LUMILYON

Through A Glass, Darkly

2012-02-07T13:03:00.001Z

A selection of painterly images from the basket of Souls Project. Shot and processed iPhone 4S.

I'm thrilled to share the news that recently, I was first runner-up in the IPHONEART bursary award. You can read more about it here:
http://www.iphoneart.com/groups/323

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A Basket Of Souls: 366 project

2012-01-21T21:36:00.001Z

This year, I'm attempting my first photographic 366 project. I've chosen to focus on just one place: a meadow next to my allotment garden, down the road from where I live. More specifically: the clumps and rows of Willows in that meadow. It's said that wherever a Willow tree grows, a ghost appears, so I have named my project: A Basket Of Souls. Here is a small selection from the first twenty days.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Notes Taken In A Village Churchyard

2012-01-19T15:33:00.001Z

A selection of images gathered during early January 2012, in St. Peter's Churchyard, Leckhampton, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Shot and processed iPhone 4S

-Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Memories Of Lyon

2012-01-16T17:56:00.001Z

I thought I'd begin the new year by sharing a few images from Lyon.

I've upgraded to the iPhone 4S and have been blown away by the quality of the camera. So much so, that I'm currently keeping my workflow very simple: shooting with the native camera and just one or two apps other apps, followed by very simple adjustments. No heavy apping, just letting the images breathe.

In The City Of Light, Sometimes I Prefer The Shadows...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Will It Go Round In Circles?

2011-11-30T16:38:00.004Z

My friend Jennifer Bracewell has just asked how to make circle-shaped images so I thought I'd put together a quick tutorial. Amazingly for me, we're going to use just two apps ( I know, please don't faint!)

First, you'll need a square-cropped photograph. I've recently become addicted to Instagram and this has led me to take a lot of square-format photographs with apps such as Hipstamatic, Format 126 and Lomora 2. For this tutorial, I'm going to be working with such a photograph, that has already been through the processing mill, so you'll need to imagine its rectangulariness!

So, first we're going to import this ahem, imaginary rectangular photograph into a cropping app. There are lots that do this but my weapon of choice is still Photogene

After importing our photograph, it will open in this screen...

Choose the scissor (crop) icon and select 1:1
Grab one if the little corner dots and pull out to enlarge the cropping area. Move the highlighted square around to determine the precise area of the crop.

When you're happy with the crop, select the tick button at the bottom left hand corner of the screen

In the DONE window, save your cropped photograph.

Next, Import the square format photo into Tiffen's PhotoFX

Select LENS FX from the menu at the bottom of the screen

Select VIGNETTE...

Here, I've selected BLACK CIRCLE from the Vignette menu...

Photo FX automatically presents a preview of the photo vignetted with a 50 percent blurred edge: pretty, but not quite the desired effect. Moving the SOFTNESS slider to the far left gives the the hard-edged look we're after...

Of course, because I like to play, I can't resist trying another option, so let's hit the UNDO button(bottom far left) to return to the VIGNETTE menu. Select WHITE CIRCLE...

I'm thinking frosty-edged Christmas cards here!
Here's how it looks with a harder edge:

There you go Jen, Have fun!
And here are two more versions of this image, recently posted to my Flickr stream...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

iPhoneography at the London Apple Store

2011-11-07T19:01:00.001Z

The London iPhoneography Group have invited me to be a guest presenter at an event taking place this Saturday evening, at the Apple Store, Regent Street, London. We'll each be giving a short presentation of our work and talking about some of our creative processes. If you're in the area, pop in and say "hello"!

What: iPhoneography, with Alvaro Arrequi, Nettie Edwards, Matt Brock, Daniel Holland, Robson Santos, Andrew Chapman, Gordon Fraser and Kevin Thornhill

When: Saturday 12th November @ 3.00 PM

Where: The Apple Store, Regent Street, London

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Saturday Night Diva (Aldgate East)

2011-11-04T08:54:00.001Z

Shot iPhone 3GS, processed iPhone/iPad

I met this gorgeous young woman on the platform at Aldgate East tube station. She and her friend were on their way to a friend's party, and they were finishing applying their glittery make-up as they waited for their train. They looked so fabulous and were having so much fun, I had to ask if I could take a couple of photographs. There was hardly any time and I was in such a rush to get on my train, so sadly, I forgot to ask her name, but she did say I could post her photo on my blog.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Collages & Contests

2011-10-11T18:06:00.001+01:00

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT 02
iPhone 3GS/iPad collage

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT 03
iPhone 3GS/iPad collage

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT 04
iPhone 3GS/iPad collage

Over the past five years, I've had many reasons for giving thought to how family relationships impact upon our Mental Health and I'm now creating a body of work that explores this subject. Each image contains at least one copy of a single self portrait and although some of the issues explored may be autobiographical, there are layers of meaning and each viewer will bring their personal narratives to the table. For instance: Rules Of Engagement 03 has provoked discussion not only about sibling rivalry, but also of self-harm. All feedback most welcome!

