SILVER RAIN Oh I got some of the wildest sky photos this evening thanks to the crazy storms we had most of the day. Not long after I took these photos I heard there was a tornado sighted 7 miles east of here. This is one I took out my front door as the rain was pouring over the stopped up gutter on the front of the house. I manipped it a little in photoshop to make the rain look glowy.

Sometimes when I get out my vacuum cleaner (which isn't often enough as you can see by the cobwebs on the ceiling) my cat hops up on the wood stove in the living room, then jumps up on top of the bookcase which is right behind my favorite chair. Craning my neck up I decided to get out my digi camera and get a picture of her today because she looked so funny up there. :)

Here's a manip of the same photo:

Who's that over my head?~ Sometimes when I get out my vacuum cleaner (which isn't often enough as you can see by the cobwebs on the ceiling) my cat hops up on the wood stove in the living room, then jumps up on top of the bookcase which is right behind my favorite chair. Craning my neck up I decided to get out my digi camera and get a picture of her today because she looked so funny up there. :)

"The Red Pirate" This is a digital painting "HoHoHo and a bottle of rum" aaaaar matey :)

'What Fun to Be a Fish'
7 1/2 x 11 inches. I just finished this painting today and it's acrylics and glazing medium on 140 lb. watercolor paper. The second pic is a detail showing the texture. This original painting is currently for sale at Artbyus.com: http://www.artbyus.com/auctions.php?a=2&b=64423

Another digi work Queen's Room I was in a royal purple mood when I made this one!

Halls of Glory This is my digital painting for tonight. I had desaturated this and kept experimenting with this one till I had an interesting effect. I would love to have this one made into a print. .

Mystery lady on my front door W.J. I thought of you yesterday when I got out my camera! I was sitting in the kitchen on the computer and the pouring rain had finally let up. I opened the screen on the front storm door and saw what looked like a lady wearing a robe caused by the moisture and rain drops trapped between the 2 pieces of glass. So of course I had to get a photo of her before she went away LOL! I then manipped that same photo and it turned into a big green eye!

I had some very exciting news this week! I was chosen to become a guide in the abstract/contemporary forum in WetCanvas.com. WC is a huge worldwide website for artists to gather, chat and share tips and photos of their work, and gain invaluable knowledge about the world and business of art. Thanks Diane and Michael! I was in the digi making mood tonight and here's 2 I created tonight. Not very original but I titled them "Eclipse of the Sun" and "Eclipse of the Sun 2"

Spring has definitely sprung! and HAPPY EASTER to everyone. My rhododendrun bushes in front of the house are all in pretty red blooms and swarming with big fat yellow and black bumblebees, hummingbird moths, and big bright yellow butterflies. I saw my cat lying on the back of the couch gazing through the window and watching the fluttering butterfly. Every time the butterfly would come close to the window she would duck her head, switch her tail wildly, and go into pounce mode like she was going to just jump through the window glass LOL. I got out my digital camera and got a picture through the glass of what she was so intently staring at. It turned out pretty good for a photo taken through the window.

Well I went buggy this weekend and started a 'Bugs of abstraction' series. Here's "Bug 1" and "Bug 2" and the third one I am still working on and it is starting to look like a coccoon so far. These are little art squared paintings and they are each 4x4 inches wide and they are acrylics on 140 lb. watercolor paper.

RAIN ORBS THROUGH A STORMY SKY
W.J. you got me going with my orb photos again. Thanks, you and your gorgeous art are such an inspiration! This is another of the photos I took that evening and I manipped it (above). I didn't have to do much to manip it since the rain orbs made it look pretty weird already. I tried to blur it a little to get rid of some of the graininess though. We had more rain today and gray cloudy skies but nothing like that short intense storm last Monday when I got the orb photos.

Some more digidoodles. Hope ya'll are having a fantastic weekend!!!!!!!!

This one is where I took the photo below and created a digital work from it in the Dogwaffle art program. "Orbs of mystery" LOL I'm glad these orbs aren't ghosts though!

