DETERMINED TO DO SOME CHALLENGES

I have missed taking part in challenges for the past couple of weeks so much, and so I am determined to make an effort today, even though it is an effort.

At Three Muses the challenge is 'Get Ahead, Get a Hat'.  Marilyn and Archibald had their photo taken specially to show off their new hats.  They assured the hat-maker that they were delighted with them, but somehow the photographer just didn't quite capture that emotion.  They either need a new milliner or a new photographer. ……. or both.

In the next picture the apple-cheeked lady is my offering for both Try it on Tuesday and Moo Mania.

Moo Mania asks for the use of corrugated cardboard.  I scanned the corrugated at an angle to give diagonal stripes and changed the colour to blue digitally, then added the green background digitally as well.  I then assembled the whole image on Photoshop.  She may not be able to tell her dots from her stripes, but still, she looks a happy lady.

And for Try it on Tuesday Dotty wanted to have her say on the subject of 'Feminine and Fancy'.  Dotty's always been a bit of a feminist who doesn't see why she has to wear frills, furbelows and feathers to show her femininity - and she's had 5 husbands and 12 children so it works for her!  She always likes to be a bit different from the rest, and I think she may well find that she achieves her aim in the TIOT Feminine and Fancy challenge.

Both the Hats card and the Dotty lady card were originally made to send to my dear friend Karen Isaacson at I am Rushmore a while ago, and I hope she will excuse me for re-using them for these challenges given the way I am feeling just now.

Linking to Three Muses, Try it on Tuesday, Moo Mania

COLOUR ME HAPPY FOR 2014

COLOUR ME HAPPY FOR 2014
Watercolour - Jez

This is my first entry to the Three Muses challenge, where the topic is COLOUR ME HAPPY, and these are the colours that make me happy - yellow and orange.  There is some grey in there because we have to accept that into each life some rain must fall, and without a little sadness we wouldn't know what happiness is.  But it's happiness that keeps the wheels of life turning.  Painted in watercolour, and the border was added on Photoshop.

I couldn't resist trying a couple of digital colour changes - interesting, but I much prefer the vibrant yellow and orange, those are my happy colours.

It's also my first entry to Moo Mania where the challenge is BIRDS, and drawing or painting birds is something I really enjoy.  Here is my sketchbook page of Flamingos:

I don't know if you've ever spent time trying to draw flamingos from life.  If not you've missed a treat.  Flamingos have an attention span of about 3 seconds, which I swear they reduce to 1.8 seconds as soon as they see a sketchbook and pencil.

They're in constant movement, twisting, bending, preening, feeding, squabbling and generally having a go at any other flamingo who dares to come near.  At Martin Mere there are two separate flocks of flamingos, one group is Chilean flamingos, and I don't think I've ever noticed where the others are from.

I'm fascinated by their knobbly legs, flexible curving necks, and 'mud-pie' nests - and in the spring their fluffy grey chicks on their long skinny legs.  I just wish I could capture a good image of them, but it's a question of scribbling down at least part of a posture and hoping they might just take the same position once or twice more, so it's a matter of jumping from one part-sketch to another.

Apologies for the dark photograph, because although we've had some gorgeous sunny days and blue skies over Christmas and New Year it's not been quite good enough for a decent photo.  We've been so lucky over the holiday period with our weather in this area of North West England.  Over great areas of Britain, coast and country, there have been huge winds, gales and rainfall and people have been flooded more than once, and without power for days on end, even on Christmas Day because so many power lines have been down.  On this morning's farming programme, which we listen to in bed at 5.45 am (very early risers!), the farmers said the fields are so waterlogged that the rain which was forecast again for today and another few days  has nowhere to go - it can't drain off the fields because the rivers have already overflowed and just can't take any more water.

So my thoughts are with those whose Christmas, New Year, lives and homes have been so terribly affected, and if anyone reading this has suffered from those problems I do hope things start to improve for you a little soon and will be thinking particularly of you.

Linking to Moo Mania, Three Muses, Paint Party Friday and Manon's Paper Saturdays

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE

Here is my card to wish all wonderful blogging friends the best of years in 2014, with a good share of joy, love, happiness, success, friendship …….. and perhaps even a little bit of World Peace thrown in.

In what has been a difficult year for us right through, as it has for many others, you have all brought me Joy and Pleasure, and I hope that 2014 will be a little easier for us all.

Digital image by Jez - click to enlarge

The snowflakes were created on a little app called 'Silk', which I enjoy playing with.  Everything else was done on Photoshop.

Apart from 'Happy New Year', the words are by Henry W Longfellow, though I'm sure he must have said Happy New Year a good few times in his life.

And this is my 6" x 4" New Year's wish postcard to everyone at Sunday Postcard Art:

I'm linking this to Moo Mania 'Snowflakes',  Take a Word 'A New Year', Inspiration Avenue 'Joy to the World', Paint Party Friday and Sunday Postcard Art 'Anything Goes'.