Photo Challenge with Hann

So recently a friend of mine bought herself a Nikon D3100!! And with that came a crazy passion for learning and playing around. I've had my Nikon D3000 for two/three years now and still haven't learned everything it can do. I actually haven't picked it up since my cousins wedding in May. I saw Hannah's photos and let her passion bug bite me.

As a way to stay connected with her and have some fun being creative we started a challenge. I would pick one of her photos and recreate it with my spin on it and then she would do the same with one of mine.

If you want to check out her photo blog that she recently started you can go here.

So now following are some of the photos I took. All were taken on the Manual mode and I haven't edited them at all.
The first few were done at NLC's coffee shop while I was working there.

 This one I moved around a lot with a very slow shutter speed.

 These following coffee shots are ones I recreated using Hannah's photos as inspiration.

So that's it for this post. Next post will hopefully be an update on my art journals. :)

Project Catch Up

I guess Mother's Day was my launch into my new 'art era'. It was around then that I discovered mixed media and altered art. So to catch this blog up to date, I thought I'd post the few projects that I've done so far and describe a little about them! After this, I'll do one project per post (with before and after pictures if needed) as I finish them.

First project was for my mom on a stretched canvas. It was a 12x12 I believe.

I painted it red with some spots of mixed in black and white paint. Then with a fan brush dipped in silver I made 'scratch' like strokes. All paint is Folk Art brand acrylic, the cheap stuff from Wal-Mart. Once that dried I used my X-acto knife to cut out petal shapes, then took some left over ribbon bits that I had from a different project and glued them on the back of the canvas to show through. I added a circle cut out of striped paper from an old thank you card and hot glued an old button on top for the center. The other flower I took some paper from  DCWV's La Creme Matstack (4.5 x 6.4 stack) and cut out petal shapes. I hand sewed those on with black thread and glued a circle cut out from a page in a scrapbook kit from The Paper Studio's Imagine If Scrapbook Kit for its center. The bottom picture is one I found through google and printed out. For the color tinting, I wanted to try and do a 'stain' but I don't currently have ink. I used a bronze metallic ink and made a wash of it by simply adding water then brushed it over. The two side frames are stickers from the same scrapbook set. I did the same wash process with the little note (it's hand written excerpts from Proverbs 31) and the small picture at the top. Both of those items I also burned the edges.

~ ~ ~ ~

Second Project was my candelabra thingy. (Don't know what else to call it) It was a bronze metal with yello glass beads and yellow votive glasses for tea lights. I didn't like the yellow, it looked more like the stain from smoking. So I took some glue and mixed it with water to make my own version of mod podge. I took an old dictionary and tore some pieces up. I did happen to have Tim Holtz' Distress Ink Pad in Victorian Velvet and used it on the edges. ( It was my first purchase after gesso when I first got into this whole adventure) Then I used my glue mixture to put them on. I also painted the little glass beads white and the stand itself black. 

~ ~ ~ ~

This project was my version on the captured fairies I saw so much of, but I wanted to do a butterfly. So I did. :) I had some old stationary that had butterflies in the corner. I cut two of them out and pasted them on both sides of homemade chipboard (cereal box ;) ). I then Gloss Accented it and bent it slightly to make it look like it was flying. The jar was an old candle jar that I cleaned out. I used ribbon scraps and beads for the inside, just hot gluing them down in places. Sadly, some of the glue shows but oh well. The back is covered in blue tissue paper, (mod podged). The butterfly is just set in there, I didn't attach it. I then used a bunch of ribbon scraps around the lid with a tassle and a couple of old buttons. There are some sprigs of little white flowers I took from a fake lei inside the jar as well as with the ribbon scraps.  All hot glued on. 

~ ~ ~ ~

This is for my dad, obvisouly, for Father's day. I used green and blue acrylic paint washes (meaning paint and water) and splashed it on in layers on a canvas board. It took about three layers to coat. I then took an old granola bar box and cut out the letters for dad. I pasted them on then used the paint washes over them to make them blend it. To make them stand out just a little, I dabbed my finger into black acrylic paint and brushed my finger over the edges making an outline. I used an old tomato paste can, dipped it in black and gold acrylic paint to make the circles. The bottom left corner has some old copper speaker wire shaped into the word father glued down with some Glossy Accents. I also brushed over some black acrylic paint to make it not so shiny. The bottom left is a silver chain I had lying around. I just used Glossy Accents and glued it down in a sort of flourish. Black acrylic was also used to grunge it up a bit.  The dice were left over from a game that is missing lots of pieces. They are red, and I dabbed some gold metalic acrylic paint on them. With the end of a paint brush I dabbed the holes with black to help the numbers stand out. The tie is a very old tie of my dad's. He loves Bugs Bunny. He also loves coffee and is a bit of a clutz. So this tie had some coffee stains on it and he hadn't worn it in ages. But he never got rid of it. I sprayed it with some glitter mist in Copper from ART-C and sprayed the tie to grunge it up so the coffee stains wouldn't stand out. Then I tied it and hot glued it to the canvas. This way he could keep it and dispay it.

That about does it for now. I know this was probably an overload of projects at once but mostly this was just catch up. If you read the whole thing, then thanks! 

My next post will be about my new art journal. :) Have a great day and go create!

Introduction

Genesis 1:26-27. Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth,and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image,in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

cre·a·tiv·i·ty    [kree-ey-tiv-i-tee]

 noun 1.the state or quality of being creative.

2.the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination: the need for creativity in modern industry; creativity in the performing arts.

3.the process by which one utilizes creative ability: Extensive reading stimulated his creativity.


According to the Bible, the Living Word of God, He created humans in the image of the Trinity. "In Our Image, in our likeness." So if we are modeled after him and he had the ability to create us, then it can be said that every human has the ability to create. And if you look around the world today, whether you realize it or not, every human is fully utilizing this ability. Most recognizable is the fact that humans create other humans. But humans created buildings, inventions, recipes for food, clothes, etc. Humans also create the atmosphere around them. We can create happiness, prosperity, harmony, life or we create strife, famine, discord, and death. No matter how you look at it, humans are constantly creating something.


So now that we have that thrown out there for your human mind to acknowledge, and you read it...you did read all that right? Hopefully if you have gotten this far, you did. :) Well now that you read that, you are responsible for that knowledge! Congratulations. This means you can never make the following statement- "I'm not a creative person." Surprise! That is a false statement. You may not be as creative as so-and-so, but you are in fact creative in some fashion. The fun part is discovering that facet of creativity and then creating with a purpose instead of just creating without thought. Hence the name of the blog.


  So look at your life. Look at all the things you have done or want to do. Ask yourself daily, "What am I creating today?" Now that you have this knowledge you might surprise yourself with how creative you are! I, myself, LOVE to create. I find it fascinating and it is definitely a passion of mine if you haven't noticed. :) It is also a passion of mine that everyone recognize their creative side. This blog is going to be my attempt to journal my experiments, my thoughts, ideas, stories about creativity. Join me please! I would love your input, good or critical. I would love to know what you are creating! Send me pictures and emails, COMMENT even! ;) Feel free to ask me any questions. If I don't have an answer I promise we will discover it together. So enjoy and go create something!