Peaceful

I love being around the ocean and palm trees it always feels so peaceful. I enjoy  practicing painting scenes such as this one.  This is a watercolor painting on 9 x 11 cold press watercolor paper.

The first photo is the original painting scanned and for the fun of it I tried using a couple of filters in Photoshop Elements to change the look a bit.  The second photo is using the filter ‘film grain’ and the last  one is using  ‘poster edges’ filter.  I like how it changes the painting and each one gives a different feel to it.

Original watercolor painting

Film Grain Filter

Poster Edges Filter

Thanks for dropping by

Michelle

 

Designing Greeting Cards

Well it has been quite sometime since I last did a post….life sometimes just gets in the way, not to mention when you get into a creative slump and I am happy that I am emerging into creative space again.

Today I created a greeting card for my Valley Women’s Network – White Rock Chapter to welcome our new members.  I basically took a number of watercolor paintings I have created and took them into Photoshop Elements, using layers and a few filters to create the image for the front of the card.  We have been using Send-Out Cards to send Thank You cards to our guest speakers and now we  have added new members.  It is great to be able to create images of my original paintings and then upload to Sendoutcards.com so that we have original personalized cards going to our members and I am grateful to have this platform to highlight some of my artwork.

If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur and want to meet other like-minded women to network with in the Fraser Valley, check out our website for meeting dates and locations.  I have been a member for 6 years now and I really love all the new friends and connections I have made over the years.

 

 

Two mediums come together digitally

I didn’t realize how long it had been since I had done a post……much longer than I thought.  But today I decided it was time to get back to it.

I haven’t been creating too much art this past while except for some water colouring in my sketch book but I am starting to feel more inspired to get back to mixed-media.  Over the weekend I thought I would see what I could create digitally and decided to take the water colour painting from my last post and incorporate it with one of the sunset pictures I took while spending time in Mexico this past winter.  So here it is.

Bliss is a beautiful sunset

I used the sunset photo as the background then selected the girl from my water colour painting and then added a photo of one of my Encaustic paintings to add a more painterly look to the sunset along with a couple of little butterflies.  I used a number of different filters to get the effect I wanted.

Here are the image layers I used to create this in Photoshop Elements 10.

     Until next time, happy creating!

Michelle

Let Your Light Shine

“Let nothing dim the light that shines from within.” Maya Angelou

This is the latest portrait drawing that I did with watercolour – I then scanned it and created a new digital collage.

Let Nothing Dim the Light from Within.

I had scanned a couple of my background pages from my art journal and incorporated them into the digital collage as well.
I have received my encaustic supplies and gearing up to start creating more with wax….stay tuned for my journey with encaustic.

Until next time happy creating…..

Michelle

Your Paradise

Digital collage can be so much fun.  I took this water-colour painting I did in my mixed-media journal while I was in Mexico this winter and scanned it.

You can make the place you are now your paradise….

I then made a totally different looking collage out of it digitally using Photo Shop Elements 10  by adding various back grounds and using a variety of filters such as multiply, hard light and the water-colour filter.

Michelle

Embrace Your Journey

I have been AOL from my blog posts – April was a very sad month, my brother was very ill and passed away mid-April so I haven’t been very focused on my art or blogging.  But I am now ready to get creative once again.

Today I started playing around with a watercolour painting that I did while in Mexico which I scanned and then added some digital enhancement to it using Photoshop Elements 10.

Love. Focus your thoughts. Embrace your journey.

I included some background papers with various filters and then added some grass at the bottom using a Photoshop brush and then painted some grass background.  I added a handwritten quote that I had scanned as well.  I like how it all turned out and most of all it felt so good to be creative after such a long time…art helps your heart heal and feel so much lighter.

Until next time

Be gentle with yourself

Michelle

 

Let Go – Be Bold

“Each day brings with it another chance to live in the moment”.

I have been switching back and forth between hand-made collage and digital collage depending on what mood I am in.  It is certainly nice to have the choice and I really love being able to take art that I created previously and

Nourish Your Soul – Dream

use it again in a totally different way in my digital art.

I think with the onset of the cool, wet weather I have been craving lattes because they are delicious and creamy, my comfort drink of choice.  So this digital piece features a coffee cup and I recycled a couple of my background collages that I had scanned a long time a go.  I used some adobe brushes to create  swirls and various filters to create the effect I wanted which was a comforting warm feeling.  I love the versatility of Photoshop and how you can manipulate the layers to give the feeling of luminosity.  l love this collage and printed it of and framed it in white frame. This piece has quickly become one of my favorites.

Until next time – nourish your soul – Dream!

Michelle