Last week, photographer David Rann invited me to visit Fotofilia: his fine gallery space and photographic studio in Birmingham (England) where I made a presentation to one of his groups: The Club. Considering David's loathing of the overuse of sepia in modern photography, he was a gracious host and he's even asked me to give a repeat performance and run a workshop at some time in the near future. Not everyone was instantly won over to the notion of Mobile Photography but I understand that quite a few of them (Including David) have since been spending lots of pocket money in the App Store, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Talented iPhoneographer Dan Berman is running an exciting new competition: The Mobile Photography Awards, and I'm thrilled to be head of the panel judging Digital Art and Collage. There are 15 categories and some great prizes that include an opportunity to be featured in terrestrial and online exhibitions. Almost two years ago, when I first began creating collages on my iPhone, I couldn't find anyone else who was making them, so eventually, I began a Flickr group in the hope that it would attract like-minded souls. I was the only member for several months and we're still a small group, but there are now many more artists creating stunning Collages and Montages with their Mobile Devices, so I'm sure that the judging process will be a tough one. The closing date for entries is 30th November 2011 and there are entry fees but I must stress that this is a not-for-profit venture: monies raised are to cover the costs of promoting and staging exhibitions. This is a wonderful initiative that Dan hopes will further raise the profile of Mobile Photography and Art, so do please check out the competition site.

http://mobilephotoawards.com/

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Strange Meeting

2011-09-18T21:14:00.001+01:00

STRANGE MEETING
iPhone/iPad collage

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Cut and Paste: Rules of Engagement

2011-09-06T16:41:00.010+01:00

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

iPad collage

During my last French holiday, I managed to get to a couple of village brocantes where I could indulge myself in my obsession for ferreting through dusty boxes in search of abandoned photographs and paper ephemera. Over the next few weeks, I'll be digitalising my latest finds, along with paper treasures gifted to me by two generous paper swap partners: April in California, USA, and Beth in Kwazulu-natal, South Africa. So once more, my mind has turned to cutting and pasting. Working with "live media" informs the digital process, refreshing my memory about such things as how layered papers cast shadows upon each other or how tape and glue discolour over time. Digitally recreating the look of such work is always an absorbing challenge, especially on the iPhone and iPad where no single app can do all the work possible in Photoshop. If, like me, you use several apps to process an image, you might be interested in a new one named PhotoAppLink that's being developed to simplify the process. As yet, the number of apps that support it is limited, but let's hope that other developers will come on board when they see the benefit to users.

Exhibition News!

Light Impressions at Studio B, Alys Beach, Florida (June 10 - July 10, 2011) featured an impressive wall of 40 iPads displaying my work alongside that of 39 iPhoneographer friends from around the world. The Stylectrical exhibit at the MKG Hamburg (Museum of Arts and Crafts) (26th Aug. 2011 - 15th Jan. 2012) showcases the work of international mobile artists and includes a collaboration between myself and another friend: Finger Painting maestro Matthew Watkins.

ROBOT ROCKS

iPad mash with Matthew Watkins

Whilst on the subject of Finger Painting: if you live in the Birmingham (UK) area, do came and join me on Saturday 29th October at the Midland Centre For The Arts (MAC), Cannon Hill, Birmingham, where, as part of the Mac's BIG DRAW celebrations, I'll be Resident Artist for the day. There's a Life Drawing session with model between 11- 1 and I'll be in the foyer for the rest of the day, demonstrating drawing and painting apps and sharing tips with anyone who cares to drop by and say hello. All levels of experience will be welcome at the Life Drawing session. For those who have always fancied having a go, but are not sure where to begin, this will be a relaxed introduction to drawing and painting with mobile devices. Those of you who already finger paint will have an opportunity to spend a couple of hours drawing and sharing techniques with other mobile artists.

Further details of the Life Drawing Session and booking information can be found here

Please remember to bring a stylus. If you don't already have one, do consider investing: Here's a useful guide. The Pogo Sketch doesn't get a great review, but it's the one I use and recommend to beginners.

Hope to see you there!

AMBER EYES

iPad collage/finger painting

St Malo Summer

2011-08-23T14:31:00.001+01:00

St Malo Summer
Shot iPhone 3GS processed iPad

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade" fast became the motto of our recent French holiday as, following just one morning of glorious, cloudless sunshine, the weather went decidedly "English" on us: although you might well enquire what else we should have expected, given that we had only travelled to the other side of the Channel. Thundering rain and high tides pounding against a sea defence wall may not be the best of conditions for sun bathing, but they do provide some dramatic photo-opportunities. So, undeterred, we zipped up our pak-a-macs and set out to brave the elements. Dodging 18-foot high waves turned out to be lots of fun and for our acts of daring-do, we were rewarded with some rather atmospheric shots.

A little of the texture in the above image was created with a new iPhone app that I've been playing with: TtV Studio Pro. It features a set of five preset filters that emulate Through the Viewfinder photography. The presets can be modified with sliders but, in my opinion, the app could be improved if it were possible to modify viewfinder frames and grunge by means of separate sliders: possibly an update feature for the developers to consider?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

French Leave

2011-08-19T00:01:00.001+01:00

St Malo Gothic
Shot iPhone 3GS, processed iPad

Can it really have been as long ago as May when I last posted on my blog? Things have got to change around here! To get the ball rolling, here are two iPhone images from my recent holiday in St Malo, France. The one above was mostly processed with Snapseed. The one below began with a Hipstamatic shot. Both have been processed on my iPad 2 but with apps that are available for both iPhone and iPad.

Water Gate, St Malo
Shot iPhone 3GS, processed iPad

While I'm here, I'd like to welcome new followers to my blog and wave to old friends. Back soon, with lots of news, I promise!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Solace

2011-05-29T22:18:00.005+01:00

SOLACE

Shot iPhone 3GS, processed iPhone and iPad

Finally, we have had some rain. Not enough to top-up the pond, but enough to kiss the leaves and petals of grateful roses. We have planted one over our dear little cat, who finally slipped away, early one morning, a few weeks ago. She's buried under the beautiful Elder, next to my studio, so I can keep an eye on her and she'll always be close, which is just how she would have liked it.

