Textured Shell

I'm very excited about taking a photoshop class with Susan Tuttle and just thought I post one of my projects.  The real shell that I had painted this from was about 2' wide and had lots of fossiling and moss on it.  By adding this texture layer, I think it enhances that feeling.

Already I needed  help from my high school daughter, but together I finally got it.  Auhhh,  the young.

Destiny Awaits

I wanted to experiment with some of the collage techniques I've been reading about. I got the idea for this painting from a photo I took of my husband riding out of "Sleepy Hollow" at Whiting Park, where we mountain bike. As the name "Sleepy Hollow" suggests, we were coming out of a dark underbrush of trees, and he was silhouetted against the light.

I'm not so talented in getting the words on the page like some of you talented writers, but my thought behind this painting is how a person is on a journey of life with its ups and downs.  The biker is continuing his search toward the light or his purpose in life.  The butterflies are his unseeing support, showing the way, guiding him on. 

I started out with the thought of painting a sports inspirational painting, but the butterflies make it too feminine for a guy and not feminine enough for a girl.  Maybe next time, it will be a woman biker.  Anyways...just rolling along.  Love to hear from you.

Madison Collage

Madison gets a collage and notecards, too.
I pretty much copied same version as Sunnyman with a little variation.

Madison

Because the "Sunny Man" was such a big hit at Christmas, I had an opportunity to paint another beloved dog, Madison. 

Looking at his pictures, especially the one with the Birthday Prince hat on his head, shows how much this family loved him.  I've heard wonderful stories about special dogs, and you can see, Madison was one of them.

Kira's Wings

Have you ever had a flight dream?  As a child, I had always wanted to fly, and I do remember a few dreams of flight.  I'm told they are a good thing. 

This collage is based on that idea all starting from a group of girls jumping at the beach.  I snagged the picture from my daughter Kristen's photo stash.  The girls were all in silhouette against the beach and sky.  I just inverted them to white and put them on a pink background.  The daisies are from another picture by Kristen changed to black and white, which was copied on with gel medium.  The wording was inspired from a children's book I have about a girl who tells everyone she's going to fly.  She does fly, but only in her dreams.

The group of girls are from my niece, Kira's 14th birthday party.  I had thought I might give this to her as a memory of her party after a little bit of fixing.

Sunny Card

I've been wanting to experiment with collage.  So I used Sunny's image to make a collage card.  I had fun experimenting with different ideas I've read about. 

Here's the shorthand version of what I did....

I used  some patterned paper I bought at Michaels and glued ripped pieces to make the background.    Then I water down some white acrylic in matte medium and went over the whole thing to push it back into the background.  I glue "Sunny" on top of this.  Then, I printed his name on some yellow flimsy paper and glued it on over the stripes.  I stamp a couple of paw prints in gesso.   And the sun was a juice glass stamp with black and a credit card for the rays.  The black around the dog is a charcoal pencil. I also used distress ink to age it a bit.

I going to give my friend a few for her sister.  I hope she likes it.

Sunny Portrait 2

I decided to do another portrait of Sunny to fake a sit up position.  Because all the photos I have of him are looking down , he's appearing chubby.  I think this one's a keeper.   He looks happy here.