The Three Muses Art Challenge - Floral

Our challenge word this week at The Three Muses is Floral.  These looked like spring flowers to me, beautiful colors, and this little fairy has clothes and wings that matched!  Wasn't that lucky?  😉

Can you see the three gnomes hiding, hoping to watch her fly?

See you next time...

Take a Word Art Challenge - Silhouettes

Our Theme this week at Take a Word is Silhouettes.  I liked this element of the young woman in silhouette with a dress made of butterflies.  Is he proposing?  ❤  How romantic!

See you next time...

Sunday Postcard Art Challenge - Alter Mona

This week's challenge at Sunday Postcard Art is Alter Mona.  I had this great graphic of the Mona Lisa dripping with colorful paint - I loved it and hoped to use it.  Enter...Alter Mona!  Perfect.

I gave her a feathered headdress, to which I added a couple of things, then the beautiful owl, a few more elements, and here's my Alter Mona.

This is one of my favorites that I've done so far.  Hope you like it!

See you next time...

Sunday Postcard Art Challenge - BINGO

This week's theme at Sunday Postcard Art is BINGO.  I don't play BINGO and this one kind of eluded me as far as how to put a BINGO challenge together.  I kind of liked the bird eggs used as number covers, so I went with Bird's Egg Bingo.  Kind of crazy, but again, fun to create!

See you next time...

Take a Word Art Challenge - Moon

The theme this week at Take a Word is Moon. 

I haven't done a lot of artsy stuff in the past.  Not like this.  These challenges are so interesting, the way our brains work, the way we put things together, how sometimes the end result is exactly what we visualized even before we found the right elements, and sometimes we go off on a completely different direction and end up with art we like even better.  At least that's what's happening with me.

It's all a new experience and it sure is fun - and interesting!

By the way, this one is exactly what I was seeing when I thought about how I wanted to do this Moon challenge.

See you next time...

The Three Muses Art Challenge - Grunge

The theme this week at The Three Muses is Grunge.  I love grunge - but haven't worked with it much.  So this is my first grunge piece.  It was pretty fun to put together, hopefully we'll have some similar challenges in the future!

Until next time...

Take A Word Art Challenge - Bird

Our challenge theme this week at Take A Word is Bird.

I did this one on a rainy night in New Mexico.  Warm and toasty inside and rainy and windy outside. 

I liked the way the lovebirds' color stands out in the darker background and I loved the church element.  The moon is from a full moon photo I took.  I removed the background and saved it as a PNG so that I could use it as a graphic in collage pieces.  I'm sure I'll be using it again!

See you next time...

Sunday Postcard Art Challenge - Airmail

Our theme this week at Sunday Postcard Art is Airmail.

It looks like using a bunch of helium balloons to deliver air mail isn't working.  Our good old bird, Howard, to the rescue!

Happy Valentines Day, everyone!

See you next time...

Take a Word Art Challenge - Time

Time is the word we used this week when putting together our pieces for Take a Word's Challenge.
 

I found this Grand Central Station wall clock graphic and decided to use it with this train/crowd element. I added a bunch of colorful elements to the black and white scene, and I liked it!  I hope you do, too.  😊

See you next time...

The Three Muses Challenge - Umbrella

Our theme this week at The Three Muses is Umbrella.

What can I say about this one, except I love these two women.  And old houses and old buildings and lightning and storms.  Waterbirds and owls.  And they're all here!

Notice the bird nest in the lady's white hairdo.  What a do, huh?  There was a hole in it large enough for a bird's nest, so there it is.  😉


See you next time...

Sunday Postcard Art Challenge - Fruit and/or Vegetables

The challenge theme this week at Sunday Postcard Art is Fruit and/or Vegetables.

After going through lots of graphics and different elements and ideas, nothing really stuck.  Then I came across some beautiful strawberry cupcake elements and ended up settling on just one fruit - the strawberry.  Specifically on and in cakes and cupcakes.  Beautiful strawberry pastries.

"Cupcakes are LOVE with icing on top and a Strawberry."  🍓

So... this is an area of the Cake Works Bakery.  Surprisingly it's dog friendly, as you can see by the three pups in the piece.   Gotta love a dog friendly business.

Until next time...

Take a Word Art Challenge - An Old Fashioned Girl

Our challenge this week at Take a Word is An Old Fashioned Girl.  I've added an old fashioned car, bike and narrow downtown street.

I'm learning how to use brushes in Photoshop Elements, and finally put some on an art piece - this one has green and yellow watercolor splotches, but I've made them pretty transparent, just a touch.  I like it!  I'll try more brushes in the next challenges. These art challenge web sites are a great way to slowly learn a new program like PSE. 

A little at a time works for me.  😉


See you next time...

The Three Muses Art Challenge - Turquose and Red

Our theme challenge this week at The Three Muses is Turquoise and Red.  I know being a working photographer isn't as romantic as this scene, but I had fun layering my pieces to get this romantic result. 

And I agree with Ansel Adams, "There are always two people in every picture:  the photographer and the viewer."   I hope you enjoy it!

Until next time...

Sunday Postcard Art Challenge - Secret Garden

The challenge theme this week at Sunday Postcard Art is Secret Garden.  I loved putting this one together.  Doesn't everyone want a secret garden?  Trees, bushes, garden furniture, a cool stucco building with ivy draping down the walls, a beautiful water feature with fish, ducks and frogs, lots of birds, including a beautiful peacock.  Muted sunshine so the computer screen isn't hard to read.
  