Still Living

2011-05-26T09:26:00.005+01:00

LAID TO REST

FEATHERSEED

ANGELIC APPARATUS

Shot iPhone 3GS, processed iPad
Museum In The Park: Stratford Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire

HUNTED

HUNTER

Shot and processed iPhone 3GS
Doncaster Museum, Doncaster, South Yorkshire

Objects displayed in museum cabinets or tableaux, still and silent.
Returning home, I contemplate other possibilities...

Offerings

2011-05-13T20:52:00.017+01:00

FLOWER OF MONTPARNASSE

LOYASSE: FLOWERS OF MICHEL BRACCO'S FAMILY

LOYASSE: FLOWERS OF JOSEPH, AMELIE AND FRANCISQUE BABEY 01

LOYASSE: FLOWERS OF JOSEPH, AMELIE AND FRANCISQUE BABEY 02

LOYASSE: FLOWERS OF FRANCIS NAILLOT WHO DIED IN THE CATASTROPHE DE ST. JEAN 13th NOVEMBER 1930

LOYASSE POPPIES

LOYASSE: WEEDS ON THE GRAVE OF A FAMILY WHOSE NAME CANNOT BE READ, ON A PLOT WITH AN EXPIRED LEASE

LOYASSE: PRESENCE AT THE DOOR

These images are a selection from an on-going series of explorations.
Flower Of Montparnasse: photographic montage incorporating page from 1930s hairdressing manual and flowers on a grave in Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris. All other images: Loyasse Cemetery, Lyon.
Shot iPhone 3GS. Processed iPhone 3GS and iPad 1

iPhone Tutorial 02: Little Fishy Collages

2011-04-26T14:04:00.044+01:00

GETTING LOST IS JUST PART OF THE PROCESS

iPhone 3GS collage

Power-users beware! What follows is a very simple introduction to the art of creating collages with an iPhone. In this tutorial I'm going to demonstrate how to:
1. Create an interesting background with just one click of an app
2. Extract an element from a photograph and collage it onto another
3. Work with blur to blend two photographs together

First, a word about "kit": I spent a year making iPhone collages before a very kind friend gave me a stylus. As I'd taken about the same amount of time using a track pad to make digital collages and scrapbook layouts before I got around to buying a graphics tablet, I'm pretty nifty and precise with my index finger tip, but a stylus certainly makes tasks such as erasing large areas from photographs (which you do a lot of when making iPhone collages) much easier and you don't strain your hand and arm quite so much. there are several models on the market now and everyone has their favourite but I'm still using my Pogo Sketch.

OK...here we go!

The image above began life as the following two photographs shot at my local aquarium supplies store...

These were "fast and dirty" shots: there are some odd colours, noise, blur, and a couple of undesirable elements but that's fine, we're going to work with them "as is" without any correction. Feel free to download them for use as you walk through the tutorial but please remember that they are for this purpose only and that the originals or work made with them still retain my copyright.

These are the apps we'll be playing with...

STEP1. TINY PLANETS: create an abstract background

Import the skull into the app, hit the Tiny Planet icon at the bottom of the screen, left hand side and...

wheeeeeeeee...

Our skull comes out of the blender looking like a piece of modern sculpture. So what does the Tiny Tube button do? Try it!

Marvelous! We're going to work with this second version so save it to camera roll.

STEP 2. JUXTAPOSER: Extract fish from photograph and collage onto the background created with Tiny Planets

Following the on-screen prompts, import both photographs into Juxtaposer. Your screen should look like something like this:

Now Select Erase. The icon at the top right hand side of the screen, next to the undo icon, is the brush modification button. We're going to erase a large portion of the photograph so to begin with, choose a largish, opaque, hard brush...

Use Pan & zoom to get closer in...

As you get closer to the fish's body, make the brush smaller, softer and more transparent to give the fish a soft edge that will blend into the background.

You may wish to use the Move Top Image tool to move the fish into the blue area where it's easier to distinguish her from the background.

If you nibble in too far, you can always select the Unerase tool and paint some of the photograph back into the image.

Once you're satisfied with the fish, reposition and re-size her. at this point, it's also a good idea to save the fish as a "Stamp", in case you want to use it again: to find this option, select the icon in the top left hand corner > Save > Save masked top image as stamp.
Whilst in this menu, select Save Image: this will merge fish and background, and save to camera roll. Here's a close up of the little fish in her final position:

Good work! However, I am picky and despite using a soft brush to extract fishy from her original background, she still looks just a little too hard-edged and "stuck on" for my liking. So on to...

STEP 3. BLUR FX: add blur

Select Gaussian blur and use the slider to modify the strength of the effect.

By switching the mask on and off, you can see how much of the blur you're removing or applying...

...and what the effect looks like. In this instance, we're using the CLEAN brush to erase almost all of the blur effect, just leaving a soft edge at the back of the fish to blend her with the background and give a sense of movement...

As in Juxtaposer, the brushes in Blur FX can be modified for work in smaller areas and tight corners.

When you have erased most of the red mask from around and inside the fish, turn off the mask to check how it looks. If you've gone to far with the cleaning job, you can always select the BLUR tool and brush the effect back to the image where required.

Just to remind you, here's what the final collage looks like...

I am in love with this intrepid little fish. Here's a companion piece created with the Tiny Planets mash of the skull...

