Merry Christmas

Christmas collage! Well, it's more wintry than Christmassy but I still really like it, and yes, the gingerbread house is in fact a photo of a real gingerbread house! A big thanks to the beautiful site http://beautyineverything.com/ I look at the photos everyday, for inspiration for my art and just because they're such amazing photos!

It's absolutely freezing here and there's snow everywhere, have a great Christmas wherever you and a Happy New Year 2011!

*I won't be updating this blog for about 2/3 weeks as I'm going to stay with family the other side of the country after Christmas until the first week of the New Year.

3rd Sunday of Advent, and only 5 days until I finish school/work for Christmas! I haven't got an advent calendar so my blog keeps track of the weeks for me!

I'm in a winter-but-not-quite-Christmas mood, and so made an image based on stars/lights and a very nice looking tree :) it looks even nicer now it's been lit up!

Only a week to go! I keep looking around for inspiration for some Christmas images...

As one door closes another one opens :) I have no idea where I got the idea to make these, but it looks cool - don't you think?

50th Post!

Still obsessed with Fairytales, downloaded a great fairytale-like font, found this image from Enchanted and just had to make this picture! The line at the bottom is taken from another Disney film - Snow White.


*In less than 4 more weekly posts it'll be Christmas, >.< !

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

Based on one of the most famous plays in American history and literature, which I went to see at the Oxford Playhouse theatre on friday night, as I'm studying it for my AS English Literature :) , one of the most emotional plays ever.

This week was the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, so I decided to make an image dedicated to one of the main actors, Emma Watson, who has played Hermione Granger for the last decade of her life.

Hopefuly so will be able to recognisied for doing something other than Harry Potter in the future, or she might just continue with her studying in America - who knows where we will see her next, but this collaboration remembers Emma as a person, not just her infamous Harry Potter character. (images taken from various Vogue/ Vogue teen photoshoots)

Fairytales, definitely the theme for today, and winter always reminds me of fairytales?

Ironically I started off this image using a picture of sleeping beauty, but then cinderella somehow worked out much better? Either way I'm quite happy with it, and the little roses and stuff I added in just for fun!


"Today was a fairytale you were the prince, I used to be a damsel in distress,

You took me by the hand and you picked me up at six, today was a fairytale..."

* Today was a fairytale, lyrics from Taylor Swift

HAPPY HALLOWEEN :)

Not a scary picture, despite the occasion, and I felt like I was using too much black & white/sepia/ greyscale, so I made something colourful and different, as I "cut out" round the distictive shape of a "Scotty" dog and then used the background of some of my other pictures to fill the stencil shape!

Sorry for my apparent recent obsession with black & white, it'll stop soon, I promise, I just love the style, and by coincidence all of the images I got the ideas for were quite "old world" looking.

This montage is based on a strange dream I had, sort of like Alice in Wonderland, but slightly darker - and so I created this based on that, and the fact that I'm just liking the slightly gothic stuff at the moment, most of my previous work (on the last page under "Older posts") was really bright, I swear!

"We're all mad here" ;D

To celebrate the 156th birthday of Oscar Wilde (yesterday) I created this montage as a tribute to his only novel "A portrait of Dorian Gray" in which a beautiful young man wishes that he would never age (and lose his beauty) and instead his portrait bear the weight of his sins - with terrible consequences!

This day will only come once every thousand years...and yet everyday in our lifetime only happens once.

Did you know Photobucket has a "vintage photography" section? Seeing those images reminded me of my trip to Paris a few years ago, and so I have created something in a similar style. I took all of the photos, except the 1964 image of a Parish street (top centre -I wasn't alive then) and changed the more modern ones into black and white to create my collage.

YAY for update!

Sorry, it looks like sunday, every week is about as regular as I can update :/

Although, I like my update for this week :) , I read another Jodi Picoult novel (The Pact) and that kind of reminded me of Romeo + Juliet  so I created this!

I'm not completely happy with the cropping & re-layering, but all in all I'm so happy I managed to find someone's picture of the opening scene, so I could put the characters against it!

