "hard light" in layers to make it sharper.

Lastly I used "puppet warp" to alter the back image.

Then on the fish I used "glowing edges" in texturise, which made the fish black.

So from two ordinary looking scanned images, I think I made something that looks pretty cool.

Wild Wood

I went wandering along the Yarra River a little while ago,

and took along some paper, pastels and crayons in my satchel.

I was looking for interesting subjects to Frottage.

Frottage is a bit of a fancy name for a rubbing.

This is crayon with a watercolour wash.

My photo of a cool looking tree covered in moss.

My tree then when through some Photoshop treatment.

I adjusted the levels, exposure and gamma correction.

Then I added a conte crayon filter.

The images were then merged together, but I had to then adjust the levels on the rubbing for it to make a bolder impact. From here I then used Illustrator for the final touches.

I gave the image a title and added some shapes with the ellipse tool and multiplied them.

They were then made transparent to show the image behind.

Walkabout

My art work titled - Pebbles

I also used this within the letters of my heading.

Watercolour base

Lino cut stamp with ink

A map that we used for wood collecting.

Merging the two images together

My daughters footprints.

I love how they actually looked raised instead of sunken.

Three images merged together.

I made some adjustments with the vibrancy and saturation.

Adjusted the colour balance and exposure and 

added a fragment filter on Pebbles to get it to this stage.

Secret Door

Secret Door

Discover what is behind the Secret Door

The project brief was to include in your digital art a photo, a found item and your own art.

 I used this photo of some flowers on a shrub in the gardens near my home, I thought it would blend well with the door.

All I did with this image was to turn it 90 degrees.

My found item was a rusty old key I had found when cleaning up to move into our shabby old house.

With the key I used Photoshop to cut it out with the magnetic lasso.

My gouache painting of a shabby old door near my home.

I adjusted the levels to make the dark tones darker.

All three images were then blended together using opacity.

The Journey

This is about my journey in art.

For almost twelve years I have been a stay at home parent, working when time permitted on my small cottage craft business. Before then I worked in administration in retail and wholesale companies.

 As my children are now older and becoming more independent, I have been considering returning to work but in a career that will nurture my creativity.  To begin my journey, this year I have been attending a Visual Art Course part time called Create at NCAT. My thought process was that this course would give me the prospect of finding a pathway to be a working artist. 

At the beginning, I felt overwhelmed with the whole learning process, as it had been a long time since I was at school. I now find my mind is continually churning out new ideas and I can find myself completely absorb in the process of creating. 

I believe I have finally found my path after attending the Open Day at RMIT Brunswick. I talked to teachers and students in the Textile Design And Development course and looked at what they were making and I feel that is the way I want to travel.

I came away feeling positive about being able to incorporate all that I have learnt this year in Visual Art and combine that with my love of textiles to hopefully develop my own designs for a commercial market.

In the Digital Art class we have learnt the beginnings of Photoshop and I'm now starting to use Illustrator. At first I was unsure of how I would combine digital art with my studio art, but now that I have defined my career plan, I can understand the benefits of incorporating my art with these programs. 

Pastel on black paper

(Idea from photo of a door in a Frankie mag)

My photo of trees while out riding

Using Photoshop a blend of the two images.

This image represents that by opening a door it can lead you out into the unknown.