Influences

It was years ago. (I think it was probably shortly after suffering my last bearable indignity in high school and I had left for the last time.) It happened that I hadn't been awake until the wee hours of the morning and I was up early enough to be watching The Today Show. They were doing a segment on Milton Glaser and it was, during that short segment, when I decided I wanted to be a graphic artist. More specifically, it was this image that inspired the decision:The juxtaposition of the natural fluidity of the flowers and the rigid geometry of the grid left me awed. It had never occurred to me before that you could do such a thing! It completely changed the way I thought of art, making me realize that everything wasn't just the same prosaic paintings that hung on my grandmother's walls. Although I've since discovered many other wonderful artists since then, Mr. Glaser seems to be always at the back of my mind and continues be an influence in my work.

Welcome visitor

My mother lived in a rural area on a very large plot of land and few close neighbors. You could frequently hear Eastern Towhees scratching in the line of pine trees at the edge of her property and saying "tweet". (Although the experts say their call is "to-wheee", to me it sounds more like they are succinctly pronouncing the word "tweet" - "tuh-wee-t". I've always thought that was just so cute.) After my mother passed away five years ago, we moved into town and I never saw or heard those sweet little birds anymore. A couple of days ago, being such a beautiful spring day, I had the windows wide open to let the warm breezes in and lo and behold what do I hear? "Tweet!" I immediately got up and started trying to locate where the sound was coming from, but never could. The next day I heard that same call and heard the familiar scratching along the treeline at the back of our property. There he was! At that moment, I knew I had to paint him. Welcome to our home, little Towhee.

A Blue Christmas Tree

For the past few weeks I've been quite stuck in holiday mode. I can't seem to get to anything that isn't holiday themed. My favorite element of the holidays is the Christmas tree. I suppose that's why many of my designs are related to the tree.
My latest tree design started out in my head as something quite different than the end result. I had it in my mind to create a Christmas tree from leaves, so I went to my PSP program to the leaf picture tube. After choosing the one that best suited the look I wanted, because I wanted it blue instead of green, I used the colorize option to change it.
I then set about "building" a tree by copying and pasting each leaf, one by one, on a new image.




It had a certain something, but I wasn't entirely happy with it; so off to my Corel Painter 4 program it went where I applied the detailed watercolor auto-painting feature.





After creating a snowy landscape in PSP, I copied the tree and added it, but just couldn't make it work somehow. Ultimately deciding it was the lower edge that was not working, I trimmed it then copied and pasted that onto the background. I added a few little twinkly ornaments to the tree and declared it finished. It's now on several different products in my Zazzle store, including this greeting card.

Harlequin Kitty

It's true that I'm a bona fide, dyed-in-the-wool cat lover bordering on crazy cat lady. That's why when a friend suggested the notion of a cat dressed as a jester or harlequin, I couldn't resist the idea. It burned in my brain until the next morning when I broke down and started on it. I knew it was going to be a daunting design and, honestly, I wasn't sure my talents were up to the challenge. At this point I have to confess this kitty was strongly influenced by the wonderfully whimsical cats created by the great and glorious Edward Gorey.


I did a basic outline in my Corel painter program with the thick and thin pencil tool starting with the cat's face. It was love at first sight. After that my infatuation with this smiling kitty drove me on. After the basic sketch was done, I began coloring in with the the tapered gouache brush. I like this brush and use it quite a bit because I find it fills better than some of the others and is easier to control. Anyway, on I went filling in each little diamond on his costume by hand. When the painting was finished, I sent it to my PSP program for the tedious task of cleaning up the edges. I then copied the image and added it to a background I had created using some of the stock Paint Shop patterns. At the end my eyes were red and bleary and my back was aching, but I think he was worth the pain. He's now happily dancing on several products in my Zazzle store.

Thinking out loud

It's no secret to anyone who knows me how much I love my Wacom tablet. Since I got it a few months ago, I've quit using the traditional forms of media almost entirely. This brings me to a couple of questions: Is digital artwork valid as art and will it eventually replace art in conventional media? Because I create all my work digitally lately, I never have a physical finished work - nothing you can hold in your hands. Of course, I can always print it out (or have it printed out), but then is it still an original? One generally thinks of a printed image as just that - a print. Even if it's a one off, it's still a print. Although most of the work I've done lately has been more in the realm of design that's meant to be added to the products in my Zazzle store; I have done a few paintings and drawings that I think could easily stand on their own, but they only exist on my hard drive. How does that impact their relevance? Does it impact their relevance?


