Photo Art Friday - March 1, 2013

Can you believe it's March already! - Only 19 days left until the 1st Day of Spring! (and my birthday).

Right now though it's time to head on over to Pixel Dust Photo Art for this weeks
Photo Art Friday.  This weeks optional theme was,  "Vintage." 

I have 2 pieces to share with you today. 

I started with this photo:

I first went to Befunky.com and used the watercolor feature there.  Then I went back to PicMonkey and added Bonnie's texture:  Blue Missive to the photo.  I believe I used Hardlight at 100%.  Then I used the Daguerreotype feature (Plumbe) and came up with the piece below.  It reminds me of an antique French Postcard.

Next I chose this photo of our city park's Gazebo:

For this piece I cropped the photo.  Added Bonnie's textures:  Virtually Vintage and Creative canvas.  I added a Sketched frame and a Museum Matte frame to the piece as well.

Below is the result:

Don't forget to stop by Bonnie's blog and check out the other particpants art work.

Have a great weekend. 

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - February 24, 2013

It's Scavenger Hunt Sunday time!  -  Also a shout out to my little brother,  Happy Birthday!!!

So let's join Ashley over on Ramblings and Photos for the hunt.  This week the prompts were:  Time to Eat, Getting Ready, Playtime, Sweet Dreams and Scrub-a-dub.  Some of these were very challenging.  I hope you like my interpretations.

Please click to enlarge for a better view.  Especially the collage photos.

TIME TO EAT:  I couldn't decide between 2 photo's so I combined them and you get both.  A squirrel enjoying his morning breakfast of peanuts and my mom's fish enjoying their fish food.

GETTING READY:  This was the hardest one for me.  I finally got hubby to help me out at his shop by getting ready to use his saw to cut some wood.

PLAY TIME:  Again you get more then one for this prompt because I couldn't decide which I liked better. 

This collage of Piglet playing with his new toy (an empty toilet paper roll).

or Coleen playing with her dolls.

SWEET DREAMS:  I went an entirely different route with this prompt.  Besides now I have that song stuck in my head.  You know the one...Sweet dreams are made of these, who am I to disagree...(Annie Lennox) The song has nothing to do with my photo's by the way but hey I like my interpretation better! 

SCRUB-A-DUB:  You get Snickers taking a bath, cat style.

That's it for this week.  Next week we get to do colors:  Red, Orange, Yellow, Green and Blue.  That should be fun.

Photo Art Friday - February 22, 2013

Welcome!  This weeks Photo Art Friday is all about,  Connections.  I decided to share a link to a couple of previous photos dealing with Connections that were part of another meme, (Scavenger Hunt Sunday) where one of the prompts was, Connections.  Before I share that link though I am sharing a new piece that I created for this weeks PAF.

Click to enlarge.

Below is the Original photo.  It's a garden decoration that my daughter received as a gift.

For this piece I first went to Pic Monkey and used Bonnie's latest FREE texture:  Scratched Lens - Hardlight 100% reversing the texture from top to bottom.
Next I added a layer of Bonnie's texture Dappled Dawn - Overlay at 50%
Then I used the Soften feature 30% Softness, Fade 50%.
Then I used the Tranquil effect fade at 50%
Next I added another layer of Scratched Lens this time in Multiply, Fade 75%.


Here are the 2 pieces that I did for (SHS) back in 2012:

To read more about these two click on the link to this post:

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - February 17, 2013

Welcome.  This week went by quickly.  We celebrated Valentine's Day rather quietly with dinner at home and little gifts given out to each of the family members.  Hubby & I will go out by ourselves later this month.

So now it's time to join the fun of the Scavenger Hunt where this week the prompts were:  Candy, Pink/Red, Love, Kisses and Smile.

CANDY:  I did get some candy for V-Day but didn't photograph that.  Instead you get some of the many candy toppings available at the Frozen Yogurt shop to indulge your sweet tooth.

PINK/RED:  I had something else ready for this prompt and then today when I went to watch my great-nephew play soceer I spotted the windows of the school all decorated in Pink/Red for Valentine's Day so I just had to use that instead.

LOVE:  Jump aboard the "Love" train...One of my Valentine decorations.

KISSES:  A little humor here with one of my decorations.  (I added the words).

SMILE:  What would V-Day be without those candy hearts with the little sayings?  This one just happened to say...smile!

Do stop by Ashley's blog, Ramblings and Photos and check out the other hunt participants.

Photo Art Friday - February 15

Happy Friday! - It's time for Photo Art Friday over on Bonnie's blog, Pixel Dust Photo Art.  This week the optional theme was to use Bonnie's texture:  Bamboo Dreams in our art pieces.

I wanted something that would have an Oriental feel to it for my finished piece so I went through my photo archives and came up with this photo of some Dogwood Blooms from last spring.