Notice Romeo and Juliet are also in the very background, where the sky should be? aw.

New image based on Jodi Picoult's acclaimed Handle with care novel, a great but very sad read! Yes, I have been reading to avoid my studies, but there's time for those later!

I actually had to make this image twice :s the first time it did it, I was just tweaking it and BOOM (well not that dramatically) my computer crashes, nothing saves :/...I like to think this version looks even better than the first one though!

I apologise in advance for how emo this piece looks,

It just suddenly occured to me that everything I've ever added on here is really light and fun and usually colourful too, so this is a bit different, also due to the amount of text I added, more than a bit depressing I know :) but at the same time, there's sadness in everything, every part of nature, so today let's be thankful for what's good in our lives!

P.S, next update will probably be next weekend again as I have approximately 4 hours of school work every night :/ ...

So it's been a week! I apologise but from now on this blog will probably only be updated weekly, as that is how much time I have to produce new pieces of art & load them on here, I'm sorry but Sixth Form is so intense, and I'm also applying for a job as well as taking the Extended Project Qualification with my A-levels :O

Ignoring my excuses, here it is, a piece on London, a place where I have often visited (my mum's family origniate there) and might (?) end up living in at university! The image I made deliberately includes some of the most famous landmarks, using pictures I took myself in April 2010 :) ...

Ok, so this might be my last blog post in a while...

I'm on holiday AGAIN this weekend before sixth form starts :s and I might get swamped by school work! I will try to update a piece of art at least once a week, for those of you that are following me, more if I have the time!

This piece pretty much sums up my life in the last 2 & 1/2 months...summer day-dreaming after exams, and a lovely purple blend too...

woo, late blog update... but it's very cute! I found a photo of a cat (which was actually a very bright picture) & then made this out of it, it's a little different but I really like it - perfect for a summer's night!

Ready for another Spanish piece? This time the photos are all of the lovely house + surrounding landscape of where we stayed in Mallorca/ Majorca in Ses Olleries for 2 weeks this summer :)

I love using the "duplicate" effect on GIMP to make the different parts of the collage look like they're moving...

More on Spain. This time, the Botanical Gardens of Marimutra in Blanes are the focus of this picture, using more photos I took myself of the stunning sea views and bright flowers, it was like a Kew-Gardens-on-the-sea type place. Photography heaven!

I'm back! After almost a month in Spain I return, promising more artwork updates before school starts again in a week :s

Anyway, one of my favourite parts of visiting mainland Spain was being able to visit Barcelona, so I'm very excited about this picture as I took all of the photos I used in it! Yay, firsthand resources! I just had to made something that included some beautiful shots of the famous Sagrada Familia (foreground) and other great buildings in Barcelona. (background)

I'm going away tomorrow morning, to Spain :D - for a month, so sorry for the lack of updates on this blog :p, BUT I have got something nice to leave you, a "set" of 4 seasons, a scene I made with help from the lovely vector (person in left-hand corner) from DryIcons.com! Enjoy!

Looked out the window in the rain, had the idea for this one, each of the window panes show an individual scene and then in between the gaps you can see the original outside scene of a beautiful blossoming tree...

Based on childhood memories, me & my sister who are practically identical - the inspiration for this...that and the fact that I have a love for the "duplicate" effect...

Awakening.

Another post. Another chaotic day :) well, what is summer for?

The idea of this was that it was a blend of colours representing danger in the animal kingdom, and various predators, and the tiger obviously, because tigers just looks great on everything.

An extremely late post :) sorry, it's been a busy day. Which is alright though as it fits the theme of this image, "dream time" as I've called it, amazing it also fits in with the fact that I randomly saw the film Inception today and so if you know what I'm talking about - it all links!

So I had a childhood flashback last night of one of my favourite animated films - Anastasia [Anastasia is the copyrighted property (C) of 20th Century Fox], this piece is designed on that film, since it's not Disney not many people know it, but I hope you like the design!

A little more basic, I was thinking of Beactriz Milhazes when I made this - not as flashy as some of the other stuff but a nice pastel look, and layered like a geometric collage + some lovely flowers in the foreground just because they looked intricate.

