This afternoon I had a chance to get back to this project, a heart-shaped box that I am covering with collage and decoupage. I am creating the designs from printed metallic ribbon. The part I am working on now is the interior of the box, which I am covering with bits of red and gold ribbon. Progress is slow, but the red area is getting closer to the edge.
This is one of the photos that I took last week, during an excursion into Boston. I wanted my friends from Brazil to see the spring flowers, so we went to the Public Garden. It turned out to be a great idea, and the flowers were amazing! My friends were taking lots of pictures, and so was I. This photo appears just as it came out of my camera. I zoomed in so the focus is a bit soft, but I don't mind the effect in this image.
Today I went to an event at UMass Boston. The Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts is south of the city, on a peninsula, and the campus very close to the ocean. The location is beautiful, and I enjoyed it, despite the cold wind and rain today. The event was on the top floor of the library. I liked the view so I took some pictures, even though venetian blinds and the placement of the windows created some challenges. Here is one of the photos which I cropped when I got home. As I cropped, I tried to use the shapes of buildings and roofs as part of the composition.
I have been (slowly) cleaning up my home studio space. Yesterday I found a couple of drawings, apparently torn out of my sketch book. I remembered this drawings when I saw them, but I can't say when I drew them. I think it had to be shortly after I moved to Boston, but at least ten years ago I would say. I liked this little drawing of pansies so I photographed it yesterday. Tonight I cropped it a little bit to improve the composition. This is a little bit of positive reinforcement for cleaning my studio!
This is a digitally modified and posterized version of the photo that I published here yesterday. I decided that I liked the photograph well enough to try to do more with it. So I opened the image in Painter. I adjusted the contrast a bit, used some digital pastel to repair some distracting marks on the leaves, and then posterized the image. The blossoms looked too white after I posterized the image, so I added some color overlay to solve the problem.
Tonight I cropped this image from a photo that I took today during a walk at Long Hill Gardens, showing our visitors from Brazil what spring looks like in Massachusetts. There is always a surprise at Long Hill, no matter how often I go, and this was the surprise today: beautiful pink camillias.
This is a photograph that I took during yesterday's trip into Boston with friends from Brazil. This is the lagoon in the Public Garden. I liked the combination of spring blossoms, swan boats, and reflections in the water, so I took a picture. Tonight I cropped the photo to get this composition.
Today I went into Boston to do some sightseeing with guests from Brazil. We went to the Public Gardens, where there are lots and lots of tulips. I liked the color scheme of the pink tulips and the bright green grass, so I took a picture. Tonight I cropped the original photo to get this composition.
This is a digital sketch that I created tonight on the computer. I was thinking about an image for Earth Day, and so I decided to sketch, working from my imagination. The imagery of sun and mountains is inspired by my memories of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. I used digital pastel to create the little drawing. I also used a color overlay on the sky and posterized the whole thing. A little tribute to the beauty of the planet that has inspired so many artists. . . .
When I opened the blinds in my studio today, I saw that the magnolia tree is in bloom. It looks like a celebration out there! I liked the way the blossoms looked in the morning sunlight, so I took a picture, then cropped it to get this composition.
Yesterday's image (Flowering Branches) showed a pattern that I made in Painter using one of my posterized photographs. I also used that same pattern to create this "digital print". (This is digital art, and of course, it is not really a print, although it shares the look and some of qualities of printmaking.) To make this image, I used a pattern pen tool in Painter, with a large brush in brown digital pastel. I made a few strokes, then added a color overlay in pink, and posterized the whole "canvas". Then I cropped out this section to get the composition I wanted.
Today I decided I wanted to make some more "digital prints," like the one I made yesterday. The first step is to make a pattern. So with my Painter program, I created a digital pattern from my photograph called "Flowering Branches" (taken at Trader Joe's grocery, posterized in Painter, and posted here March 13). Then I opened a new image and used the paint bucket tool to fill it with the pattern, adjusting and cropping till I had what I wanted, and here it is. Then I continued on to the next step, and used the pattern to create a digital print. I plan to post the result here tomorrow.
Recently, scheduled deadlines have been colliding with unexpected events, making for crunch time this weekend. But art is a priority for me, so I decided to take a little time out to create an image, even if I could only spare twenty minutes. I opted for digital art (no set-up, no clean up). I opened a new file in Painter and chose the pattern pen tool. The pattern I used (posted here on April 2) was made from a digital sketch called "Little Digital Bouquet," made on my son's iPod (and posted here March 26). Tonight I used a great big pattern pen loaded with digital pastel in pink, and made three or four strokes. Then I added a color overlay in blue, and posterized the entire image. After that, I cropped the result several times until I had this composition. The entire process took about fifteen minutes. (This isn't a print, but I call these posterized patterns "digital prints" because the look like prints to me. Anyway, I am happy with the image, and even happier that I managed to capture some time to make art, even on a very busy day.
Yesterday I took a little break to work on this project. I am using printed metallic ribbon to cover this heart-shaped box with collage and decoupage. Yesterday I kept going on the red interior of the box, shown here along with the inside of the lid. I am not sure whether I will carry the red all the way to the edge, or add a gold rim to the inside edge. (I am making this design up as I go along.)
