Mixed Media Book Cover - inspired by Felicitas

The first thing I would like to get behind me is apologizing about or explaining or qualifying my art.  I am only recently discovering my creative self and though I love seeing what I can make, I probably am never going to sell a piece of my artwork.  I'm totally okay with that, but for some reason I keep feeling like I need to say that before you look at anything I've made.

So,....let's just get past that part, okay?  No, I'm never going to be an 'artist' in the career sense, but I am going to call myself an 'artiste' (the same way you say you're going to Tar-jay instead of Target,...yeah, like that).  And I'm going to just get past the 'is this any good' issue and focus on the process.  K?  K! So,...moving on.

Felicitas from See My Crafts has the greatest mixed media step-by-step tutorial.  She has superb photos and explanations, including what supplies to use.  Fabulous.

I decided to give it a shot and here's how it went:

Super ugly notebook

 White wash (3 coats)

Watercolour pencils

Oil pastel crayons

Stamping

Acrylic paint splatter

Book page hearts and oil pastels

Words

Finished product

 I have a goal of writing a novel by June 30, 2013, and this notebook is what I plan to use to get started, formally, on my plotting.

I have downloaded a book by K.M. Weiland called Outlining Your Novel: Mapping Your Way to Success.  One of her first suggestions is to start with an avalanche of "What-if Questions".  What if my heroine finds out her father isn't really who she thought he was?  What if someone from her mother's past is out to get her? etc.

So this is what I am going to do with this writing notebook.  Big thanks to Felicitas and K.M. Weiland for getting me started.

What's your favourite technique in Felicitas' tutorial?

This is where I'm partying:

Mom On Timeout

A Creative Princess

Playing with Flower Photos

I have been making a conscious effort to get out into the yard to practise my photography skills.  That seems to be going fairly well (more fair shots than crap shots I believe, and yes, my criteria is that low, lol), so I moved on to playing with the photos.

PicMonkey and Picasa were my weapons of choice.  Here's how the session turned out:

This one is my favourite.  I love the interesting texture highlighted in the eye of the flower.  This look was achieved using Picasa, neon feature.

This was the PicMonkey, Holga treatment.  This one reminds me of the expensive Ikea prints.

This was some heavy cropping and the Picasa, Orton-ish feature.  More colourful than I usually like.

Even heavier cropping (mostly just the eye of the flower) and the Picasa, duo-tone feature.

I like this one too for its texture.  I used Picasa, first HDR-ish and then the duo-tone in a monochromatic combo.

Do you play around with your photographs?  What is your favourite subject?

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(Almost) Inaugural Post

This was supposed to be the first, the primo, the numero uno, the inaugural post to introduce this blog and myself.  Alas, things seldom work out as you plan.

I wanted to submit my entry for the Inspiration Avenue challenge this week and I couldn't get a Facebook entry to work, so I had to launch this blog a little prematurely.

No worries.  Just want to say a quick hello to you.  Let you know that I hope to share intermittent bouts of creativity:  writing, painting, drawing, maybe crafting.  I also want to eventually set up some challenges so we can all share our creativity and some discussions/interviews to talk about what makes us creative, how we nurture our creative selves, and what our daily creative process looks like.

I look so forward to making connections with you here and to us supporting and inspiring each other.

Cheers!

Terry