Watercolor Painting - Green Leaves

I created this green leaves piece last night prompted by a photo challenge of green.

I used my rag tag watercolor pencils and the pencil sharpener to get some pencil shavings onto my watercolor palette.

With 2 greens, 2 yellows and a grey I managed to get a variety of colors for this collage.

Once it was dry I added the lines between the squares with a marker.

I then used a fine marker to draw leaves in the spaces. All kinds and shapes with a bit of help from the internet.

It's nature wonderful.

This morning looking at it I'm not sure that I will do for a photo challenge.

I will scour the place to find something green to shoot. I do have plants if worse comes to worse.

Calendar - Countdown - Four More

Cool Snowman Countdown Calendar featuring the scene I created and photographed. 

On this 4x6 I added the "Days until Christmas" and the star digitally onto the photo that I took.

The birthday side features bright red polka dot designer paper with silver metallic balloon punchies with black strings.

This one got a black dry erase marker.

On this Green Red Ornament countdown calendar I used a red ornament on a green background with a pine bough.  I created this digital composition a few years ago. I created all these elements myself.

I added the star and the words digitally above the ornament.

The birthday side has some beautiful blue paisley designs with olive green and chocolate brown sprinkled around the shapes.

I chose the green dry erase marker for this calendar.

The calendar features a Bethelehm collage that I created on artist board. I painted the board a medium blue.  I then ripped cardstock paper that I had painted in deeper tones of blue.  The paper was also embossed with the Swiss Dot folder.  The darker pieces were adhered onto board leaving the blue color show in between.  

The Bethelem buildings a a similar design to my Simple Bethelehem.  They were traced, cut from card stock, painted with silver domes and lit windows. The bottom third was cover with crinkled paste paper in deep blues and purples. The silver band of metallic card stock was cut with the Creative Memories Decorative Trimmer and adhered over the collage.

I did have to manipulate a photograph of this artwork to make the silver band wider to allow for the words and space for the numbers.  

The birthday side is a piece of wonderful floral designer paper with purple and yellow flowers and yelllow bees. This calendar was paired with a purple dry erase marker.

Warm Snow Angel count down calendar was made with the photo shoot I did the other day.

I added the words "Days until Christmas digitally before having the 4x6 printed professionally.

The birthday side is a colorful wirly swirly designer paper featuring many colors.

I paired this calendar with an orange dry eraser marker.

These are ready to go!

Mosaic Monday - ABC

I've been working on my inventory of Alphabet Photos.  It's taken 4 years to get at least one image for each letter.  I have several options for about half the letters.  It's a lot of paying attention to my surroundings and putting on my letter seeing glasses to see them from a different perspective.

I've created a collage of the first 3 letters and the last 3 letters of the alphabet.

Submitting to Mosaic Monday hosted by Judith at Lavender Cottage.

Mosaic Monday - Sunflowers

I'm hoping these sunny flowers will inspire the weather to get warmer. We had a really nice day on Saturday and I spent it with my sisters and niece. It was a very good day.

Sunflowers are my favorite flower so I always have a good number of shots.  I love the variety of colors which come with these flowers. Yellow to deep oranges can be found. Bees love them as I see 2 of my shots include them gathering nectar.


I'm submitting this to Mosaic Monday at Lavendar Cottage hosted by Judith.

Monday Mosaic #30

Another visit to the Muttart Conservatory.  It is refreshing to see flowers blooming in the midst of winter.

I visited all four pyramids. The feature is still set up for Chinese New Year - the year of the Ram. That is where the water fountain was set up.  From a bit of research it is a steel cup cascading water fountain.  There was a pink/purple peace lily. In the tropical pyramid the waterfall ends in a pond where I found 3 large Koi fish. There were many orchids, the one I chose is the boat orchid (cymbidium). The small white and blue and the lavender I did not take note of their names. After checking Veronica's post this week I was reminded that the lavender flower is a Lenten Rose. The small white and blue still don't know it's name.