Monday evening we had a fierce but fast moving storm come though our area with 70 mph winds. Right before the storm hit with rain and lightening I grabbed my digital camera and took some pictures of the sky. When I put them in the computer I noticed these orb things in the photos and I'm thinking what in the world are these round things. Well I found out they are a natural phenomena called 'rain orbs'. Here's the photos I took as the edge of the sky was turning black.

"ABSTRACTING COLORS" Another digital painting created with "magic" pixels.

I sure learned a valuable lesson tonight: CALIBRATE YOUR MONITOR regularly! I found this link http://pages.prodigy.net/ecmorris/tips/monitor.htm in one of the threads in WetCanvas and after adjusting to the proper settings realized that ALL of the images I've been posting lately are very yucky looking. Black on my monitor looks a kind of dingy dark gray to everyone else. eek! Here's the same photo of my painting after calibrating my monitor correctly (I hope). Can you see a difference? Which means I have to redo every singe photo of my works and repost them, arrgh!

LIFE IS A ROLLER COASTER Being inspired to try something new that I've been seeing some of the other artists doing, I decided to try painting a triptych (3 paintings) in different vibrant colors. These little paintings just flew by and I had a blast doing them. They are each 6 1/2 x 10 inches and painted in acrylics on unstretched Friedrich canvas pad canvas. I even used some glaze medium to glue some diamond dust glitter over the moon. (actually sparkly white tiny pieces of plastic from the craft store). I have got to try another in this same style, love the colors and how they turned out! I also have posted a close-up of the sparkly moon.

NATURE'S POT OF GOLD....Yea I finally got this one done. It's 16 x 20 inches in acrylics on stretched canvas. I feel there are treasures more valuable in nature than in the jewelry stores (not that I don't love beautiful jewels and gold LOL)

I am feeling so honored and grateful that an artist that I admire so very much quoted me in her blog. She is an extremely talented artist and makes the most incredible works which she shares in her blog. CHECK IT OUT and thank you so very much W.J.! http://art166.blogspot.com/

Molten Midnight Sun...Here it is finished and hanging on my wall. Didn't do much else to it except add a tree leaning in from the right. I put it in ABU to sell but I have a feeling I'll miss it a lot if I'm lucky enough to sell it. It's funny how attached to our paintings we can get. :)

Molten Midnight Sun
This is my newest painting and it's acrylics on stretched canvas, 11 x 14 inches. This is a work in progress as I did some more work on it after I took this photo and will post the finished one tomorrow. I painted one before with drops of light and really like this effect, I think I'll do more like this, maybe it could be my signature style or something. I titled this one "Molten Midnight Sun"

Here's another digital magic painting..."Lifepulses"

Here's one I'm working on. It's acrylics on stretched canvas and it's 16x20 inches. I am almost done with it. Season of Green.

We have been having so much fun in the abstract/contemporary forum in WetCanvas. A postcard trade project was started by Florence and lots of exciting trading and mailing are going on. I've recieved some beauties that I am going to buy some small inexpensive frames for to hang over my little desk where I paint. Here's one I did, a 4x4 acrylics on 140 lb. watercolor paper that is going in the mail to Ladywolf this Monday. It's titled "Standing Tall". There's something about winter trees that I am just attracted to and just have to paint them. Although I admit I like the weather in spring and fall better.

...and STICK A FORK IN IT, it's done, yeaaa! This took lots more work than I expected but I'm happy with the way it turned out. I'm varnishing it Monday evening and will bring to her on Wednesday. Hope she likes it! My mission was to paint the four seasons on this and having a river or stream running through the whole thing. It is 5 feet long and over 7 inches wide on the left and tapered down to 2 1/2 inches on the right. Tricky, tricky but I'm so glad it's finished and I'm happy with the way it looks. Now on to my next project which is paint something for my daughter to give her boyfriend on Valentine's Day. :)

This is fall...

update photos...

Here's my project for my boss at work. Painting on a 5 foot long sawblade, I'm going to get it finished if I have to stay up all weekend to do it LOL! I have winter mostly done and most of spring and summer. Just have to do fall now.

