persue pleasures

As I said yesterday, pithy phrases were one of my main ‘take aways’ from browsing Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Romancing the Ordinary this month. I received the book as part of Sian’s Pass the Book project and will be passing it on next week. If you would like to be in the draw to receive this book next then please go to yesterday’s post and leave a comment. I will make the draw on the morning of Monday 6 June (UK time).

Here is another digiart piece that I made to display one of her quotes. This time I used a photo of fruit growing in the garden and Kim Klassen’s scratchy texture to create the piece. I used the exclusion blending mode which causes the change of colour from the greens of the photo to the soft purples in this piece. The font is one of my favourites – Papyrus and I added a stroke using layer style. I used the eyedropper tool to take the font and stroke colours from the image.



I’ll be sharing some more creativity inspired by this book over the next few days.
If you want to be inspired by more texturized garden photos then check out Kim’s Tuesday Textures

inspired to play

Romancing the Ordinary by Sarah Ban Breathnach encourages women to notice and embrace our five traditional senses plus the sense of knowing (intuition) and wonder. I received the book as part of Sian’s Pass the Book project and will be passing it on next week.

Although the book is organised by months with suggestions relevant to the related Northern hemisphere seasons, I dipped into several months as the mood took me. I always find that with books like this which are filled with ideas that I latch onto one or two ideas and messages and let all the others flow past. If I were to read the book again next year I would probably latch onto other ideas.

As I read I found myself noting down several phrases that appealed and I decided to create some digiart pieces as a way to display these phrases around my house. Here is one of them:



I created the digiart by using blending modes on three photos (the beach, rust and the sea). I used the exclusion blending mode to create the vibrant colours. The font is Edo SZ and I added a bevel layer style and a stroke (thin line around the edges). I used the eyedropper tool to take the colour for the text and the stroke from the digiart.

I’ll be sharing some more creativity inspired by this book over the next few days.

If you would like to be in the draw to receive this book next then please leave a comment below. I will make the draw on the morning of Monday 6 June (UK time).

A glimpse with 5 photos

I’ve been enjoying the way Ashley’s Scavenger Hunt Sunday provides a glimpse into each person's life and personality and the variety of photo subjects for a given hunt topic.

Classic still life – well this is what I think constitutes a still life, made up from things that I had to hand.  The round mat is made of bamboo and is from Bangladesh.  The basket is made from flax and came from New Zealand.  Strawberries and blueberries are the fruit that I had in the fridge. The table and wall are my dining room.

Self-portrait – I used the technique of holding my camera at arms length, with my arms down and looking down onto the camera – makign sure the sun was behind me and I had something interesting behind me – in this case the lovely new leaves on the tress by the river.

On the floor – I had some fun taking photos with the camera on the floor, it really gives a different perspective.  This was also from my walk by the river – I like that you can just see the steeple on the skyline.

Lines – another from my river walk.  This is a small weir to keep the tidal water (on teh left) from going further up the river.  I love this area for photos with the changing textures and colours.

Fresh – the strong winds on Monday brought down some big trees, the fresh wind continued all week with blustery weather.

so much rain recently, but …

journaling reads

It starts to rain on my walk – do I run for cover?  NO, I take photos of raindrops on the river

On a tropical holiday it rains all day – do I complain?  NO, I see how many ways I can photograph the ran

On my way home from work the rain starts – do I put up my umbrella? – YES but then take photos of the rain on it

We arrive at a scenic lookout but it’s pouring with rain – do I stay in the car? – NO I go to take the photo.

Because – it’s ONLY WET

Layout prompted by the incident in the 1st line of journaling earlier this week, and one of my sister’s regular emphatic statements.  Found the other photos from my photos of the last three years.

Template from Scrapping with Liz – I love her templates because I can use them in a simple, graphic style

Background filled using the eyedropper tool in PSE.  I took the colour for the titles from the photos too with the eyedropper tool.  I use the eyedropper tool to choose a colour more often than I use a created paper or alpha because I like being able to create the repetition using colours from my photos.

Title Font – Edo SZ and I added bevel layer style on the  title – to me it looks like still wet paint

Effect in top left corner – Ray of lights brush by Skeletalmess