At this point, the number of artists that use strictly digital media is probably relatively small, but this is the digital age. I suspect more and more artists will begin turning to digital. After all, who can resist the lure of dozens of different pens, brushes, paints and most any other medium you can think of right there at your fingertips? (Not to mention any color you want without having to blend or deal with the hassle of cleaning brushes.) Will art galleries eventually be filled with artists' work who have never so much as touched a real paintbrush or pencil? Maybe. Maybe not.


All I know is that, either way, I will keep happily using my tablet and hope that my computer doesn't crash.

And people try to tell me I shouldn't take naps...

After not having slept well the night before (as usual), I was having an afternoon nap. At some point I woke up with a design in my head. I had to fight to stay asleep as this image kept popping into my head. When I did wake up finally, I couldn't immediately get to my tablet as I had a few things to do. I had to keep "repeating" this image in my head for fear it would be forgotten and lost forever.
After the various chores were finished, I sat down to create my "dream design". I made three simple leaves using the digital airbrush - one in lime green, one in Barbie pink and one in pumpkin orange. Then, with the thick and thin pencil, I added a curved line to represent the twig from which the leaves were growing and a few quick lines for veining on the leaves. When I woke up with that relentless image in my head there was something at the end of the twig, but I have no idea what it was and it seemed superfluous anyway. This was the resulting design:I added it to several items in my Zazzle store. For all but the cloth products, I turned it 90 degrees and added a tone-on-tone beige striped background.

Now I think it may be time for another nap. Ya never know. ;-)

Another example of inspiration being where you find it.

While my husband and I waited for our entrees to come at a Chinese restaurant the other night, I noticed how pretty and graceful the lotus flowers were on our plates. I took out my phone and, so as to not look completely weird, discreetly took a picture while pretending to be typing a text.





A couple of days later I used one of these flowers as the model for my latest design. I decided on red instead of blue and used the simple watercolor brush in the Corel Painter 4. The resulting image is at left. I only hope I was able to do justice to this beautiful Asian symbol.

Inspired by a fragrance

We inherited our house from my husband's grandmother. It was built in 1903 and it has been in his family since shortly thereafter. It's not anything too grand, but it's solid as a rock and it's all the house we need. In the back yard of our fine old house is a fine old apple tree. It's either a second or third generation grown from a cutting off predecessors that had to be cut down. The apples are mostly green and a little too tart to eat right from the tree, but fantastic for cooking. Granny always called the apples "Maiden's Blush", named for the slight pink tinge they tend to get on the side that gets the most sun. The tree produces so many that we are never able to use even a fraction of them. All summer long our yard smells of fermenting apples and the bees fly around drunk.
This was the inspiration for my latest painting. In the Painter program, I started out with the broad watercolor brush but wasn't crazy about how it was going, so I switched to the new simple watercolor brush. It worked much better for what I was trying to achieve. It has a nice grainy quality that gave the apple a more realistic texture. To be honest, I reached a point when I wasn't sure it was identifiable as an apple - more like a yellowish-green blob. That's when I added the little stem. I think it helped. I've added the finished yellowish-green blob with a stem to several Zazzle items. :-)

Okay... so I cheated a little.

Still in my creative slump, I decided to just play around with different tools in the Painter program as I often do when I'm out of ideas. This time I chose the variable size hose using the nasturtiums setting. After trying a few things that I was not happy with, I ended up simply making a single row of the flowers. I then applied the pen and ink auto painting to them, followed by the detailed watercolor auto painting. So it isn't entirely of my creation, but close enough to call it my own. It looks particularly nice on the mug and t-shirt.

For tree huggers

I've been rather creatively dry for the past few days. When that happens, many times I will just start playing with different brushes in my paint program and eventually something usually transpires. That was the case with this painting of a naive tree. I started with the grainy dry brush. I really like the way it "runs out" of paint at the end of the stroke. (Funny how I don't like when that happens when I'm using real paint.) Anyhoo, that's the brush I used for the outline of the tree and the branches. I then went back to my old standby, the Seurat brush, for the leaves. My love affair with the tablet and painter program continues.

One of summer's pleasures

There isn't much I like about summer. I've never been a "fun in the sun" type of gal. Summers in the south are generally so miserably hot that you don't find me outdoors much between July and the end of September. One of the things I do like about summer is daylilies. I love their bright, cheery colors and their graceful dancing in warm breezes. It's almost as if they know their time is fleeting so they have to show their best while they have the time. (Hmm...maybe we could all take an example from that.) Anyway, it was these transient beauties that were the inspiration for my latest digital painting. I painted it using the gouache brush tool. It was my first time using it, but I like the effect. I've added the painting to a number of items in my Zazzle store.