SWIMMING OUT OF THE SKULL

Finally, here's a collage created using just BLUR FX and JUXTAPOSER...

THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
iPhone 3GS collage

I hope you've found this tutorial useful and fun. I'd love to see your collage creations so please do share links!

Digital collages with iPad and iPhone

2011-04-26T13:30:00.011+01:00

THE FIXED POINT

iPad collage

Then I first acquired my iPhone in November 2009, I made nothing but collages with it and my camera roll fast became a rag-tag repository for photographs of rather odd objects and textures that I'd later cut, paste and blend into miniature mash-ups. Eventually, I became frustrated with the practical limitations and resolution output of most of the apps I'd been using. Also, being a flighty, creative type, I wanted to experiment with other camera apps and techniques. So, as you do, I moved on, but the lure of virtual scissors and glue is strong and I've recently returned to collage, but this time on I'm also working with my iPad. It's still a fiddly process, but as the screen is larger, it's slightly less of a strain on the eyes.
The collage above is the latest one I've done but for the sake of those of you who have only recently discovered my blog, here are some I made earlier, with my iPhone...

TIME FLUTTERS BY

A WISH

JAMIE'S BIRD

SUMMER SISTERS

A BOY'S OWN STORY

FRAGMENT 01

I'm preparing a simple tutorial that features two recent iPhone collages. It's almost ready and will be posted here later on today or tomorrow.
See you later!

iPhoneography Tutorial 01: Vintage French Street Scene

2011-04-15T13:26:00.030+01:00

Over the last year, I've had many requests for iPhoneography tutorials and I'm finally getting down to it. Today I'm going to share the process by which I transformed this photograph, shot with my iPhone 3GS, whilst wandering around "le vieux Lille" in December 2010...

Into this...

Before we begin, a few words about technical perfection. Currently, I use an iPhone 3GS, which everyone agrees, does not have a great camera. Many iPhoneographers utilise apps designed to extend the capability of iPhone cameras but as I like to make images that look flawed in some way, I find that it helps if I begin with a less than perfect photograph. That way, any under or over-exposed areas, motion blur and odd reflections inform my compositional and processing choices. They also give me a head-start in the grunge stakes.

If you wish to work with my original photograph whilst following this tutorial, feel free to download it. However, please remember that the photograph and any processed versions of it, retain my copyright and are not to be used for any other purpose other than following the tutorial.

Ready? Ok! So here are the apps you'll need:

1. Resize, Crop and recolour: 100 Cameras in 1

Before importing an image onto this app, check the export resolution settings: Splash Screen> Options>Resolution (I choose high so that I can print the image if I wish)

This must surely rank as the most girlie iPhoneography app EVER. If you're attempting any kind of diet or Lenten abstinence, I recommend that you abandon this tutorial right now! 100 Cameras in 1 starts up with a sweet little tinkly tune that might make you think that you've downloaded a bliss-out meditation app by mistake. Once you've imported a photograph, you're greeted with an image depicting a stack of delicious-looking biscuits accompanied by the message: "baking cookies mmmm". The iPad version is even more potentially hazardous, tempting us with seductive Belgium Chocolates. You have been warned!

Once you've imported a photograph, you can resize/crop it within the app before browsing through 100 poetically-named presets, grouped into sets of ten
Choose ZEN>"where the thunderdome shook the earth"

The next screen provides a slider so that, if you wish, you can modify the preset
We are going to select the lowest setting and save to camera roll.

This app is described as a game and has some kind if point-scoring system. As I’m not remotely competitive, I haven’t looked into this. If someone tells me I’ll win real cookies and chocolates if I collect points, then obviously, I will pay more attention.

2. Add texture: PIC GRUNGER

Once again, before importing a photograph into this app, select the RESOLUTION button on the splash screen to set your desired output resolution. Happy? Ok, now import!

In EFFECTS choose AGED

The preview screen displays the photo with applied effect and offers further opportunities to modify it. Select STYLE

select BLOCK PARTY (yay!)

Select STRENGTH and adjust with the slider
(I chose a low setting: don't want the neighbours complaining about the noise)

3. Rotate image in PHOTOGENE and save to camera roll

I incorporate rotation into my work flow so that any generic app presets such as grunge effects and light leaks won't be applied in the same areas of every single image and hopefully, the apps used will be less recognisable.

4. Adjust colour and add extra texture in PICTURE SHOW

Choose INDIGO HALO
then
select the icon at the bottom of the screen named STYLE

Select the following settings
Frame = no frame, Light = No light leak, Noise = Scratch, Vignet = none
Hit DONE and save to camera roll (SHARE)
Now the photograph should look like this...

5.We're going to add some atmospheric blur in LoMob but we have to be a little tricksy about it. Here's why: the screenshots below illustrate where the blur would be applied to the photograph in its original layout...

I love the blur effect you get with the LoMob Tri-Black film preset BUT I want to apply it to the left-hand side of the photograph rather than the right, so that the far end of the street is out of focus, and the grunge-texture in the lower left-hand corner is softened.
So...
import the photograph back into PhotoGene and rotate to look like this...

6. Add atmospheric blur to the desired part of photograph in LOMOB

Select CLASSIC VINTAGE> TRI-BLACK

Anyone who remembers those wonderful point and click computer games MYST and RIVEN will feel a hint of nostalgia doing this next bit, because you're looking for an invisible button.
Touch the screen in the space shown in the above screenshot

Shazam!
A set of buttons appear. Use these to switch elements of the preset on and off. If you copy the settings in the screenshot above and then hit the little wheel button on the bottom left of the screen, you'll switch off the B&W and vignette effects leaving just the blur. However, you won't see the blur until you render a preview by hitting the green arrow/return icon on the bottom right of the screen. In case you're thinking that's a bit complicated, it is. Friendly message to LoMob developers: please get it sorted!

