Illustration Friday - Instinct

"Motherly Instinct" -- Illustration Friday topic Instinct

I have always been intrigued by a mother's instinct in caring for and raising her child. An instinctive mother listens for those promptings and intuitive messages that relate to her child's needs and well-being. Many times I have felt that my child needed me to attend to them -- heeding those promptings I have found that they indeed needed me at that very moment.

For example, my son Jason was an occasional sleepwalker. When he was about 10 yrs old I was awakened from sleep in the night by a strong premonition that I needed to get up and look out our front door. Of course I was shocked when I saw Jason standing there in his pajamas, shivering from the cold and standing upright -- sound asleep! He hadn't knocked or rung the bell, he hadn't made a sound but I knew somehow that he needed me right then. I put him straight to bed with some warm heavy blankets and made sure the deadbolt was locked. The next day Jason told me that he had dreamed he had walked to the school bus stop in his pajamas.

I haven't always acted on those promptings, only to realize later that I should have.

Our instincts may be programed and embedded; but I know there is so much more to the "motherly instinct" than automated rearing of our children. Thankfully we can to be in-tune to personal intuition as it relates to that particular child.

Okay, on to the art/illustration...
Here are the elements used to create this digital collage in Photoshop.
Bee and Nest clip art images from Antique Clip Art .com

My motherly instinct tells me that I have some kids to call now and check up on...oh, how I love this part of motherhood, and boy those children of mine sure do make me proud...

Until next time toot-a-loo...

Illustration Friday - Similar

Similar: Laurel of Studio Lolo fame suggested this week's topic for Illustration Friday.
It's a hit, as of this post, there are 311 entries on the IF site. I loved the topic but had the hardest time deciding what to create. I have a boutique coming up this Wednesday so I wanted to kill two birds... as they say. I think I can use this piece in something since it's kinda wintery.

I named it Marguerite's Mittens because I used a handwritten file card that has instructions for little girl's mittens from Jan 1929. I imagine that whenever you knit mittens you might want them to be similar in size and proportion. Maybe that's why I have only knitted caps and a scarf or two. I knew I could never produce mittens that were anywhere near the same or even similar.

Check out the compilation below for a peek at the images I used -- including the old card with the mitten instructions (used in the background).

Thanks for visiting my digital blog!
rebecca ~ justgiddy

Illustration Friday - Pretend

She is trying to pretend that he's not tugging on her heartstrings.


Oh my goodness, this was so much fun - what a great Illustration Friday topic this week!
This next image is a compilation of the images I used for this piece. I experimented with layer blending modes in Photoshop to get just the right feel for the piece and a sense of mystery with depth and shading.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog. Have a great week!

Illustration Friday-Forgotten

Past Lives Forgotten

In my dreams I see myself in a dark and magical forest, looking directly at a very handsome frog – a frog I had kissed before.

I had already determined he wasn’t my prince…so I bid him good-day and moved on, again.

A dream forgotten…until it happened again, oh, and again...

Illustration Friday-Worry

No WORRY for this fine lady... She Keeps Her Eye on the Ball

The topic for Illustration Friday was perfect this week as I finished this Digital Collage on Thursday. Oh, by the way, we ate this fish that my husband caught, it was so delicious. Another "by the way"...my husband just shook his head when he saw this illustration, I'm sure he does not get it, but it makes perfect sense to me!

The ball is a selection of the fish eye - I was amazed at the great variation in it when it was enlarged and I applied a blending mode, plus bevel and emboss. The border is a photo of rust on a solid background with a blending mode applied, I love the texture.


I created 3 variations of this, if you would be so kind as to leave me a comment with your favorite of the three I would really appreciate it. You can also see the images used to create this piece below.

• Here are the images used to create this piece:
  
  Cinnamon colored solid layer
  Tan colored solid layer
  Scan from old store ledger
  Photo of rusty metal, cropped for frame
  Sky with clouds image
  Calligraphy Image
  Image of Domenico Ghirlandaio 1488 painting
  Fish my husband caught (yum), with selected fish eye

Thanks for stopping by!

Illustration Friday-Wide

Illustration Friday - Wide
Digital Collage

She has traveled Far and Wide, does she measure-up?

This little lady has quite an imagination. She travels Far and Wide in stories she tells herself. Safely tucked away in her dear and favorite flowers, she knows that dreaming will bring her to far away places and allow her to travel wide. Oh, the things she has seen…
This was an extremely difficult topic for me.
I'm going to go see what everyone else came up with this week for Illustration Friday.

The second photo shows elements used for this collage...
I applied Layer Blending Modes, Artisitc Filters and varied Opacity levels to create the final image for this topic.

Several of you have emailed me about the Wacom I use. I couldn't work without my Wacom tablet now as I am totally addicted! It's amazing the time I save and the creative process is less inhibited with the use of it. I have the Intuos 3 Graphics Tablet. It's just the 4x6, but that's what I chose as I like to limit the size of things on my desk!!! Well, I try to make a conscious effort anyway...

Playing around...