Flutter by little butterfly

Discouraged by a lack of sales from - or seemingly even interest in - my store, I sat down to design last night with quite a bit of pessimism. I knew it was going to be something with a butterfly, but wasn't sure what. I used a photo my husband had taken last summer of a black swallowtail for my model. Using the airbrush tool in Corel Painter 4, I painted it in a soft yellow and added a few brownish-orange accents. With the same shade, I used the round tip pen tool to outline the butterfly and add a few more highlights. I then applied the watercolor illustration auto paint function giving it the nice, sort of undefined look. I used the variable angle image hose to add the flowers then finished with pairs of lines above each wing to imply movement. I'm quite happy with the outcome proving that I can still enjoy creating whether I believe anyone is looking or not.

A little bird just flew in

Sometimes I worry that the day will come when I finally run out of ideas for designs. Fortunately, yesterday wasn't that day. I had been thinking about doing a design with a bird for a while, but couldn't come up with anything. While I was watching something on t.v. last night I saw a woman wearing a pin that inspired this. In PaintShop I used one of the preset shapes to create the flower. I found a photo of a bird that I liked the shape and position of and used him as my model for painting in Painter 4. After I finished painting him using a watercolor brush, I sent him over to PaintShop where I used the bucket fill tool to add the pattern to his wing. Then, I cut him out and pasted him as a new layer on top of the flower. After a few more adjustments - voila! This button is just one of several things I put him on. The more things I added him to, the more I liked him. I hope other people like him too.

New Zazzle items

And this mug is one of several different items I put the Impressionist painting on.

The creative process (modern version)

I created this impressionistic image through a process of several steps using a combination of Corel Painter Essentials 4 and Corel PaintShop Pro.












First, I painted this field and sky using the Seurat brush in Painter 4 (only turned 90 degrees).








Then, in PaintShop I took this old family photo and cut out the lady (g-g-aunt Sue)












and pasted it onto the painting of the field. I painted Sue's features out (sorry, Sue) with the same Seurat brush to create the look of the back of a woman with blond hair. (below) Finally I used the Impressionist auto painting feature to create the ending image. (The one at the top of this post.) Ah, the wonders of modern technology. I wonder what Monet would say?

Art and a love of antiques

Whenever I can combine my two passions - art and antiques - it makes me doubly happy. My love of antiques came from my uncle who was an avid collector. I even have a small antiques business that I call "My Uncle's Attic". This digital painting of an antique tole painted coffee pot on an old wooden side table was done from a photo I had taken at his house as we were settling his estate after he passed away in 2007. It ended up having a nice old world look - almost like a Vermeer. I've added it to several items in my Zazzle store, including this print.

A fine old tree by an old brick church

I've done a lot of genealogical research for my family. In the course of doing that research I've been in dozens of cemeteries. The photo that this image came from was taken at one of my very favorite church/cemetery spots. It's an 18th century Lutheran church stuck way back from the beaten path in Wythe County, Virginia, but what actually struck me was the enormous old tree next to the church. It completely dwarfed it. So, I took this shot and it's been sitting in my files until now. In the good old Corel Painter program I did the match palette function with an artist I really like named Dadd. I then used the auto paint function with a fine camel brush. I've added this to several items on Zazzle. I'm just so glad I finally got to do something with the photo of that amazing tree.

Yet another cat creation

Obviously, cats are one of my favorite subjects - especially my own cats. This was done from one of my favorite photos of our kitty, Olivia. In the Corel Painter 4, I used the match palette effect from a Matisse painting, then auto painted it using the impressionist brush. I then went back in and used the soft edge cloner to sharpen her face. (And it's such a good face.) This is the resulting image. I'll be adding it to some Zazzle products within the next few days.

Another artist

Since I seem to be creatively dry at the moment I figured it would be a good time to share the Zazzle store of one of my favorite artists. His work is simply brilliant. The mood he can evoke with just some simple lines and his use of color are genius. And he's a very nice person to boot. I think you might be able to tell - I'm a fan. This is just one example of his beautiful work. There's more at:
sword42's Store at Zazzle

More flowers

I've added more florals to my Zazzle store today. This time it's a watercolor painting created from a photo I took of our Clematis vine. I really like the way it turned out on the mug, though.