I cropped the photo and added the texture but it still didn't look exactly like I wanted it to so I did some more searching and came up with another photo that I thought worked in well with my idea.

This shot is part of a local Chinese restaurant that I took last summer.













I took this photo, added the texture then added the cropped photo of the Dogwood blooms and erased the blooms off the building.  I used some other adjustments on PicMonkey that once again I forgot to write down.  Once I was happy with how everything looked I saved it and below is my finished piece.  I think it turned out great and hope you do as well.

Be sure to stop by Bonnie's and check out all the other great photo art entries.
Have a wonderful weekend.

Happy Valentine's Day

Piglet wanted to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day!  Thanks for stopping by.

Squirrel Amputee....?

Spotted this little guy on the back fence by the feeder.  Amputee?.......Scroll down.







                                                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                            







                                        
                                                                                                                                  
                                                                                                                                   Just so you know when he finally moved he had all 4 legs!



Scavenger Hunt Sunday - February 10, 2013

Hello!  Once again it's time to join in on the fun of Scavenger Hunt Sunday over on Ashley's blog, Ramblings and Photos.

This week the prompts were:

The Small Things, Illustration, Valentine, Work of Art and Window Beauty.

So let's get started:

THE SMALL THINGS:

It's the "small things" like the Cherry on Top that just make Frozen Yogurt even more yummy!

                                                                                                                                       

                                 ILLUSTRATION:                                                                                                     Now this one had me a bit stumped but I thought of something and while it may not illustrate anything in particular it's pretty cool.

This is a piece of art that hangs on my mom's wall.  It illustrates our family.  My oldest brother gave my parents this piece many years ago.  We all were avid bowlers at the time (some of us still are).  The artist took all our names and used them to create this piece.  Can you figure out where I am in the illustration? 

VALENTINE:

I've been working on some Valentine cards this week that will be given to family members this is one of them.

WORK OF ART:

Coleen made this little clay duck with a Valentine Heart to give her mom.  I think it's a cute little "work of art" and I'm sure her mom will as well.

WINDOW BEAUTY:

This is the facade from the old Odd Fellows Lodge that was preserved after remodeling the old building.  It now sits in a small park downtown.  The windows now showcase different pictures reflecting the heritage and history of this area.  It's really a fun piece to look at and I think is beautiful as well.

That's it for this weeks hunt.  Be sure to pop on over to Ashley's blog and check out some of the other participants.

Have a great week.

Photo Art Friday - February 8, 2013

It's Friday and time to join me on a photo art journey over at Pixel Dust Photo Art.
This weeks PAF theme is: Abstract.  Bonnie provided a texture and a "recipe" of sorts for putting our pieces together.  Now I must tell you I was totally baffled by this theme and scared to post anything because I don't understand how to edit photo's in programs very well.  I'm more of a (hands-on) learner and have no one here that can show me how to do photo editing so I kind of experiment on my own the best I can.  With that said here is what I ended up with.

Original Photos:  Click to Enlarge

For my piece I used the texture Bonnie provided,

Dropped Petals along with

Blue Me Away

Now here is where the fun part comes in.  I started out using the Gimp program.  I know a little tiny bit about using this program.  I started with the Dropped Petals Texture and added the photo of the bars using Difference @70% - Then I saved the photo and used Auto Correct in my Windows program which brightened it up a little.  Next up went to PicMonkey and added the Blue Me Away texture, Hardlight at 25%.  Then I added the photo of the Violets and erased out Coleen's hand.

I ended up with this:

Since I like to add quotes I found one and added it to the piece coming up with version #2

Finally I took this photo and went to Pixlr and used the Polar Coordinates filter, Polar to Rect. and came up with Version #3 - I think this is pretty abstract looking and I like how it turned out.

This was a tough assignment but I think it turned out okay.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday - February 3, 2013

It's time to join in on the fun of Scavenger Hunt Sunday. - I must confess this week I just wasn't feeling the prompts all that much. So right up front let me just say this probably isn't my most inspired work but it is what it is.

The prompts this week were: Hidden, Plain, Left, Fast and Peace.

HIDDEN: Piglet's face is "hidden" behind his pounce and kick toy.

                                                                                                                              PLAIN: Plain potato chips to go with my sandwich.

                                                                                                                                LEFT: This one was the hardest of all and I know it's a bit lame but I had to come up with something. Yes I am "left-handed."

                                                                                                                               FAST: Another tough one. The cards are really dealt "fast" when playing Spider Solitaire on the computer.

                                                                                                                             PEACE:  The "Peace" symbol has really made a comeback, you see it on everything now. This is the front of Coleen's shirt that was featured last week for the lace prompt.

So that's it for this week. I hope next week I'll be more inspired. Do stop by Ashley's blog (Ramblings and Photos) and check out the other hunters.