7. Flip and Rotate in PHOTOGENE (dizzy? I promise this is the last time)

I decided that I preferred the photograph's composition in reverse from the original and so saved it like this...

That's it, all done!

I hope you've found this tutorial both useful and enjoyable. Please do send feedback and if you've processed any of your own photographs whist following the tutorial, I'd love to see the results!

Making An Exhibition Of Myself

2011-04-11T11:39:00.001+01:00

JANUARY WALKING: OUT OF SIGNAL
shot and processed iPhone 3GS

PILGRIMS OF LIGHT: LAST ASCENT TO THE RED CROSS
shot and processed iPhone 3GS

TOUCH
shot and processed iPhone 3GS

Jo Archer recently asked me if I'd had any of my work exhibited and I'm delighted to report that over the last 12 months, examples of my iPhoneography have featured in five exhibitions in Germany (Berlin); USA (New York and Kansas); Italy (Milan); and here in the UK (Bristol). Three of the photos are posted above.

The first two were selected for the Royal West of England Academy Open Photography 2. Although I can't be absolutely sure whether mine were the only iPhone images on display, they were certainly the only two to be labled as such. Some of you might recall that January Walking: Out Of Signal was shot on New Year's Day, when I was lost, halfway up a Welsh hillside, and my iPhone was well and truly out of signal. The friend who we were with at the time has since assured us that he now knows the hill at the back of his house as well as he knows the back of his hand. The second photograph depicts a journey that we know quite well as we have taken it once for the last eight years. Pilgrims Of Light, Last Ascent To The Red Cross was shot during our last night at the 2010 Lyon Festival des Lumières, as we made our way up the side of the steep cliff that led back to our hotel in the Croix Rousse District.

Last Ascent To The Red Cross is currently also on display, along with Touch, at the Pixels At An Exhibition Show in Kansas. Touch was originally a screenshot of an erotic film clip playing on my Macbook.

Since last year, when my first iPhone collage tutorial was published in Somerset Digital Studio, I've had lots of requests for more. It's long been my intention to build a tutorials website but ill-health has led to it being a very stop-start project. However, I'm just begining to compile new tutorials and hope to roll them out over the next few months, possibly on a seperate blog or site as I'm also getting back to Digi-Scrapping and think there's a need to keep the two activities seperate and so easier to find.

Here's the photograph I'm currently writing a tutorial for

and here's a Hipstamatic shot of the view through my studio window, where I'm sitting now...

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad:

The Kindness Of Strangers

2011-03-26T13:05:00.022Z

A package from Poland, tagged and tied with string! What could it be?

An exciting stash of collage materials with special instructions: select 12 items from the box and replace them with 12 more; write a message in the little booklet enclosed; forward the package on to another artist who's name you've been given (in this instance, it was Rebecca from Barnsley). Finally: make a collage incorporating your chosen items and post on your blog.

Sometime before Christmas, I'd signed-up to take part in one of my friend LaWendula's postal exchanges: this one is named "The Collage Box Project". LaWendula's clever initiatives to bring artist-bloggers together never fail to energize my creativity and I wanted to make something that reflected the spirit of generous exchange and imaginative recycling that they brilliantly embody. So I chose 12 snippets that I thought would make a useful digital collage kit that could be shared with you all and used to create even more artworks. Once I'd scanned my chosen, here's what I did...

I made two textured journal pages. The photo above was taken while I was working. Below is a scan of one side of the double-spread textured pages

While I was preparing the journal page, I also made a separate texture on heavy card

Once scanned, this became the starting point for...

A set of digital papers. It's been so long since I fired-up Photoshop, I wondered if I'd remember how to use it. This was my first time working with with CS5 since I upgraded, which made things even more interesting...

For the paper above, I incorporated German algebraic text: scanned from another gorgeous vintage paper in the collage box. I think I'll also use this one for the front of a greetings card.

Please don't hold your breath for the kit: it's still work in progress because naturally, once I'd made a couple of papers, I got side-tracked and wanted to play with them myself, to see if they would work...

Here's some digital mixed-media experimentation using the Brushes app on my iPad

Finally, I made a scrapbook layout, once again in Brushes on the iPad. The photograph is used by kind permission of a dear Twitter-friend...

Thank you Joanna in Poland for passing the box on to me.

If you'd like to see what others have created with their chosen snippets, take a trip to LaWendula's inspiring blog and follow the links, but don't leave here yet because in my last post, I promised that I would finally reveal the name of the person who'd won my second bloggerversary draw. Actually, as I'd left it so long, I decided that I'd draw two names out of the hat and the lucky winners are...drum roll...ta da!

Kelly Marzycki of Imbue Studio

and...

Deb (of Dryad Art: really sorry to the other Deb!)

Kelly and Deb, please feel free to take a good look around my Flickr stream and choose a print of any of my work, including older digital collages but please bear in mind that much of my early iPhoneography was done at very low-resolution and will not print well. Having said that, if you'd really like one of those pieces, let me know and I'll see what I can do for you before asking you to make a second choice.

