A digitally altered painting...

Always...

Just a little Photoshop fun - wide swings of color balance, a little typography, and some transparent layers. Here was the original painting, in greens and yellows, and below is the altered version.

Altered wish...

This is a digitally altered version of a painting I made over the summer. I had some Photoshop fun with cropping and filters to alter it into a holiday piece. Since it's December already (can you believe it??), I thought an altered Christmas tree would be appropriate. My posts this month will probably be few and brief, as I have not purchased a single gift, baked a cookie, or written a card yet. In fact, this may be as close as I get to a holiday card at the rate I am going!

While I love the act of giving someone a perfect and thoughtful gift, more and more I resent the pressure to buy, buy, buy during this season. I realize that this mind set will not help the economy, but I am hoping to find creative ideas for giving that don't always involve a trip to the dreaded mall.

Oh, and I almost forgot...
My friend Marilyn is introducing a new monthly "featured artist" on her blog, and she has invited me to be the first. Here's my interview.

Multi-tasking & art...

I think that painting - and particularly creating mixed-media works, definitely benefits from an ability to multi-task. I know that for me, it's a necessity. I am often impatient when I paint, wanting to add the next layer or object but having to wait for it to dry first. So, working on several pieces at once helps me to fill in the waiting time and not break my creative flow.

Last night I noticed, while blotting some paint brushes, that one of my paint rags was full of paint & wonderful colors, so while my pieces were drying, I decided to create some decorative paper backgrounds using just the rag and some bristol. Fun!

Visualize world peace...

Just a little Photoshop fun. I took one of my recent paintings, and, using a series of filters (which I could never duplicate) this is what happened. Kinda far out and groovy, I think...

I have some exciting art opportunities in the works for the late summer & early fall, but details are still up in the air, so I will refrain from sharing the details for now.

Meanwhile, my niece Avery is back at Status 1A on the heart transplant list. She continues to be weaned from the ventilator and given extra high-calorie feeds to build up her strength. She is still sedated most of each day to give her body time to rest and heal from her most recent procedure (the Berlin heart). Now it's a bittersweet wait for a heart to become available.

Just these words today...