Digital Expressions- Susan Tuttle

Check out Susan Tuttle's new book! I've just added it to my wish list on Amazon.com. If you click through to amazon on  Good Search and enter Board of Religious Organizations - St. Louis, the BRO will receive a percentage of your purchase! (http://www.brostl.org/ )

"Susan Tuttle guides the mixed-media artist through 25 stepped-out digital projects created with Adobe Photoshop Elements. Projects like manipulating single photos, collage on a digital canvas, and digital illustration will inspire you to tackle all kinds of digital mixed-media projects using stock photography, custom brushes, textured backgrounds and your own digital photos. A team of talented contributing artists further illustrates the techniques in action. Plus, a bonus CD includes more than 20 digital design elements for you to use in your own projects!"
Note: All projects contained within the book can also be carried out in Adobe Photoshop/CS -- as long as you are familiar with the tools and functions of your program, you should be fine.




Click here for Susan's blog and enter to win a free copy of her book!

Leap of Faith - Rock n Roll Craft Show

It's a leap of faith that I took this evening and submitted my application thru ZAPP for the Rock and Roll Craft Show, to be held in St. Louis the weekend following Thanksgiving. I may have lost my mind. But it's all about following a dream and living the life I imagine. I have been postponing too many things, and had/have convinced myself that I let others manage my life. I am the only one in charge. ( Well, except for that God stuff, that is.) Generally, the only person stopping me...is well....me.

Here's my artist statement. And the photos here are the photos I submitted of my work.

Now off to work.

Paper, textiles, fiber and STUFF, that’s what my ART is made of. I am inspired by vintage photos, and images, cast off quilts, linens and blue jeans. I enjoy making new and repurposed projects with paint, ink, paper, rubber stamps, repurposed fabric, embroidery and the quilted arts. As an emerging mixed media artist I continue to explore the conflict between decorative and useful; new and repurposed. Finished creations include cards, journals, collage, photos, totes, purses, ornaments, decorative and gift items for the home and holidays.

enough is enough

Enough is enough. It is time to follow your dream and live the artful life you imagine.

Dogs Are Better Than Humans

Dogs are better than humans,
They know
but do not tell.

Emily Dickinson

Another piece that I think I will submitt to www.rocknrollcraftshow.com. The little girl and dog is from a collection of ATC papers I received as a gift. The circles are cut from Basic Grey scrapbooking paper. The sideways check marks on the left are from the background vintage ephemera that I used as the base layer of the collage. It 's a carbon copy page of an invoice from a dry goods story from the late 1890s. Also a scrap of vintage sheet music along the bottom. My new favorite paint colors Paynes Gray and Quinacridone Crimson, which make me thing of Raspberries and Blue Jeans. Also a graphite pencil used for high lighting and shading and fine point sharpie marker for lettering.


I made this!

Sweet & Gentle Child

Be always like the lamb so mild, A kind and sweet and gentle child.

I'm taking another leap of faith, I am going to apply to be in the http://www.rocknrollcraftshow.com/ . The deadline to apply is early September, and the show is the weekend after Thanksgiving. Now to compile some "stuff" to sell, submitt some photos, and write an artist statement. This is my first, officially completed. piece to have available for sale.

It's a collage/mixed media piece on 1/2 inch art fiber board, 4 by 4 inches. Lots of layers and soft gel medium. The image is Dover Clip Art, the words are from a school music book that had been my father's. The little circles are from Basic Grey scrapping paper. The stamped image is from Stampin' Up and I painted over the letters with titanium white Golden Fluid acrylics. Someone, probably, should have taken it away from me about an hour before I stopped messing around with it. A lot of the basic background images are covered by paint, there are torn pages from a dictionary, but I like it pretty well. We are all our own worst critics. I'll learn to stop. ( That's hard to say, about many things.)

I made this!

Twilight Chapter 2

Chapter 2 from Twilight. Hmmm....it set the stage for more action.Established Edward and Bella's uneasy early relationship. Bella's class schedule, school routine, and all about cell division. I used some stock photos from Microsoft Office Photos, you can get some simple clip art. There is an image here of a girl looking in a microscope, another of very enlarged cells, and a math equation written on a chalk board. I still can't escape the "green". Class was in building 4. This piece has the feel of a scrapbook page for me, which is ok. I wanted to establish the reason for the OPEN BOOK title for the chapter, Bella's mom's concern for her, and of course, Edward finding Bella "difficult" to read. Why is that? hmmmm... I wonder...

http://chelise.typepad.com/vita_crepusculare/

Oh, by the way, I am officially addicted to digital collage with PSE6.

Contentment - Mind Wide Open

Here is my first entry for the monthly challenge on Gail Schmidt's blog "Mind Wide Open". Each month you can visit her blog and see the image she has posted from her shop, Shabby Cottage Studio's. Your challenge is to use the image and word in your work, and stretch your artistic mind.





I am finding contentment with my digital collage skills. Outside of my comfort zone, Green!





This is the image that Gail provided

Also included is this photo of the coneflowers blooming in my yard.

and this collage element from Gail's shop, that was included in Pam Carriker's Art Journaling class at Creative Workshops.




I am still amazed by the magic you can make with digital collage.

Twilight Chaper 1

On the ZNE Network, we're reading "Twilight". Each month we will make an illustration for a chapter from the book series. Getting started, so we are doing ..tah-dah...Chapter 1. Bella moves to Forks, Washington from Phoenix, Arizona. She struggles with the differences of the two worlds. She really appears to be distressed by the whole wet, green scene. ( I've been to Forks, it wasn't raining when I was there...but I especially appreciate the vivid greens that glow in the rain....but that's me)

I was struck by the two colors mentioned...in all of the rest of the grey and fog....the red truck, her father bought her, and everything green. So here is my entry...yet another digital collage.

She is too fond of digital collage and it has turned her brain.

What possessed me to stay up til 2 am last night/this morning and then try to get up at 7:30 am and then work at http://www.brostl.org/ all day. My brain has been turned by this whole digital collage thing. I have been wanting to do it, and trying to make software not designed for it, try to do it. I bought the Photoshop Elements 6, for under $100, and had only managed to make it crop, adjust lighting and add a bit of text and do some of the weird effects. BUT NOW, I am armed and dangerous...with LAYERS! Gosh. I drove the cashier crazy at Borders. I was there with Rick and I found one of those Photoshop Creative magazine, and for the first time, ever, they make sense. The digital art mags from Somerset....I get it! So bear with me while I torment you with these photos. The above was a quickie, I had to make something, and kinda threw this together. The background is a book case from Dover clip art; the daisys are a part of a vintage Christmas card from Dover as well. The photo is a "found" photo I picked up a couple of weeks ago either at Gypsy Caravan on Memorial Day or at the Belleville Flea Market. I can't wait to try some digital scrap layouts of my great nieces and nephew. More tomorrow! Check back if you dare.

Another digital collage

Addicted To Digital Collage

Fairy image from Gail Schmidt's Shabby Cottage Studio over my close up of raindrops on clover.