Now, some of you have asked if my cat is still in the Land Of The Living. I'm overjoyed to share the news that Tinky has perked-up considerably since my last post. However, she remains a poorly little creature and is now VERY fussy about her food. The general rule is that if it is expensive, warm, and hand-fed, she's interested, but anything less, forget it! Having survived a near-death experience, she probably imagines that she's died and gone to Heaven!

Here is the link to LaWendula's blog

Time To Say Goodbye

2011-03-11T21:01:00.003Z

REMAINS OF THE DAY: RALPH'S LAST TUNES

shot and processed iPhone 3GS

FOLLOWING SYLVIE HOME

shot iPhone 3GS, processed iPad

DARK MATERIALS

shot and processed iPhone 3GS

The past month has been a time of saying goodbye in the most final of ways. On February 18th, my family gathered in a tiny Welsh chapel to sing "The Old Rugged Cross" and pay our last respects to the memory of my mother's "baby" sister Sylvia. Because her mum was a passionate supporter of the Llanelli Rugby team who are also known as "The Scarlets", my cousin Ann, Sylvie's only daughter, dressed for the funeral in a beautiful Red Trench Coat: a bright and fitting tribute to the most sweet-natured women I've ever known: always smiling, never complaining, despite suffering considerable disability due to Diabetes. What none of us, including Auntie Sylvie, knew until just before she died, was that she was also suffering from Cancer.

Last Wednesday, we said goodbye to my wonderful "father-in-law" Ralph who, for several years, had been putting up a brave fight against Prostate Cancer. Ralph was a shy man of many talents, not least of which were his skills as a Magician. We wanted the funeral to be a celebration of his life, so Mollie, my "mum-in-law" wore black "but only because he liked me in the colour" with touches of red and white, to match the silks they used in their magic act. In remembrance of Ralph's happy National Service Days in Hong Kong, we chose a bamboo casket, adorned with flowers that were white with touches of red and black. My partner Michael made the broken wand that traditionally sits atop the funeral casket of a magician and travels with him to the grave. Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" greeted us as we entered the crematorium for the committal and we smiled, knowing that Ralph would be pleased we hadn't chosen anything solemn and sad.

As I write this, Tinky, our little, old cat, is sleeping on the garden bench. For several days now, she has hardly moved, eaten or drank. Every so often, I stoke her for a while and whisper that I love her, but she's an independent little soul and it's quite clear that she wants to die in her own way: quietly and with as little fuss as possible. For the third time in almost as many weeks, my heart is breaking and I cannot stop the tears, but I know one thing: our loved-ones are temporary gifts that we must cherish while we may, not just at life's end and by the grave-side. These "goodbyes" have reminded me that life is short and precious. It seems only yesterday that I was thanking my Auntie Sylvie for a fifteenth birthday gift brought all the way from Hong Kong; meeting my lover's father for the first time; or sitting in a Summer garden, enchanted by the beautiful little tortoiseshell cat who had just jumped over the garden fence to say "hello". My Nan used to say "We only pass this way once" and when the pain has passed, I really do have to try to get on with my life, despite all its challenges.

Absence Of Memory

2011-01-17T22:41:00.002Z

1:1:11 ABSENCE OF MEMORY
Shot and processed iPhone 3GS

Here's another of the images that I created from the shots I took whilst getting lost on a Welsh Hillside, on New Year's Day.

Pilgrims of Light

2011-01-06T15:35:00.005Z

PILGRIMS OF LIGHT: LAST ASCENT TO THE RED CROSS

shot and processed iPhone 3Gs

I'm very behind posting photos, so the next few days will be all about images, with very few words. This photo was taken in December 2010, when we made our 8th pilgrimage to the Fetes des Lumieres in Lyon, France. Don't forget to leave a message with my last blog post HERE if you'd like a chance to win a print of any photo from my Flickr Stream!

My Second Bloggerversary!

2011-01-05T11:14:00.004Z

JANUARY WALKING: EVENING PRAYER

shot and processed iPhone 3GS

JANUARY WALKING: OUT OF SIGNAL

shot and processed iPhone 3GS

On New Year's Day, we went for a stroll with a friend and became lost at the top of a rather cold, damp, Welsh hill. One session of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy isn't quite enough to get a severely anxious person through that kind of life-challenge without a considerable amount of panic, but as misty, evening darkness drew in around us, my thoughts turned to practical matters: would it be possible, I wondered, to fell a small tree with the edge of a Co-op loyalty card? Then we could construct a shelter. I wasn't so concerned about the cold for myself or my husband, but our friend does tend to moan a lot about the weather and I feared that at some point, during a night spent outdoors with him, we might loose the will to survive. I consoled myself with the thought that this was a very beautiful place in which to die of Hypothermia. My friend asked if I had the App that transforms the iPhone screen into a torchlight. Of course not! Why would I want that? Can I make pictures with it? Faced with the choice of saving my remaining phone battery power to make an SOS call or take more photographs, I chose the only logical course of action...I took more photographs...

Quite frankly, I haven't bounded into the new year full of vim and vigour, more like dragged myself, sluggishly, out of the old one, when I'd much rather have a nice long lie in. My conscience is grumbling: "it's 2011, the start of a new decade, that means you have to DO SOMETHING POSITIVE!" So, to show willing, I'm making lists...and I'm crossing things off...and I'm trying very hard not to mentally thrash myself if I haven't crossed EVERYTHING...or indeed, hardly anything, off the list, at the end of each day...let's see how long I can keep that up...

