50 by 50 Weeks 10 and 11

Still trying to catch up..... still a couple of weeks behind.....

This week I have been playing with digital images. I have always used Photoshop Elements to touch up photos and so forth, but now I am having fun learning to create digital collage. On this blog I showed some overlays that I created a few months ago. This week I downloaded some free digital images from DeviantScrap Designers especially for Somerset Digital Studio readers.

They have some fun images and backgrounds. I am learning how to add many different layers, re-size, change the colors, the opacity, and generally play with the images. I next want to learn how to make shadows to create greater dimensionality.

Week 10






Week 11

Miriam

I completed this collage a couple of weeks ago. She radiates such a strong yet playful energy and I had named her Lindy. Today, I purchased more photos of the same woman from Kari, the owner of the Etsy business EphemeraObscura. She offers great vintage photos and cards. I found out that this is Kari's great aunt and her name is really Miriam. Her husband, Howard, apparently took quite a few photos of her, and Kari is selling off the duplicates. I see a series developing.........



I used a print of the original photo, acrylic paint, pan pastels, book pages, text, pencil, and sequin waste as a stencil, all on canvas. For the glue, I used Golden gel medium. I used a fixative to set the pastel before I applied more gel medium over the top of everything. Finally, I applied a coat of varnish to protect the finish.

50 by 50 Weeks 8 and 9

I know that I am getting behind on my postcards. I will catch up. I have been making more of my other work and will be posting that more frequently as well.









This is Margaret, a mixed media piece using a copy of a vintage photo, acrylic paint, pastel, ink, and text on a 8x8 canvas:

Still Lives

I am beginning a new series of work that I am thinking of calling "Still Lives". I am using vintage photos with a variety of media. I intend to tell a story with each collage. I see the photos themselves as depicting a moment in time, but also revealing so much more about the person. As I work, I create fictional lives around these characters, imaging their names, activities, loves, passions. It is so much fun.

My first is called "Marjorie". On canvas, I created texture using gesso, then glued book pages and covered with acrylic paint for the background. Then, after I glued the vintage photo print on the canvas, I used a clear gesso over the photo to give it some tooth for the pan pastel coloring. Well, it took off some of the emulsion of the photo and cracked it. Hence the theme of the photo. I also used stamps and ink for the letters, pencil for details, sequin waste as a stencil on the background and soft gel medium as a glue. I created three backgrounds using the same colors to save time, so the next two pieces will be in a similar color scheme.

I am totally obsessed with these vintage photos and anxiously wait for some I bought on Ebay to arrive in the mail from Germany and from England. I have been using Photoshop to help increase the contrast in these old photos and that has made a huge difference in the quality.