Fun ATC Swap - Unusual Postage Stamps

Had so much fun over the past day or so creating these ATCs for an art swap!  The theme for the swap was "unusual postage stamps" and we got to define unusual - take a look -

 

The foundation for each of these was some graphics of postcards that I had previously scanned.  I printed out the larger size items and then used a portion of the postcard as the background for each piece - after all, it sort of tied in with the whole stamp idea.  For the piece above, I loved the little elephant stamp - I'm guessing this was some sort of tribute to the 70's???



The next layer of each of these pieces was a new technique that I just came across in a creative magazine, using Citrasolv and alcohol inks.  Basically, I dampened a paper towel with the Citrasolv, added a couple of drops of different colored alcohol inks and then wiped the card.  The colors of the ink painted the postcard type background with some lovely swirls of color. For the above piece, I added the fun stamp with the beach umbrella and a portion of a cocktail umbrella to complement it!

For the above piece, I added a star that I punched out of some scrapbook paper.  I really liked the graphics of this stamp, and the colors of the ink really seemed to capture the fun feel of the star.

This last piece highlighted a stamp from New Zealand.  I really liked the colors of it and used ink colors that offset it nicely.  What a fun discovery this alcohol ink technique was.  I think I'll have to try it out on some other substrates, too!

 

Enjoy!

This Morning's Walk

Went for a morning walk today with Jeff and Miki  Got some good shots, and played with them to create some fun and pretty effects.  Added a quote here and there, and this is the result ~

These little flowers were just so beautiful I couldn't resist capturing their beauty.  I played with my HDR software to enhance what I saw in them.  I found this lovely quote that seemed appropriate for these little weeds, persisting in growing in a not very hospitable environment.

 

The grass looked really cool today, covered with little raindrops. However, unfortunately, the raindrops looked better in person than what I could capture in my camera, so I decided to get playful and create some fun colored grass, just to sort of illustrate how happy I think all the growing things are here right now with the lovely monsoon rains we've been having!

And, finally, as we were finishing up our walk, I noticed our friend's hors enjoying not only breakfast, but the lovely sunrise to boot!  The scene was just so wonderfully calm and peaceful, I couldn't resist capturing it.

 

Enjoy!

Sunrise Walk - Wild Photos!

Yesterday, I woke up a bit early and decided to take Miki and my camera on a very early sunrise walk.  I knew the images would come out very poor from a purely photographic perspective, so I thought I'd take the images and then play with them with the HDR software to get some very different, unrealistic results.  Take a look ~

Great clouds in the above image!  The colors of the sunrise were really pretty, but it was still pretty dark.   So, I used what is called a "creative" effect that seemed to highlight the cloud shapes and also accented the beginning of great color of the sunrise.

The above image reminded me of one of those sort of "pop art" posters, usually advertising something or some one's tour.  Pink ground???  There was something very fun about this effect that just struck me - had to share this with you!

The sun was really beginning to radiate at this time, so I stopped to capture that and focus the special effect on highlighting that one little section of the sky as the yellow gold crept up from the horizon.

And, to be very different, I decided to go black & white for this last shot.  In a way, the lack of color emphasizes those clouds that are radiant from the pending sunrise.

 

Enjoy! 

Blue, Green and Purple Abstract on Book Page Backgrounds ATCs

Here are some ATCs I made for an art swap.  The theme was to be an abstract using blue, green and purple in each piece, and have the background of the ATC be a book page (text) background.  I thought it was a great opportunity to use up some scraps of paper that I keep in a tub (nothing ever goes to waste when doing collage/mixed media!).

The first piece used Japanese text as the background, and then I just stamped some texture type effects on it and added the 3 colors in the circles.  The middle one really is a shade of green, altho it doesn't look like it much!

For this piece, I liked using some swirl stamps, punched circles and dabs of paint over what I think is French text.  It just had a sort of free flowing feel to it that I like.