There's a lot that I want to accomplish over the next twelve months and now that I have a bright, shiny, new little garden studio to work in, what excuse can I possibly have? Well...the Panto Season may be coming to a close, but Mental Illness is like having a couple of Ugly Sisters permanently performing inside your head. They are not great company: Depression saps the imagination of its hopes and dreams. No sooner have you kicked her out the door than Anxiety comes knocking, nagging at you with countless reasons why hopes and dreams are bound to end in disaster. Before you know it, Depression has invited herself back in, put the kettle on and is eating her way through the chocolate HobNobs. Then there's The Cat...while we were away, just before Christmas and over the New Year, she had a little holiday at the vet's and so now I have a lot of making up to do. The Cat has an uncanny knack of knowing when I am just about to do something and at that precise moment, she desperately needs my lap and half an hour's reassurance that she is still the centre of my Universe. Whilst I'm in the midst of dealing with complex "nurturing issues", how can I possibly refuse?

Today marks my second bloggerversary. It's a cliche, I know, but it really does seem like only five minutes since I was writing my first bloggerversary post. Much has happened since then, but I have blogged about only a fraction of it. I've been away so from here for so long that this morning, I found it difficult to navigate my way around the dashboard and I've discovered an alarming number of half-composed postings in my drafts folder. However: I'm determined to complete this one, to thank visitors old and new for spending some time here and for your messages of support and encouragement over the past year. In the spirit of generosity that abounds in Blogland, I'm going to do the bloggerversary thing of offering a small gift as a token of my appreciation. Leave a message for me with this post and in about a week's time, I'll put everyone's name in a hat and pull one out. If your name is chosen, I'll send you a print of your choice from my Flickr Stream.

Wishing you all a very happy New Year!

Last night I dreamed that you came home

2010-11-18T19:12:00.006Z

LAST NIGHT I DREAMED THAT YOU CAME HOME
shot and processed iPhone 3GS

By now, some of you may have read my recently-published piece in Artful Blogging, that touches upon my experiences of adoption disruption and subsequent struggle with anxiety and depression. While I don't wish to define myself by what has happened to me, it did happen and has left me with a very sharp view of a particular emotional landscape. Finally, after three years, I've summoned the courage to redecorate what was my daughter's pretty, pink bedroom.The original plan was simply to apply a fresh coat of paint, but I ended up removing the paper on the wall around the window and will have to reline it. Now I'm attempting to paint the other walls, but the pink stubbornly refuses to be obliterated. Memories of preparing for our daughter's arrival come flooding back with every brushstroke and it is taking an age to transform the tiny space. My instincts are telling me that fresh paint is not enough, that I'll never feel comfortable in this room that is to be our home office unless I scrape off every last scrap of lining paper, go right back to the bare walls, and completely begin anew. This could be due to my innate belief in "doing a job properly" but I suspect a deeper motivation and need.

The leaves that are green turn to brown

2010-11-05T14:08:00.016Z

OCTOBER WALKING 01
shot & processed iphone 3GS

OCTOBER WALKING 02
shot & processed iphone 3GS

OCTOBER WALKING: THE OLD TRACK
shot & processed iphone 3GS

OCTOBER WALKING: THIS FAR, NO FURTHER
shot & processed iphone 3GS

This is my first post in over a month and the first one written from my new studio. It is everything I'd hoped for: there is (pretty much) room for everything and the space is light and airy but at the same time, a warm and snug retreat from where I can watch the seasons change as I work. This afternoon, twilight and raindrops are falling on our pond and clinging to the bare branches of the elder tree. To my right, I should be able to catch a glimpse of the hill, but shrouded in English Autumn weather, it has completely disappeared from view. A few weeks ago, I took a walk up there and shot the photographs that were the beginnings of the images posted above. The apps used were Toy Camera, PhotoFx, Iris and Photo Copier.

TOUCH

2010-09-13T13:35:00.008+01:00

TOUCH

digital print
IPhone 3GS shot of erotic film-clip, cropped and processed iPhone 3GS
Textures by Les Brumes

Last week, we received notification that our planning application had been passed and so now, it's full-steam ahead! In front of our house, there are four tons of gravel that will be the new base and surround for our tool shed when we move it 2 metres further down the garden, to the very back of the plot where my studio is to stand. Sadly, the Honeysuckle has had to go because when the space was clear enough to allow us to measure up and draw an accurate plan, we realised that there was not enough room for my studio and the shed unless the studio was: 1. orientated across the plot rather than lengthways and 2. situated a lot closer to the pool/bog than we had originally intended. John, the unflappable gentleman whose company is building and installing my studio, coped very well with my panic attack and drew up a revised set of drawings in the hour he had before leaving work for a week's holiday. The new arrangement will be better because the the building will be wide and shallow, rather than narrow and deep, so more natural light should get into the space.

Those of you who have been asking how I make my iPhone collages may wish to purchase the Autumn edition of Somerset Digital Studio where I reveal some of the Apps and techniques that I use. In the side bar on the right, you'll find a link to where you can order a copy. Writing the tutorial was a challenge as I'd been asked to recreate a specific collage: one of my first. By some good fortune, the images that made up each stage of the collage's development had somehow escaped several hard-drive clear-outs, but I still had to recall and retread every step of what was quite a fiddly and complex process. I hope to write more tutorials: if you get sight of a copy, do please send me some feedback!