Okay so I'm addicted to digital art, it's like painting with magic! I have a commission to paint a 5 ft. sawblade with acrylics which I'm going to work on tomorrow night. Hope I can work some magic with it too. :)

I took a digital photo of my acrylic painting on paper and manipulated it with software into a new work which is now a digital painting. I am thinking of making some prints of my digital works to sell. I've heard they look really good as prints. This one is titled "Shaman's Secret Forest"

Yea I finally got one finished tonight that I had been working on. It's on semi-transparent yupo paper and 8 1/2 x 11 inches and painted with acrylics. I am really starting to love the smoothness of yupo paper. I titled this one "Tree falls in the forest"

Well I soon am going to have a fun and challenging project. I committed to painting a winter, spring, summer and fall scene on an antique 5 ft. long sawblade. She liked the sketch I did so next step will be to start painting it soon. I'm going to try and finish the acrylics on yupo work this weekend too. Here's another digi fix, "Midnight Blue". :D

I love traveling through the Appalachian mountains and the natural awesome beauty of the scenery there. I always remember visiting my grandparents in eastern Tennessee when I was a child and the love and beauty there. "Mountainshine" digital art

Well I guess it's time for another post on my blog thingee. I am working on 4 paintings at once and made some progress on 2 of them tonight. I seem to be in a slump on my traditional painting here lately. Maybe I've got too many going at one time. :) I love making digis! Here's "Butterfly dreams"

Bwaaahahahah (insert evil laugh) it's a full moon Friday the 13th kind of night! Here's a photo manip I did for tonight. Hey wait a minute we're nowhere near Halloween LOL!

I got a free sample of yupo paper in the mail and the first time I used it I was really surprised how slick and smooth it is. It's a different experience trying to paint on it and I got a little frustrated the first time I painted on it. I got out one last night I had started several months ago and now it's starting to look more interesting. I hope to finish it tonight so I can post it in here. Here's another version of the digital painting I made, "Inspirations".

I've had a really strong urge lately to get out one of my blank white canvases and do some acrylic painting and I've been looking for inspiration and ideas. I am working on a couple of acrylics on yupo paper also. Such smooth slicky paper, I'll see how they turn out and it they look OK, post them in here. I made another digital painting tonight....
"Fairyflies"

I had planned on doing some acrylic painting this weekend but one thing after another and now the weekend is over. Here's a digi painting I did tonight and I liked the way this turned out, maybe this will give me an idea for my next painting. :)

Aha, thought I had lost this photo but I found it in webshots.com where I had saved it summer before last. I had planted a pack of morning glory seeds 4 or 5 years ago and they come up every summer on the fence next to my back door. They first came up as a beautiful blue but over the last couple summers they have turned to a lovely pinkish purple. I got this photo after it had rained and there was still drops of rain on the velvety petals. Please hurry up spring!

It's 2006 now so I wish everyone a Happy New Year! I finally got my computer working. It had been restarting numerous times every day for months and I was getting all kinds of error messages. I couldn't run my virus scan or any diagnostic tool without it restarting. After months of frustration and thinking I had some deadly virus my husband took the whole cover off the computer and guess what?? One of the air vents and heat sensors were completely covered with dust! You couldn't see it on the outside. He gently cleaned out the whole inside with a low pressure air hose and now it is working perfectly!!! I wonder how many people trash their computers because of something so simple? Then I'm thinking of all the many many technical error messages I researched mentioning things like "bios memory, caching and shadowing all sorts of varied weird technical terms). Well why couldn't just one of those error messages from Microsoft say "Open the computer and clean out the darn dust bunnies on the inside LOL!) and I swear my house doesn't look that dusty but the table the puter sets on is wide and has a 2" opening under it that dust collects that I can't get to. Think I'll stuff something under there so the bunnies can't congregate there any more. :)
I got some beautiful sunrise photos with my digital camera the other morning. I was finally able to install my digital camera program. I manipped this photo a little in the dogwaffle program: "Dawning of a New Year" or "Sunrise sparklers"