Lost Aussie on the loose

Some Early Spook

Over on her blog my friend Miz Carla is hosting an Artist Trading Card swap.  As one of my last minute "things to do" before I head down to the land of Oz I cooked up some Spooky fun for her challenge. 

The "Portrait of a Witch" cards are primarily digital creations but the printed versions have all been glitzed up with some lovely black glitter and hand embellishing.
The backs of the cards were fun to create too. A little different from the usual ATC reverse, but hey, why not!

 
It should be interesting to see what comes back in the post and awaits my return in December!

Expression of Self

Some people craft wondrous journals of visual delight to mark their days on this planet, and although over the years I have tried to emulate this clever way of documenting the days, I can never really seem to make it work for me.

Instead I prefer to troll through pictures captured by my camera and craft them into a "pixelly" message that perhaps only I understand.....

My medium....my choice....and I get it...

Do you?

If you'd like to share your journalling (or not) story, I'd love to hear it!

The Season of Change

Already the nights are cooler and the days a balmy 70F-something! So Summer is definitely on the wane and Fall (or Autumn in my language) is about to arrive.  My neighbor's pool is already closed and ours will follow shortly next week.  It will be sad to see the lovely blue water gone and covered but it has been several weeks since the pool was warm enough to swim in and I am sure the cats will be glad to have their trampoline back!

As much as I would like to stay and bask in New York's Fall glory, I will be heading home to Australia in just over a week's time. Both boys have big exams ahead (especially #1 Son) and I want to be there, as any Mom would, while they take on that academic torture!  I'll be there for nearly two months and hope to keep on working on some new online classes and other fun digital offerings as well as keeping you up to date on fun Aussie blog posts while I am away.  
So stay tuned!

Birthday Love

A special and wonderful greeting for #2 Son who turns 17 today!

Happy Birthday Darling!

May you face new challenges, seize new opportunities, test your resources against the unknown and in the process, discover your own unique potential. (John Amatt)

xox

Long Island Jaunting

Exploring Long Island in the Summer? - forget it.  Pretty much from the get-go DH and I learned that it was best to head to the City during the weeks that the "Townies" and "Tourists" gobble up the local delights, but the moment Labor Day has hit the calendar and passed, we can once again begin to enjoy the nooks and crannies that abound on our door step.

This weekend we went down to Bay Shore and Patchogue and checked out the many Marianas, tiny beaches and various other delights that were on offer.

We weren't disappointed.  At Bay Shore we strolled the marina and watched the locals fishing off the boardwalk. Scoped out the Fire Island Ferries and made a note to take one out there soon!  In the car park we spied this lovely old Packard which, according to the passer's by is on the block for a mere $250K!

In Patchogue and Bellport we found loads of lovely secluded beaches at the ends of various rocky roads - totally deserted at this time of year AND of course a brew pub serving the local Blue Point Toasted Lager - how good does it get?

Homespun Fun

I sat down at my computer to do some work yesterday, looked at the monitor and yes, talking to an inanimate object, said "you give me a pain in the neck"!
Whilst no verbal response was immediately forthcoming from the computer, I took the fact that Adobe wanted up update, Windows wanted to update and Norton was doing something atrociously labor intensive - as a sign that I was meant to go and do something else!

A short foray into the basement later I determined that given the impending winter season, at bit of knitting preparation was in order.  My husband can attest to the fact that I have more than a few "shorn" sheep hidden down there so I raided the stash of roving and headed off to the Spinning Wheel for some fun of a less pixelly nature!

The Spinning Wheel was kind of cranky to start with (or that could have been me out of practice) but soon it was all fluff and go!  I now have a few balls of nicely "wonky" art yarn, all properly ply-ed, that will no doubt festoon someone's neck in the coming chilly months, masquerading as a scarf!

If only I could have blogged about it from the comfort of my rocking chair and treadle foot!

Testing out the Textures

The new texture sets that I blogged about in my previous post are proving to be lots of fun and a huge success!  Thank you!

They are not only designed to be used with photographs but work just as easily as components of your digital collage.

I've cooked up some more demo pieces using the "Grunge Paint" texture from Collection Two.  

In the first instance using the texture as a background for a digital collage....

  .... and in the second example, same texture used over a photograph I took at the beach recently!

Cool huh?  :-)

Hope you have a fun filled and creative week!

Texture Treats

Thanks to all your kind comments and a little intervention from the Gods that BE, some weight has been lifted from my shoulders and I am happy to say that today I have been working on a project that has been on the back-burner for sometime..... a new site with collaborative digital goodies.

The site is not quite ready but for now I am able to give you some sneak peeks and will start by sharing some wonderful textures that I have created, especially with Digital Photographers and Digital Collage Artists in mind.

The textures are all High Resolution, 300dpi and are 4000x4000 pixels in size - so WAY big and juicy enough for you to do fabulous things with them.  Suitable for layering on your images, using as backgrounds or printing out to use in Mixed Media artwork.  Check out the sample below...

How I Did This....
*Opened my Photo image in Photoshop (0r Elements)
*Opened my "Green Wall" texture from (Collection Set Two)and dragged and dropped it onto my photo.
*Changed the Blending Mode of the "Green Wall" texture layer to Multiply 53%
*Duplicated the "Green Wall" layer and set the Blending Mode to 64%
*Used my Text Tool to write some words, added a Drop Shadow to the text, matching the color to the green and added an Outer Glow to the text.
And VOILA! You have it!

So, if your appetite is whet, then you can check out the new texture sets...Click on the images for a larger view!...
Each set has 18 High Resolution Images with immediate links to the downloads and if you buy both sets then you can Save!

Texture Collection - Set One

$20

 

Texture Collection - Set Two
$20

Buy both sets for $36 and SAVE!!

Betwixt and Between

We are at a strange place in our house.  Trying to navigate the murky waters of uncertainty whilst those about us expect life to continue along it's status quo or are only interested in their own agenda's being fulfilled.  It saddens me immeasurably - not a good emotion if you are the creative sort.

I think the garden must be empathetic though, my roses are blooming (again) and vying for sunshine with the Fall Asters.  Up, down, good, bad, the roller-coaster of life I guess.

Flight

Hurricane Earl is barreling up the coast at a somewhat lesser pace than yesterday, thank goodness.  It seems that a nice westerly cold front is puffing it away from the coast and it's run out of a bit of steam.

Although we have battened down the hatches and pulled in all the things that can go "bump" when it's windy I won't be sorry to have prepared for nothing.

At this point I worry about the beaches the most.  They might not hold a candle to the ones that I love to frequent at "home" but still, when the weather is bad here, they get hammered and seem to lose so much ground that there is almost nothing left to walk on afterward.

"Flight" is created from a photo of a feather that I picked up on a recent beach walk at Robert Moses and I am crossing my fingers that after Earl has passed we will still get to enjoy some sand time before the chilly weather sets in!
(P.S. In this image, I'm using some new textures and overlays that will soon be available to purchase...so stay tuned on that score!