Collaged Box For Paper Dolls, and Weathered Wood Textures

Happy Autumn! It's one of my favourite times of the year - the ocean temperature lags by about three months, and the weather is mild, so swimming is glorious. Happy Spring too, for those opposite us :)

Recently my daughter started gymnastics seriously, with two afternoon sessions and two morning sessions, plus my son plays basketball and does gymnastics too. I needed a project that's easy to work on in the car. 

When I was young I used to cut up old dress pattern catalogues my Mum was finished with, choosing some models to be the dolls, and others to be sacrificed as clothes with tabs at the shoulders and sides. I've been collecting paper dolls on my Pinterest site hoping to interest my daughter - but no way!

Oh well, I'm still just a big kid! I printed out some paper dolls to have a go at assembling and dressing. 

The old chocolate box I carried them in was unattractive, so decided to alter it...

In Photoshop Elements I've been adding the heads of my favourite Edwardian and Belle Epoch actresses onto paper dolls by E.K. Duncan. One of them didn't work as she was facing sideways, so she now has a place on the box lid.

Layers of scrapbooking paper were glued on first, then some lace scraps, buttons and scrapbooking paper were ladded, along with the gorgeous image of Cléo de Mérode, a French dancer from the Belle Époque. I cut a paper frame for Cléo, and glued on a fabric rose embellishment cut from an old op shop blouse. I found a lace doiley to add lace to the sides of the box - a perfect fit. I just need to add some velvet ribbon when I find the right shade of olive green....

Now for some natural and man-made neutral beauty...

Around 7am after dropping off children to early morning gymnastics, I wandered along the edge of Batemans Bay. It was foggy as the sun rose...

The texture of these weathered boards caught my eye...

I couldn't resist a play with the images in Photoshop Elements when I returned home...

After dropping the children to school, I stopped at Broulee to have a walk on the beach...

 And a swim on the next beach, in water so pristine clear you can see your toenails at the bottom without goggles...

I'm linking up to Wen's blog Apple Apricot for Simply Neutrals #18. There you'll see links to some gorgeous neutral beauty.

Happy Autumn or Spring! Enjoy!

Simply Neutrals # Lucky 13 - My Braidwood Story

Hello my Blogland friends,

Here is a digital card I've made for you using some of the textures I found on this trip...

Just in case the message was too small to read, here it is again...

I've had such an unexpected adventure! Our car was starting to become unreliable, so we decided it was time to trade it in on a newer model. I researched and organised a trade-in at Canberra, our nearest major city. Half-way there, it broke down - a trail of radiator water followed behind me as I stopped to get a coffee. (Lucky that's my half-way watering hole!) The poor car needed a part and couldn't be repaired until the next day...

Luckily for me it was at Braidwood, an historical town full of charm, rusty ironwork and dilapidated stone and wooden buildings... How lucky was I to be forced to spend a whole day looking around and a night alone in an old hotel with a great book and  my tablet with free wifi! And I'd brought a camera (not my best one) too!

So I set off wandering around the backstreets looking for interesting textures and charm. Lots of peeling paint....perfect to show for Simply Neutrals #13!

Lovely old houses...please excuse the colour in this pic, but the blue sky was perfect!

Below is the 'Braidwood Times' building, now unused, I think. Or at least very unloved, sadly.

Lovely stonework on top of a pub...

And I came upon a lovely French antique shop called 'String', which had some old lace bits found at French markets... most beyond my price.

Outside was a rusty gate garden of wire and metal treasures...

This rusty old 'thing' caught my fancy. I decided to play in Photoshop a bit.

I overlaid the lace as a texture, and added this angel image to it, manipulated the tone a little and used some brushes from Mouritsada Stock to add decoration...

What a lovely day I had, and a few things came home with me..!

What an unexpected bonus to come out of a break-down situation. Serendipity! And I came home with a new (second-hand) car too, which we love.

Now, I'd like to send a special hug to Wen for hosting this Simply Neutrals party. You have helped me grow in my blogging and introduced me to some of your marvellous blogging friends, too. Thank you for being such a positive and friendly hostess.

And another special hug for Suzy of 
http://suziqusthreadworks.blogspot.com.au/, for her support, encouragement and inspiration.

Now you might like to go and have a look at other Simply Neutral beauty over at Wen's blog, Appleapricot.

I hope you have a great few weeks of creating and noticing beauty all around....until our next Simply Neutrals party!

Hugs,
Jesse 

Work Always - Day 21

A work of art is a world in itself,

reflecting senses and emotions of the artist’s world.

Hans Hofmann

Art is a spiritual path for some, a way to reflect on what is within us, and on what is important in our lives, a way to grow. We need to commune, to communicate with others. Speaking words calls for a listener, just as an author longs to be read, and just as making art calls for a viewer. We can be own listener or our own viewer (as in a diary) and this can be all the purpose of our art. But when someone else shares this communication with us we feel “listened to”. One comment is enough for me to feel that someone has listened, and the satisfaction of seeing my blog grow with an archive of my own work helps too.

If we have the opportunity to have many comments or be featured somewhere (like a gallery exhibition) we feel affirmed, that we have said through our art something timeless and beautiful, or relevant to others. I'd be proud of that, but it's the process of becoming myself that's most important, and seeing how my work is changing and growing with me as I learn more techniques and sensibilities.

The artists I choose to be my guides or inspiration (like you, Kim!) help us begin the process, but it's those who take it further to produce something uniquely their own who are truly artists. I feel that I'm in the 'copying the master' stage, but the skills I am learning excite me and give wings to my own ideas.

Kim's excerpt from Julia Cameron's Artist Way is a relief:

'As artists we wish we could always work well, but we must settle for always. The 'always' we can control. The 'well' we cannot control. For this reason, we do well simply to serve, to focus more on the process of doing our work than on the 'product' of work produced.'

So here is a treasure of my heart... 

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!