Oh yeah, I would really enjoy this little garden!  😉

See you next time...

The Three Muses Challenge - Window

Our challenge this week at The Three Muses is "WINDOW  Put a window in your world next week ... any kind of window ... anywhere." 

I've been sick with the flu for weeks now, and I missed a bunch of challenges that sounded like FUN!  I've had zero motivation to start anything new, but now things are starting to look up and this is my first piece this year. I think I wanted something calm and easy  - simple tent camping - and I added my "window" to the sidewall of the tent.  

This one was fun to do - my favorite part is the little baby monkey hanging on the rope tied to the tree.  Why is a baby monkey camping in the backyard?  Who knows?  This one doesn't necessarily make sense, I just used the elements I liked and had fun putting them together.   

There are some other challenges in the pipeline that look like fun topics, so hopefully I'll be motivated to do more soon.  :)

See you next time...

The Three Muses Challenge - Travel

The theme this week at The Three Muses is "Choose a word for January to inspire you."

My birthday is in January, so I put myself into this piece.  My word for January is TRAVEL.

Waiting for the train with all my luggage.  Do you think I have enough?  It's going to be a long trip!   I had so much fun with this one - tons of graphics and overlays.  😊

See you next time...

Take a Word Art Challenge - Childhood

Our theme this week at Take a Word is Childhood; I think any child would love to live in this house or walk down the path to visit her grandparents.   In fact, I'd love to live in this house!  Looks like heaven to me!

Happy 2018 to everybody! 

See you next time...

Take a Word Art Challenge - Celebrate

Celebrate is the theme this week at Take a Word. Wouldn't you love to celebrate New Year's Eve in Paris?  A taste of Champagne, then out to dinner and dancing the night away. 

Happy New Year, everyone!

See you next time...

Sunday Postcard Art Challenge - Anything Goes

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.  --Emily Bronte

  To see a young couple loving each other is no wonder; 

but to see an old couple loving each other is the best sight of all.

--William Makepeace Thackeray

This challenge theme is Anything Goes - from Sunday Postcard Art.  We had the option of making our Art Challenge pieces on any subject we chose.

I loved making this one.  It went through many iterations, I don't know exactly how I ended up with "That was then...This is now..."  Maybe it was talking to my 95 year old Dad on Christmas day.  He and my mom met in high school and were married until she died on August 21, 2016.  Such a wonderful gift to love someone that long.  

See you next time...

The Three Muses Challenge - Books

This week's theme at The Three Muses is Books.

I've enjoyed reading all my life and remember how exciting it was to receive a new book.  I still have a couple from my childhood.  When I didn't have a book to read I'd pull down volumes from The Book of Knowledge or the Encyclopedia that were in the bookshelf next to the fireplace, and also a large book of short stories by Rudyard Kipling (which I didn't actually like very much, but they were there.)  And the Dictionary if there wasn't anything else to read.  Snuggle up on the couch with the sun streaming in the windows and be taken away...

They do fill you up and expand your life.

See you next time...

Take a Word Challenge - Christmas Greetings

The theme this week at Take A Word is Christmas Greetings.

Five cousins together at Christmas - that's what makes Christmas a little bit more than coming from a store!

I put this together using photos of my grandchildren when they were younger (the center photo was Christmas Day in 2010), Grinch graphics from graphicsbuzz.com and Pinterest, and the background paper from my paper stash.  I ran it through Painnt to get more texture.

See you next time...

The Three Muses Challenge - Mail Art

Mail Art is the theme at The Three Muses this week. This is my granddaughter, Lauren; I've always loved this photo of her.  It was taken during a Christmas visit at my house in San Diego, December of 2010.  The look of excitement on her face - doesn't it just say,

"Santa's bringing me EVERYTHING!"

😊

The background and all the graphics are from my stash, and I wrote Lauren's Wish List and Santa's reply.  I made a little "Lauren's Place," where she can go and dream and read and write and practice gymnastics.

See you next time...

The Three Muses Challenge - STARS

The Challenge Theme this week at The Three Muses is STARS - "use stars in your artwork - anything goes."

I wanted to use a raft, like in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.  Floating along on a warm evening, daydreaming while looking up at the sky filled with stars.

For the background I chose a photo I snapped at Lone Rock Beach, which is on the border of Arizona and Utah. I camped there on the beach for a week in May.  It would have been nice to have a raft then!

See you next time...

Take a Word Challenge - Red and Green

Red and Green is this week's theme at Take a Word Challenge.

The background is my own photo which was reworked in a couple of photo apps, and the graphics are from my stash.

This is the original photo taken at Armitage Park in Eugene, OR, August 2011. 

See you next time...

Sunday Postcard Art - Challenge: ELVES

Elves was this week's theme at Sunday Postcard Art.

The background is one of my own photos - I used a free app, Painnt, to get the rough brush strokes and a more artistic look then adjusted the transparency to fade it a bit.  The rest of the digital graphics I chose from my files, tinkered with them a bit, and layered.

I've posted three Art Challenge websites at the top of the right sidebar so I can easily click over (and you can, too).  This is my first challenge effort - I'm very curious how my style and abilities will change and grow as I go forward.  And learn Photoshop Elements!  I put this piece together on CraftArtist2, an old program that is no longer available.  I have different photo/art apps that I use for various effects and I'm sure Elements has them all in one program. 

See you next time...