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.

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 :)

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!)

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.