10 Truths About Me

This week in Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers course, we are asked for 10 truths about ourselves and a picture to match.

1. My home is a sea-change. We're surrounded by forest and beautiful beaches and I don't get out in it enough! My nest is too cosy!

2. My 'Sewing' room has become a dedicated creative space for so many activities and I wish I had more time to do stuff in it!

3. Two nicknames my partner calls me are 'Clutterbunny' and 'Queen of Clutter'. And it's true! I collect interesting and beautiful things.

4. I get excited about so many things to do in life – and take on too much. I don't feel I achieve depth in many of my efforts because I try to do too much at once.

5. I always wanted children from when I was a teenager and would dream that I found an abandoned baby in a basket on our doorstep, and it fell to me to love it.

6. I had to wait many years before finding the right partner and starting to have my babies at 38. Now I have three beautiful children of my own who teach me about myself push me to grow in more ways than I'd expected.

7. Creating and re-creating is my meditation, my 'living in the present moment' time to reflect on my life and be alone in the midst of the busy family life. I've always carved out a niche of time to do this – quilting, card-making, doing up old furniture, photography, writing... even if the housework suffers.

8. I want to leave something of myself in this world that makes it a better place. I volunteer some of my talents to help my community, while trying to balance the stress of fitting it all in and keeping time for my family, too.

9. I yearn for close friends to talk with about life, the Universe and learning to grow, and I love a good honest chat over a cuppa. The wonderful women in my book group are a balm for my soul. The Internet is opening up possibilities for sharing and connecting deeply to others, too. I have one dear close friend who knows me and accepts me for who I am. She's a treasure! We just pick up from where we left, even years later.

10. Books are my friends too, along with the Internet, and I love to learn and reflect. Taking action is my biggest challenge, but I try to change things within my power – growing in patience, understanding, ways of speaking, being positive, noticing what my family needs, my attitudes and way of being in the world....and I always write too much!

The textures used on the photos were Kim's KK Musiclovin and the lower one from Jerry Jones (http://shadowhousecreations.blogspot.com/).

Day 10 A painterly Effect

This week in Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers lesson I've been experimenting. I started off with this photo I took last year of an old wagon. We don't get snow here on the Australian South Coats, so it's hard to get white backgrounds. I found it challenging to play around with this image to see what adding textures and changing hue/saturation does to its feel.

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I turned off the last hue/saturation adjustment layer as it seemed warmer without it. I also added a background layer to lighten the outside edges more. The textures didn't show up much so I increased the opacity. I used the paintbrush to remove some texture as it seemed dull:

Not happy, I turned off the Sienna texture layer. The colours look too bright, I think:

So next I desaturated further, and added a darker texture (Kim's Branded') at 24%:

Next I increased the 'Branded' texture to 71% to try to homogenise the background.

I'm not really sure any of these worked - I like the third one the most. I'd love to know what others would do with this!

Day 6 - A Storyboard for a day

I enjoyed taking shots of the things I appreciate in my day - it wasn't a normal busy day. A walk in my garden, identifying a couple of birds' nests found by a neighbour for my daughter, and trying out window light for shots of a birdcage I decorated.

Creative Play

Here are two of the photos I worked on for the Photostory exercise in Kim's class. I think they were too detailed to see properly in small format. This is a birdcage I decorated with a nest I found. The textures added are Kim's 

This is my friend on her wedding day. I took this years ago, and still love it. I took away most of the colour to make it softer.

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 I used Kim's Aurora texture in this one and combined two photos. I had a play with some grungy edges too, as the burn edge was too grey.

Day 4 Vision and Blur - Treading lightly

I love it when the moment is captured so I can remember it for the rest of my life - a life-defining moment of deepest love. I first worked on this picture in Kim's Art of Texture course but never showed it.

I thought I would try again, with the aim of simplicity in mind. I tried to use the textures to create the negative space in the composition by fading out the background. I used Kim's textures Charmed, Plastersquare and Crackerjack. It seemed I needed to use more textures to get the 'less' I was aiming for.

I tried to take a photo with the task of simplicity in mind, and chose my red roses. I learned from my mistakes here! The background was fussy and dark - I was trying to catch up on a few lessons and this was a shot from the photostory of my day.

This was a challenge as the lighter textures didn't seem to work, so I used Kim's textures Earthenwareframed and Burntpumpkin. I do love the textures I have purchased from you, Kim, as well as the freebies you so generously share with us. I love to have so much wonderful potential to choose from!

6 Word Story - Day 3

The challenge is to present my life story in 6 words. It's a summary of a facet of life in one moment of time, glancing back and scanning forward to the present, and looking to the future with hope.

We are all on a journey - the discovery of our selves and what matters in ourselves and in our lives. All of us carry scars of the past that affect the way we act now, some from traumatic events, others from the 'death of a thousand cuts'.

Only I can heal myself, by delving into the depths and letting go of the pain, not holding it to me like a woman holding a beloved baby. Art is another way of expressing and letting go, moving into freedom.

Just Enough - Day 2

Kim's textures are so delicious it's hard to go lightly - the textures add so much depth and 'arty-ness' to the photos. This picture of an antique pair of baby shoes (I bought for my daughter) represent for me those years of bonding, closeness, hormones filling me with well-being and connection, when my babies were babies, and mothering was deep, fulfilling and my skin felt translucent. Emotions and senses were heightened and I felt a greater closeness to the rest of the world. My skin felt 'thin', as if there was less of a barrier between me and my emotions, and other people's presence.

I have used Kim's texture 'KK Charmed' at 46%.