I really like using diagonal lines.  I feel it adds a tension to the piece that sort of wakes me up.  I used purple ribbon for the lines, with some punched circles from watercolor effect paper that I had.  The green band along the right side is a piece of Citrasolv paper I made a while back (from National Geo magazine pages).  I'm not sure what language the background text is.  I have several foreign text books - maybe German??

This last piece is quite a busy piece.  The text is, I believe, Spanish or Italian, and I added bands of colored handmade paper on the right, bands of the same Citrasolv paper as in the previous piece across the card and some purple paints dabs that could be considered very free form circles !!  LOL!

 

Enjoy!!

All Creatures - Great, Small and Fast !

We definitely saw several different types of creatures out on our back road explorations - here are some of them....

 



 

Let's not forget our busy bees!  We stopped by the roadside where there were lots of these sort of goldenrod yellow cornflowers.....and the bees were feasting!  (Along with a few hornets and wasps, too...)   

We drove thru a national forest campground, just to check it out for potential future stays, when we came across some campers who had already been set up there for quite a while!  They did have a fence to keep these guys out of the campground, but I guess when there's a will, there's a way!

Thank goodness we tend to drive slower along the back roads - we came across this guy right on the side of the road - so I rolled down the window of the Jeep and got this up close and personal shot!

Here was a fun site - a little mule deer, racing along next to our Jeep!  As I readied my camera, Jeff rolled down the window and kept pace, so I could capture him in motion!

 

Enjoy!

Reservation and/or Wild Horses

We saw some either reservation or wild horses while camping this weekend - something different that I don't recall coming across much!  The first 2 images are of what we were told were reservation horses, but the last 3 images were ones I captured while we were out back roading, so I don't know if they, too, are reservation horses, or just wild horses.  We are very close to the Navajo reservation, so I guess they all could be reservation horses.  In any event, they are beautiful.....

In this first image, we were up on the bluff around our campsite, actually sort of across the campground from the lake.  There is a creek there, and these reservation horses were there, munching on the lovely grass and drinking what I imagine is the cool water.

 

Here's an image of a mom and her foal.  I did enhance this image somewhat, just to draw out the great detail of this scene.  They were just so peaceful, and didn't even notice us up above.....or they just didn't care? 

As we were driving along the back roads, we saw several deposits of horse poop along the road, and then came around the bend to see the source of all that poop....and in such a breathtaking setting!

These are the horses that can be either wild or reservation.  For the most part, they ignored us, but you can see the one horse was definitely keeping an eye on me!  What a lovely, peaceful scene this was, and I just loved seeing these wild beautiful animals in their element.

 



I just love the image of this mom and foal peacefully enjoying a morning graze.  The foal was just so sweet, always very close to mom.

 

Enjoy!

Out There Landscapes....and More

Some interesting images captured at the campsite and wandering the back roads - yep, the rain happened and got things wet enough so that the national forest roads were once again open - yippee!

I know, this first image is really "out there", isn't it?  It was a great sunset, but I as I played around with the image, this one jumped out at me because it really accentuated the radiant sunbeams coming from the setting sun.

 

Here's the "real" image of the same sunset.  I really like this one, too.  The depth of the clouds is just so beautiful, isn't it?  A much more subtle rejoicing in the end of a great day.



The next day, the early morning sky was really such a soft pastel color, I really wanted to enhance it.  Again, the camera wasn't quite able to capture what my eye was seeing.  In this shot, I'm standing just off our RV, by the fire ring, looking out on the lake before all the jet-skiers and speed-boaters hit the water.  Just the fishermen and me enjoying the start to this day.

As I said, we were able to get out on the back roads after the rain, and stopped at this lovely little area.  We think it might be an primitive camping area (tents only), but it was really hard to tell.  I love the line created by the split rail fence that ran along the side of the little road in this area.

One of the places we explored was a very unimproved (they call it primitive) road that went up to the top of Mount Sedwick (I believe).  We didn't make it to the top, since the unimprovement got to be a bit too much, but we got close, and I was able to capture this overlook image.

I just wanted to share this image of an incredible branch formation.  Look at how gnarled the branch grew - I wonder why?

 

Enjoy!