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....

Decided to put things into context and show you how I used my "wor,k rest and play" ideas (at the beginning) to develop the outcome of my art exam, here is some of the planning I did in my sketchbook.

Just got back from a great 4 days at University of Reading Summer School (AimHigher), had a fantastic time and here's an image to represent it! (Like in the Wadham College image, the building in the background is actually where I was staying!)

I can count about 4 birthdays in July without even trying. Make that 5. This is shown in my next design, as I don't know how many birthday cards I've brought in the last week :) Here's to all the parties and fun.

During the last week of June, I visited Oxford University, Wadham College, this piece is based on that experience (which I enjoyed throughly) which is a sort of thank-you to all the students who helped out on the open day, especially with my group.

In my opinion, this is probably the best of the work I've done, it sets the scene for what's to come too, the writing on the postcard outlines where I'm going this summer and is the basis for my other art.

Parties, games, fun, and for me, travel, friends and life in general. This image, titled "Play" really summarises this for me and was also created in May 2010 with my other GCSE Art images.

At the moment it's summer, and being a post-GCSE student I have the whole of July & August to relax, and half of June too! This design is based around the theme of "Rest" and is one of my most popular images on Polyvore - but it's not one of my favourites to be honest.

GCSEs are over, and it's one of my summer resolutions to start an art blog, no matter what the outcome!

Will now begin to demonstrate the main purpose of this blog, art, by uploading various pieces I have created, for all the world to see :D

The programme I used is a website called Polyvore, which is free to sign up, and I found easy to use - all of my work I have posted was made using this site - it's great;

I'll start with oldest work May 2010, this piece is part of a set I made for my GCSE Art Exam brief, based around the theme of "Work, Rest and Play"