OK so this one's a bit crazy. A bit. It's a sort of fantasy out-of-perspective type image that I created in a very hyper mood, hence the extraordinary amount of colour used. A mixture of blends, cut & paste "paths" and a little lighting effect for the sun behind the trees ^.^

Something borrowed, something blue, something urban, something new! Here's my work for today, originally I had a massive image of an entire brick wall with a park bench & everything, but then I decided to crop it to focus in on the butterfly and all the pattern work - looks good?

P.S, the "real" photographed flowers were taken by me in Kew gardens, haven't even looked at them since the end of my G.C.S.E year 10 project!

Bright 'n beautiful, I'm really into overlaying at the moment, and my nature obsession means that you can bet I'll combine the two :P so here's another natural blend, I did a lighter version but my sister said the darker one looked more dramatic...

This is a new idea, I wanted to do something with the shadows, and the whole "love" theme just worked really well with the pink background I found :) and it wasn't based on a tutorial!

Another blend, this one is my favourite ,GIMP is such a good programme for these, made better by the use of movable layers! I filled the bottom of the image and the pupil of the eye with different patterns - this is my first piece of truly original work, not based on a tutorial or anything so I'm actually quite proud of myself :D

So GIMP isn't always about surreal, ultra-bright images (although I prefer those) this was created from a tutorial I found called "Realistic Letter" and I edited it to put my name on it! ;)

Oh, and I added coffee stains/ a"wooden" coloured background - I wanted to make it look like a note on a coffee table... sorry about the random back quality of the texture on the upload though :/

I've discovered something amazing! (Ok everybody probably already knew this...) Changing the opacity of layers in an image really creates some beautiful blends, especially with the help of some great stock!

Right now I'm experiementing with blending natural objects, with my favourites being eyes/flowers/butterflies.

So today I've been exploring how to engrave and create new textures using GIMP, including the use of different layers, and the "bump map" feature, and since I'm a chocoholic, I've produced this...

YUMMY :P

This piece was created from the image of of turned off lightbulb, however, using various effects on GIMP such as Light and Shadow > Lighting Effects and black/ white layer overlays I made it look like the lightbulb is in fact glowing! See for yourself!

I am determined to update daily whilst I can! Today's work is a tropical image, full of colour, which takes full advantage of the layer-style design of GIMP.

The parrot and flower stock were taken from deviantART - thanks to everyone, including the author of the tutorial I followed, starlight86!

Another surreal, GIMP-produced piece of work, again (like the orb) it's a demonstration of how you can play with light, and I added in some blues hues as suggested by the tutorial, in case you want to know where to find these fantastic GIMP tutorials, here is the link; http://gimp-tutorials.net/

A GIMP based (originally photoshop) tutorial with vectors etc. I'll upload the final image , this took me ages >.< , it reminded me of the pier in "Elsewhere" by Gabrielle Zevin if anybody knows the story :P

In memory of Jazz, who had to be put down on Monday,

GIMP again! This time I want to show the progression of an image (built up from a tutorial) which contrasts the lighted foreground with a black background; the top 1st stage, the middle is the 2nd stage, and the finished image is beneath them, the end product, a beautiful pink glowing orb! (Notice the brightening of the highlights and tones between image stages)

This is actually an edited photograph, the original photo was a close-up of the night sky (taken on holiday in Cyprus) with the moon being the only object in the shot, however, again using GIMP 2 I decided to make the picture a bit more interesting.

Note my obession with the "supernova" and "sparkle" effects :D

Now I'd like to show some more of the digital art I've done, this time using a programme called GIMP 2 which, like Polyvore, is free, and can be downloaded from the main GIMPTM website without any trouble.

This image was done using various "paint" and "brush" effects, I followed a tutorial on how to create perfect fluffy clouds :)

And... here are the final outcomes, after 10 hours (5 hours each) in my GCSE Art Exams, here are the pieces I produced, one in coloured pencil the other in watercolour, same design different effects, everyone I've asked seems to have different preferences too....