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Photography of Scotland

Since I'm painting a photo I took in Scotland, I thought I'd share some of the pics I took while we were there.

The movie theatre in Edinburgh, where we saw Harry Potter 7, part II.  So exciting to see it in the city where she wrote the books!

Little bistro/deli where we had lunch the first day.

Edinburgh Castle

 

A mountain in Edinburgh that we hiked up.

Church ruins of Holyrood Palace . . . amazing carvings and detail here.

some detail of the Rosslyn Chapel . . . where Da Vinci code was filmed.

the castle where we stayed one night.  it was so fun.  we had dinner in the old dungeon!

one of my favorite memories of Scotland was the coffee we drank and reading my book, "The Winter Sea" while we were there and finishing it when we got home.  It's about a writer who went to the Highlands of Scotland to write a novel and her experience while there.  such a treasure to me now.

We rented a car and drive up to the Highlands (like what we refer to as "going to the mountains").  It was soooo beautiful up there.  we could have stayed a month up there.  so many lochs (lakes) and beautiful scenery.  

look familiar?

view from another castle (we saw 6 total) . . . American! LOL

a few pics of the scenery along the road

heading out on another hike

another castle, out on its own little island

I think this was my favorite castle . . . it is in ruins, but still so beautiful!

same castle, view from high inside it

some panoramics I made in Photoshop with photo merge . . . this is a view of Edinburgh

another of Edinburgh

and a view from Stirling Castle

 

It was truly an amazing trip.  I would go back in a heartbeat!!!

 

See the photos section (right column) for more photos

Artist Profile: Phil Hansen

As I was browsing videos on Jenny Doh's Crescendoh TV, I found this one to be unique.

*you might want to PAUSE the music on the left column of my blog to hear the video (scroll down a bit)

 

Anniversary Painting

Hubby and I celebrated 17 yrs of marriage in August, so I decided to do a small 8x10 canvas to celebrate.

 

I started with a photocopy of us - a photo that I manipulated in Photoshop to get high contrast, black and white lines.  I chose other papers that are meaningful to us: wine corks, music, beach, Celtic design, and all-cap exclamations (think texting lingo).  I adhered them all to the canvas with gel medium.

 

I added some white and cream paint to start blending them into the background before I added color.

 

I began adding my favorite shades of blue, keeping it lighter around us.

 

Some stamping, stencils, word stips, and ephemera were added for fun details.

 

I even found a vintage stamp I had of Cape Henry (we boat in Virginia, so thought that was fun coincidence)

And there you have an anniversary painting.  

The top words in the heart and under it are lyrics from a James Blunt song.  

3 Canvases: Nature, Peace, & Creativity

My mom recently turned 60, so I wanted to create some canvases for her to hang in her office.  Each canvas signifies a piece of her:

 

Seeker of NATURE: my mom loved horses as a kid, but never had an opportunity to ride.  In 1997, her prince rode in on a horse and scooped her away . . . well, he actually wore a cowboy hat and lassoed her.  He is a calf-roper, has two horses, and they live happily ever after out in the country of Wyoming.

 

Finder of PEACE:  Just five years ago, my mom decided to learn how to play the guitar.  She's wanted to do this for years and finally made it happen.  She practices daily and finds a deep peace in the process.  Inspiring, for sure.

 

Maker of CREATIVITY:  My mom has always been creative.  I remember rearranging our living room multiple times as a child. She sewed dresses, quilts, curtains, and pajamas for us.  She made my 3 bridesmaids' dresses and 2 flower girl dresses.  She always had clever ideas for Halloween costumes.  She's been a lover of photography for as long as I can remember.  My dad would often start drawing a new stained glass pattern and she would finish it years later.  Today, she owns a creative framing store, where she is always trying new things - guns, fishing lures, bridal bouquets, photo name mats, etc.  She also is a stained glass and sandblasting artist.  Creative blood, indeed.  Check out her work at Rocky Mountain Framing

 

Here is a little more of the process that went into these.  I wanted to experiment more with the xerography process I tried in this post.  I found images & words that I wanted to use and printed them with a black laser printer.

I cut and tore them apart, laid them on the canvas to decide on the layout, then covered the backs with gel medium to adhere to the canvases.

 

One of my favorite techniques is adding texture with stencils and modeling paste.  

I went to grab my paste and learned I was out, so I did what my mom always taught me: WING IT!  I dug through what I had and ended up trying extra heavy gel medium.  I loved the results.  

I just laid the stencil on the edge of each canvas and applied the gel with a palette knife

 

After they dried completely (heat guns speeds this up), it was time to add some color!

Many more layers of paint and textures were added.  Sometimes, I just rubbed in some color with my fingers, other times I sprayed on colors.  My favorites are Ranger's Color Washes and the shimmery Tattered Angels: Glimmer Mists

 

A finished trio to hang on the wall.  Happy birthday, mom!

Xerography

It's a fancy word for making art with dry photo copies.  Once I learned the word, I loved the word and wanted to find out more about this word.  So I googled it and found . . . nothing much.  But I still like it, nonetheless.

Remember that cool book that my fabulous hubby gave me for Christmas?  This one:

As I was flipping through it, this artist's page grabbed my attention: R.L. Gibson Lynne Foster.  I decided to try her technique, as she described in the book.  

She begins with a photocopy or digital creation.  I was in a hurry to try this out, so I used some saved pics I had on my computer of 2 pieces of work I liked.  I then added backgrounds, flourishes, text, and pieces from purchased digital kits until I had a collaged piece in Photoshop Elements.  Here are the steps I took to create my piece.

I then printed it onto Bond Paper, using a laser printer and adhered it to artist board (watercolor board) using matte gel.

 

To give credit where credit is due, these are the pics I used.  They are not mine and I will not be selling this piece or submitting it for publication.  It is simply an experimental piece.  I plan to use my own drawings in the future.

The female portrait on the right is this piece of artwork from D.J. Pettitt, a very talented artist.

The two younger females in the bottom left corner are digital creations by another one of my favorite artists.  Her blog is called Art & Ghosts 

Next, I added some white artist tape to the edges for texture and began adding color.  As suggestion in the book, I watered-down my acrylic paints until they appeared opaque and brushed like watercolor.

 

I continued adding layers of color until I was happy with the overall look.  I used a combination of the watered-down acrylics and these watercolor crayons.

 

After some strips of pattern paper, it was time for some texture.  I love the added dimension.  This is a favorite element of mine.  I used modeling paste in a couple of ways:

1-scraped it over a harlequin stencil

2-scraped it onto the board, then stamped in it with a texture (layer of metal washers glued to cardboard and sticky-back mesh adhered to cardboard - they become texture stamps)

 

 

Now it was time to add some color to the bold, white texture areas to unify the piece.  I used several thin washes of blue, mixed with black until it had a slight "darkness" to it.

It was such a fun learning process!  I think I've found a new avenue to explore!

After playing with this technique, I searched online for xerography and found the awesome work of this artist, R.L. Gibson.  I'll be trying her techniques out soon.

p.s. - counting down the days until Donna Downey's Inspired Artists Workshops event - only 8 days away!