1. Spring Garden Fairy, 2. Illustration Friday - Fail, 3. Garden Dreams, 4. ledger w clover exclusion, 5. Good Seed - Bad Seed, 6. Timely Wrinkles , 7. Blessed One, 8. Fairy in a Jar , 9. ledger w clover, 10. Heavy, 11. Catch a Falling Star, 12. My Little Gypsy, 13. ATC Butterfly Baby, 14. Silenced, 15. Digital Architect, 16. Skeleton, 17. Broken Hearted, 18. Wandering Sprite, 19. queen bee, 20. Faith Hope Charity

I had so much fun playing around with mosaic at BHL. You should try it with your photos, it will even let you download from your flickr site.

These are all digital works I have created using Photoshop. Some are as small as ATC's others are as large as 36x36.

If you ever need some good quality prints made up in a hurry, order them online through WinkFlash. Last week I ordered 11x14', had them in my hands in 4 days and the quality was excellent! I'm impressed and highly recommend them!

Illustration Friday-Electricity

…

e.lec.tric.i.ty
Electricity is the new topic for Illustration Friday this week. Since my husband, who has worked his life away for the power company, knows so much about the subject, I thought I would ask for his input. Well, it’s funny how we all have different perspectives on things - he instantly thought of a power house, converters, transmission lines, transformers, those water drop thingies for hydro power, dams, substations, K what-cha-ma-call-it lines…and it goes on. I said, “Honey, can you make it simpler?” He said, “a kite, a key and Ben Franklin”.

Bingo…

Personally, I was thinking of a riveting on-stage performance by a beautiful actress or dancer. Something along these lines from http://www.freedictionary.com/electricity
3. electricity – keen and shared excitement; “the stage crackled with electricity whenever she was on it”
Oh well, he always seems to win out lately, if he didn’t look so much like Sean Connery, maybe I wouldn’t give in to him so easily. Just kidding…I liked the idea too.

The images I used for this composition are:

• Brown background
• Blue background
• Powerline photo that looks like a line drawing
• Inverse cloud background
• Ben Franklin scan from currency - recolored with a mask
• Kite illustration
• Key - scanned image
• Lightening made from Obsidian Dawn brushes
• Frame image

Illustration Friday-Save

Catch a falling star an put it in your pocket Save it for a rainy day!
Catch a falling star an put it in your pocket Never let it fade away!
A Perry Como Song—Music and Lyrics by Lee Pockriss and Paul Vance

We sang this in grade school…oh, the memories…Rockford Idaho Elementary. I wish I had saved some of those milk bottle caps to use in my art.
But I’m glad my mind saved this little tidbit to make me smile today.

Illustration Friday -Heavy

Heavy or Not -- Anything is Possible

What a great Illustration Friday theme...many concepts came to mind; like Heavy Metal, He Ain't Heavy - He's My Brother (love that one especially), and Heavy Heart. But my very creative daughter came up with a feather lifting an anvil, so I played off the idea with creatures of the same distinction. I love Elephants and found this great one and his feathered friend on istock.

The Design Elements:

I used 3 backgrounds; the textured brown, the diagram and a blue fill layer (it's very light in this example, see it at the top & to the right.) Then I experimented with layer blend modes and transparency. The white lilacs (photo) was placed between the layers to try different possibilities, but I finally decided to plop them in behind the light blue fill layer. Florals always play an important part in my art and life...

Of course the main elements for the collage are the elephant, the dove, and the ribbon which I drew out on my wacom. You can see where I used a layer mask to weave the ribbon in and around my little elephant.

The final layer was created to frame the piece in a very subtle way -- adjusting transparency and using the selection tool, I made a filmy frame to give the piece some depth...oh, and I used a drop shadow on the main elements too.

Now to go create some more in between REAL LIFE...

Illustration Friday - Spring Garden Fairy

Putting it all together...

Creating the Garden theme image was especially fun for me as I love anything having to do with the Garden, except weeding of course...

Here are the images I used in this piece. Using blending modes, layer styles, a render light effect, and plenty of layers, I tried to create a collage with depth and an ethereal feel.

It's very satisfying to see the effect and yet, I know I could take these same elements, change a couple of things and create something almost entirely different. That's what I like about a program like Photoshop -- the endless possibilities!

Playing around...

Just a little mind game to impress myself...

It looks pretty genuine, don't you think?

Here's the image I inserted on museumr to get this picture.

Hey, I'm having WAY too much fun!

This piece was one of my first large prints.

I loved colorizing the old cabinet card and putting it all together.

It won a Merit Award at the Student Art & Design Show

Coyote Gallery @ Butte College

Putting it all together -- the elements

The Blessed One

Created in Photoshop using layers, blend modes, render filter for light effects and custom brushes for the edge effect.

Gathering the elements...
this is quite simple with very few elements, but the filters and blending effects dramatize the results.

Digital Art and the Journey

Just where did it all begin, this love for digital art and the ongoing love affair with my digital camera and scanner?

Why did I ever order my first Photoshop program? Sheesh, now I'm hooked and life will never be the same...

Welcome to my new world...