Submitting this to Mosaic Monday at Lavender Cottage.

Chinese Photo Collage

I took these photos on a recent visit to the Conservatory. The feature pavilion had a Chinese theme.  I really liked the tree on the bottom of the collage. There were terrific stone sculptures of lions, turtles and dragons.  The water feature is terrific.  There was a large bronze gong but no hammer to ring it.  Okay that was likely a good idea.  A terrific red Chinese lantern.

Letterhead - Digital - Christmas 2

Here are the letterheads I designed this year. These are great  for Christmas letters.  The blue one on the left is a collage I did last year to which I added the caption of O Little Town of Bethlehem.

The brown one is the same image altered with photo editing software to be in warmer tones.  I kept the same caption for this one.

I created one with my office nativity and added Christmas Blessings as the sentiment.

Photo - Pumpkin Fair - Girls Day Out!

The ladies in my family had a girls day out yesterday.  We visited the Pumpkin Fair in Smoky Lake AB.  The weather was favorable which was good as many activities were outside.  There was a Show & Shine with great cars and trucks, museums with great finds, a huge garage sale, an art show & sale, a Farmer's Market, crafters selling their wares including the start of Christmas shopping, good food & baking, and of course there was the pumpkin weigh off and at 558 pounds this was not the biggest one.  I believe the heaviest was in the range of 757.  We had a great day!

Photo - Royal Tyrell Musuem - 25th Anniversary

I took a trip to Drumheller this week specifically to visit the Royal Tyrrell Museum. I've been visiting this area of Alberta for years and I've visited the museum at least 4 times. The museum celebrated their 25th Anniversary in 2010.   It is never a disappointment but this visit was excellent.  They have added an education centre, a garden, programs, more hands on exhibits, some fun stuff and some exhibits feature mirrors which I thought was an excellent addition!
The top photo is the great Tyrannosaurus Rex found in southwestern Alberta by 2 teens fishing.  Insects in cased in amber, a fern from the Cretaceous Garden, underwater creatures from the Burgess Shale made 12 times larger than their actual size.  The Mosasaur was a marine reptile like a crocodile that lived in the Bearpaw Sea which was an inland sea that spread from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico during the Cretaceous Period, essentially splitting North America in half. Taking the photo was difficult as the area was darken as in underwater.  The Stegosaurus rounds out the set of photos in the bottom right.

Photo - Devonian Botanic Gardens

I took a trip to the Devonian Botanic Gardens on the weekend.  It's a large property and a good thing I went early as it rained later in the day.
The background for this collage is a copper pot in the Arid show house which had this terrific patina on it.  I do water drops every chance I get and they had just irrigated so there were plenty.  The Koi fish is in the brook in the Kurimoto Japanese Gardens.  I've been trying all kind of options with my camera and this one worked out really well. The fish was about 12" long. I saw 4 different ones in the waters there. In the Butterfly show house I got this pic of a very nice warm colored butterfly.  He was just sitting there so I got a lot of shots.  The bottom picture is of course Bird of Paradise.  I think this is the first one I've seen in real life.  It's beautiful. 

Photo - May Long Weekend

I was out taking pictures on the weekend. I've started getting some shots for my 2014 photo calendars for the gift giving season.  I was out in nature a lot and enjoyed the great weather we had, finally for a long weekend in Alberta.  The seagulls were playing with me and my camera, making sweeping flights very close.  Visited some vintage shoppes. The new pine cones with their great color and perfect symmetry.  I couldn't resist the reflection of the bridge in the water and finally the crab apples trees in bloom!  The background is also one of my shots of a lake with blue sky, dry grass, and trees on the island across from me. I hope you had a great weekend too!

Happy Easter - Photo Collage

I am wishing everyone a Happy Easter.  I will be with family and will see my sister that I haven't see for a long while.  We are planning a bit of crafting time for the girls.  I've prepared my salad and desserts some of which came from our bake sale this week.  Too easy!

