Mostly Turquoise

March 8, 2009

GPP Crusade No. 29: more playing

Caribbean waters are too rough for swimming today, so I tried the brush theme once again!

Started with a waxy paper that was a bag for a surfshop in it's earlier life, tore it open, crumbled it and folded out again. I tried to imitate the batikked tablecloth of my second GPP entry, initially...

dry brushed Paynes Grey, Brilliant and Cobalt Blue

and here it is!
I listened to some of you and carved a stamp, applied it with white acrylic paint and across the surface it went

awaiting my punchinella, I made some p-ish myself with freezer paper and my
Crop-a-Dile

pounched gold paint through it at some places

and finally monoprinted the back of an alphabet stencil

in brown, hardly any letter visible, but brush effect all the more

(all pictures are clickable)

Have fun brushing!

New banner: again?!

As I wrote a few days ago, I simply love making banners!

And while let's say one year ago I was in total awe

when seeing all these beauties on the web, I nowadays just try

and play with Photoshop (thank you for ever Ronald!) and I must say it's really not that difficult.

Here's what I do:

(I just had to put this banner here too, because I realize it won't stay long on my blog

and then you might wonder: what the hell is she talking about??
Do you get this result out of these 2 pictures??...)

In Photoshop open a new canvas in the size of your banner. My Blogger weblog uses 720 x 250 pixels. See to it that it is in the R G B color mode, resolution 300 pixels/inch

Oh this may sound very technical already, but don't get scared and don't forget to just try and play!

This is a rock picture I shot when visiting one of Curacao's beautiful

beaches one week ago and I put in on my new document by dragging after opening the picture

then I opened another one,

this is Landhuis (plantation house) San Juan
(btw: Curacao has many of these plantation houses and should you
ever be able: do visit some, they are gorgeous!)

Back to the process: so in PS I open both pictures, drag one over the other on
the new banner size canvas and then the fun begins:

- move the pictures within the new document until you are happy with the details, it will be larger than the original

- choose Layers, Blending Options, and try some or all (what I do) possibilities, just moving the stuff (the sliding buttons in the menu) back and forth (don't know the Englisch word for this, sorry), try all the settings, push on and off several color buttons and see what happens, it is really that easy. Finally I rush one of the filters over the picture for an artistic or dramatic effect, or whatever you like and tada: a new banner again. Of course you save it with Save As and give it a new name, so your original photo's stay like they are.

Any further questions? I will be happy to answer them!
Lovely Sunday...

March 6, 2009

Are you in for some COLOUR?

Since I expect to be very busy next week, and have an unexpected evening to spend on my own as my husband is stuck on one of the neighboring islands, I thought: let me try to do my brush-thing right now! Here is my process of something old, something blue and something new:

I started this experiment last year, really don't know what I

was thinking...

a la kindergarten cut out some freezer paper and used both stencil and mask...

though it's not clearly visible, I really used a brush with the acrylics,
then went on in my newest
addiction, playing with Photoshop

detail of a tablecloth we used with yesterday's lunch!

used layers, colorburning and what not in PS!
(I only just started learning, hence the word process, would not call it art, but I was having fun!

Brush effects: Crusade No. 29

When I looked what technique Michelle Ward did come up with for this month's crusade, I felt a shot of recognition, thinking: this is stuff I know!

After reading her explanation thoroughly several times (I try to be a little serious with my work, which feels more like playing to me...), my initial reaction was followed with doubt, as I saw all the different ways to create brush effects. What I tend to do then, is wait and let it sink in a little.

But yesterday I visited a friend of mine which is on the island for some time. She is a professional painter and since I had not met her for a long time, I showed her art journals and collages that I had made after we saw each other last year. And while browsing through all these pages, I saw that lots of brush effect in my work was readily available. So, awaiting new work after diving into this month's technique, I show some details of former brush work. These are details of pages in my art journal and I too prefer to leave them as they are, without putting more stuff on them

I realize my brushing is mostly done in order to tone down

as I tend to use very bold colours

and am usually fond of contrast!

It's so funny that my friend managed to analyse my work and made me aware how much it reflects my present life

This page I rediscovered yesterday. Right after making it, I thought it very ugly, maybe because it did not meet my expectation then, now I love it, how is that possible?

Experience, growth, developing style and skills?

If you're in for some eye-candy, want to participate and meet other creative souls, do visit GPP Street Team! There is a button at the right of my blog that takes you there.

And Michelle, thank you once again for your inspiration and challenging us all!

March 5, 2009

About banners

I love making banners!

Ever since I learned how to make them, through the internet of course, I've been using many different banners for my blog. And it may happen very often that I simply can't wait to put on a new one, as you may have noticed!

This morning I was browsing through my pictures, looking for my newest collage, and came upon these banners, neatly stored in a 'used' and a 'new' file. And I thought: why not show these 'oldies' one more time in a kind of sub group? Seeing them together made me realize that they represent my style, a style that I was looking for and wrote about in a some post the other day!

Come and have a look, join me on my banner tour:

This one is from August 2008 (blog start was in July 08)

Picture of collage on canvas and business card on it

one of my early experiments in Photoshop, picture of stingray and rose

detail of this journal page

one of the Royal Palm trees in Philipsburg's Frontstreet

combined details of picture and journal page

Do you also see a style evolving in these banners? And what about the color impression? Don't these banners explain my blog's name?

Since my 'new' file is filled to the brim, you can expect a lot more.
And eh, I would love your reaction...

Have a beautiful day!