Tonight I cropped this image from the posterized photo published here yesterday, of flowering quince near a white lattice fence. I thought a closer look would emphasize the contrast of patterns. Besides, sometimes less is more.
This image began with a photograph that I took during an early neighborhood walk. I love flowering quince, so when I saw some, I got my camera out. I liked the early evening light and the way the flowers looked against the white lattice fence. Tonight I cropped this image out of the original photograph, and then posterized it in Painter.
Life has been busy, but I took some time today to work on this project, a heart-shaped box that I am covering with collage and decoupage made from bits of printed metallic ribbon. Today I worked on the interior of the box, which is predominantly red. I am filling in gaps in the middle, but also working out toward the edge. Feels like I am getting there. . . .
I took this photo a few days ago. This pear tree was already budding and getting ready to blossom. (There are lots of pear trees here in Beverly, Massachusetts, and in the past few days, they have begun blossoming all over town.) I was interested in the shape of the buds against the tree trunk and sky, so I got in as close as I could and held the camera up high. Then later, I did a close crop on the computer to get this composition.
This afternoon I took some photographs of a little flowering tree that I saw at the Cummings Center, here in Beverly, MA. I liked the combination of pink and maroon. I don't know what kind of tree this is, but I imagine it will have maroon leaves later on. Tonight I cropped the photograph to get this composition and then used Painter to posterize the image.
Here's another photograph of sunset at the pond, taking during another recent evening walk at the Cummings Center Pond. Now that there is more daylight, it is nice to take an evening walk, for exercise, a sense of peace, and for the sunset! I liked the colors of the sky reflected in the water, and the shapes made by trees, grasses, and shadows, so I took yet another photograph of the pond. I am not sorry that I did.
This image shows another view of the weeping cherry tree that I saw during a recent walk at Long Hill Gardens. When I took this photo, I was trying to capture the beautiful color of the pink flowers against the backdrop of green leaves. Tonight I cropped the original photograph to emphasize the graceful shape of the branches.
This is another photograph that I took during a recent walk at Long Hill Gardens. It is early for magnolias, but some of the magnolia trees were already in bloom. In fact, because of the recent spell of summer-like weather, some of the magnolia trees had already gone on to the next phase, and had dropped their petals. But these blossoms were still on the branches so I took a picture. Tonight I cropped a little bit to improve the composition.
Yesterday we had summer weather (in the high eighties!), but today we are back to early spring temperatures. But the weather was dry, and not too cool for a walk at Long Hill Gardens, here in Beverly, MA. One benefit of this roller-coaster weather is that some of the flowering trees blossom early when it is warm, and then stay on the branches just a little bit longer when it gets cool again. Lots of things are blooming at Long Hill, so I took lots of pictures, and tonight edited and cropped this one to get this composition. This is a picture of a weeping cherry tree, which is a cherry tree that is shaped like a weeping willow (hence the name, no doubt). But there's poetry in that name, too: amazing beauty, fleeting enough to make you cry.
This is another photograph taken on an evening walk at the Cummings Center Pond. The forsythia were starting to bloom, and I liked the way the yellow blossoms looked against the blue water, so I took a picture. Tonight I cropped the original photo to get this composition.
With longer hours of daylight, it is easier to fit in an evening walk. This is a photograph that I took yesterday during an after dinner walk at the pond at the Cummings Center here in Beverly. Tonight I used iPhoto to do straighten and crop the image. Other than that, this is the photo just as it came out of the camera.
This image is from a photograph that I took yesterday during a walk on the beach at Independence Park here in Beverly, MA. The warm weather was one surprise. Another surprise was that there were so many blue mussel shells on the beach. I took a few pictures. Tonight I cropped this composition out of the best of the photos.
This image began with an old family photo, a picture taken of my parents on their wedding day, April 4, 1943. My father was stationed in Pueblo, and met my mother at a USO dance on the base. They were married a few months later, before he left to go overseas. Last night I used iPhoto to do some basic editing (cleaning up stray marks, straightening, and cropping). Then I opened the image in Painter. I colorized the image with a combination of color overlay and digital pastel, and then posterized it. I invented the colors (have no idea if my mother wore pink that day). What I was after was the feeling I get when I look at these old photos: familiar images, modified by the softness of memory, the patina of time.
This is a photograph that I took during a recent walk at Long Hill Gardens here in Beverly, MA. At this time of year, these beautiful blue flowers begin to appear. (Tonight I found the name on Google: Scilla sibericus. ) At first, just a few of these little flowers appear, as in this picture, but in no time, they begin to create areas of blue beneath the trees.
I recently had a chance to try out paint programs on my son's iPod touch. Today I used my Painter program to create this pattern from one of those sketches. (The original sketch is called "Little Digital Bouquet", and was posted here on March 26). The image in the pattern looks a little different from the original sketch because I cropped it before I "captured" it as a pattern, and I also added a color overlay.
On a recent trip to Trader Joe's grocery, I saw bunches of tulips displayed in square plastic cartons that were on the floor. I liked the view of the tulips from above, so I took some pictures. Tonight I cropped this image out of one of the photos.