I took these pictures from a flower arrangement one of the girls at work received this week.  The large pink flower was really nice.  I created a collage from the daisy and chrysanthemums.

Photos - Canmore

I spent some time in the mountains with my sister recently.  I wanted mountain pictures to add to my portfolio and decided Canmore may provide what I needed. We stayed at a bed and breakfast on the outskirts of town.  We visited the Bow River, Gap Lake, the downtown area, the new developments with huge houses and the small towns around.  The bottom picture is from our window when we awoke one morning. How cool is that!  It was very cold and it was -5C went we got up our last morning.  Frost on the car windows.  We spent some time with 2 ladies from Australia which was very enjoyable.  Thanks to our hosts Merv & Yvonne.

World Wide Photo Walk - 2011

I was out on Saturday for the World Wide Photo Walk.  On the walk I chose we walked around Whyte Avenue for a couple of hours.  The weather was good, the sights were interesting, and the company was inspiring. There was a large group of us with cameras in hand that headed east.  Here's a few pictures I took on my walk.  Many of the shops had wares for sale on the street so pictures of those were fair game.  Some retailers were not very welcoming of our cameras.  We met together afterwards to share pictures, experiences, and just get to know one another a bit.  It was a very good day!

Photo - Vacation Pics

Here's a few shots from my summer. I was up early one morning and took this great sunrise with the pine tree in silhouette, Queen Anne lace against a dark sky (we nearly got wet), a swan on Lake Ontario with a great reflection, the Canada Flag in late evening, a punched tin lantern at the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough and the dew on the car as we were leaving at 6:30 am for a day of photo taking (now that the life of a photographer). We were trying to avoid the heat of the day and the harshness of the midday light.

I spent time with my sister and we took lots of pictures, make lots of cards, chatted and walked most days. It was very good!

Photo - Fort Edmonton Park

I took a photo taking trip to Fort Edmonton Park this weekend with a full day for me. It's been several years since I last visited. Meanwhile, they have added the MidWay with the Carousel and Ferris Wheel being the highlights. I did take a ride on the Carousel. Aren't those restored wooden horses great? They are gorgeous. The line was long for the Ferris Wheel and the squeals coming from the riders made me think twice. Maybe next time. It's not that high.

I'm working on a photography project and this place offered a lot of great pics. More on that later.

Card - Grunge Background

I created this card with a digital collage background created by Therese Malak. Find the file here. Thanks for the download. I sized the file to the dimensions I needed, printed it on white cardstock and trimmed it. I mounted it on a dark green card. I cut 2 stars in nested sizes with the Sizzix Star #2 die in 2 colors of cardstock. I stamped the greeting with Always Artichoke stamp pad. I ripped the top and bottom edges and then layered it onto the dark cardstock and trimmed as needed. I distressed the edges with the Always Artichoke. Quick and easy card!

Photo - Spring is near!

I know that British Columbia has these kinds of flowers popping out of the ground but ours are still under feet of snow. I'm not sure when they will appear. I went to the Muttart Conservatory yesterday for an infusion of spring, hope and reassurance. They had tulips, hyacinth, daffodils in a bunch of great colors. It was uplifting! I've put together a few of the pics into this collage. I used Photoshop Elements 8 to manipulate the files and create the collage. I really like the software.

Hang in there, spring is coming!

Photo - Poinsettias

I was out to the Muttart Conservatory on Sunday to take in some of the season's atmosphere. Of course, poinsettias were featured extensively. As you can see from this collage, there were many colors on display. I'm not sure about blue poinsettias with glitter besides. There were bears on a train in the feature pavilion. I managed to find holly in the temperate pyramid. It was a good few hours. I updated my blog header as well using one of my photos.

Photo Collage - Stained Glass

I attended a birthday party today for a great lady turning 90. She is spry and takes a walk every day with her faithful dog. We had a great family visit. The party was held in a church hall with great stained glass windows. I took several of them. The doves were a popular image and the sheaves of wheat is reminder of our prairies. I hope you enjoy the collage.