Shadow Gardens

2010-09-02T16:27:00.013+01:00

Shadow Gardens 01 & 01

digital prints shot and processed on iPhone 3GS: Photo FX, Iris & LoMob apps

Just when it had begun to feel like Autumn must be around the corner, we have been blessed with a few warm days and bright sunlight. This has given me some lovely shadows to play with and I've created the two images posted above.
We're taking advantage of the good weather while we can, as our garden is the scene of a major project. Much as I love our home, I'd gladly leave this town: too many sad things have happened to us here, but for the moment, we must stay put. The compromise is to build a little studio space for me, at the bottom of our garden. Today's task has been grappling with an old honeysuckle that scrambled, in a free and easy fashion, through the trellis pergola and fence that bound the area where my studio will be situated. I've been brutal with the loppers and secateurs but it takes a lot to kill Honeysuckle and I'm confident that this time next year, it will have sprung back with renewed vigor. Of more concern to me are the Grape Vines that trailed through the other side of the now-dismantled pergola. This year, for the first time, the vines have borne grapes that are actually sweet and edible and I am leaving it in the ground until the very last minute. With any luck, I shan't have to move it at all and I'll train the vines over the replacement pergola I'm going to build in front of the wooden chalet. We're having to find somewhere to put all the junk, I mean: "vintage treasures and things that might come in useful" amassed over the past 20 years, so the rest of our garden resembles a reclamation yard. This makes me very anxious and so, in an attempt to keep calm, I'm doing lots of visualisation exercises: in my favourite, I'm sitting under a vine-clad pergola, outside my cosy studio, sipping a glass of home made elderflower wine, whilst admiring my beautiful, newly-planted borders as rain pitter-patters gently on the garden pond. Ah yes...the pond...in reality, it's an overgrown bog and will remain so for yet another year, should the weather turn foul in October...

Angel Of the Fallen

2010-08-25T15:06:00.006+01:00

ANGEL OF THE FALLEN
digital print: shot and processed iPhone 3GS

Two weeks ago, despite inclement weather, I enjoyed a weekend at the Fairport Convention: an annual music festival held near the village of Cropredy in Oxfordshire. Whilst there, I spent time with my cousin Kevin, a fellow genealogist, and together we visited just a few of the many beautiful Oxfordshire churches where our Romany ancestors were hatched, matched and dispatched. In one of them, I took a photograph of a war memorial from which I made the image posted here: I can't recall exactly which one it was, but possibly Tadmarden, where my 3 x great grand parents Moses and Lucrecia Smith buried two of their children. Moses and Lucrecia made baskets, nets and skewers, plying their wares around the villages of Oxfordshire and Northamptionshire. They slept in bender tents. and can't have made much money but, in true Romany tradition, they honored the resting place of their children with a beautiful gravestone.

I have somehow managed to loose all my pairs of distance spectacles and break the ones I use with the computer. Suddenly, the World looks like one of my photos...very disconcerting.

Le Livre D'Automne

2010-08-10T15:53:00.000+01:00

Le Livre D'Automne

iPhone collage

We're going away on Thursday and there are one hundred and one things to do, but, of course, I can't focus on any single task.
So here is another collage that I made last night from a photograph taken and processed back in January. I can't recall how many, or which particular Apps were used but I have Renee, of Playing With Brushes, to thank for the inspiration! Thankyou Renee!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Looking back at January Mourning

2010-08-09T20:53:00.000+01:00

JANUARY MORNING

Series taken and processed: iPhone 3GS

These images have been developed from an iPhone photograph that I took during an early morning coach ride to London, back on January.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Salvaged Fragments

2010-08-08T10:08:00.000+01:00

Rispa's Gift

Joy Of Joys

I've had four nights of unbroken sleep, which is a record for me and can possibly be attributed to two things: Slowing right down and giving up coffee. Neither have been easy! Learning to be still and calm is a daily challenge for me and I feared I would not be able to get myself back into a creative routine. Now I'm allowing myself a little time, during the day, to conduct some iPhone experiments and I've returned to my love of all things scratched, mottled and only partially seen.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Three iPhone Portraits

2010-07-24T22:53:00.000+01:00

Three iPhone portraits to share this evening!

1. My nephew, known as H. Photo processed with PictureShow and CameraTan apps
2. My nephew Dan, H's older brother, processed with PhotoGene and CameraBag apps
3. My sister Prill, processed in PhotoFX and CameraBag apps

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Big Society

2010-07-19T20:03:00.000+01:00

Created with iPhone 3GS

Original images from London: A Pilgrimage, by Gustav Doré; and The Daily Mail Ideal Home Book 1955

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3__YOuU7ARI&feature=youtube_gdata

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Buried Treasure 2010

2010-07-18T22:53:00.000+01:00

The Cabbage Field: original digital collage and versions reprocessed With iPhone 3GS

Clumber Street Shrine: panel 1. Original digital collage and versions reprocessed with iPhone 3GS

Clumber Street Shrine: panel 2. Original digital collage and versions reprocessed in iPhone 3GS

Clumber Street Shrine: panel 3. Original digital collage versions reprocessed with IPhone 3GS

The ever-generous Seth Apter has woken me from my blog-slumber by once more inviting fellow creative-bloggers to select and share something from our archives, for inclusion in his marvellous blog: The Altered Page. I've chosen to revisit a series of images that I was working on last year, just before I began my creative love affair with the iPhone. Rather than simply re-post, I've re-worked the collages on my iPhone. There is no definitive version of each photograph, but a series, suggestive of the passage of time.

Last year's Buried Treasure was a huge success and many new creative friendships were forged. Do pay a visit, but be warned: you could be glued to your computer for several days!

Just before you go, like to share the news that recently, I was a runner up in the Eye'Em Mobile Photography Awards. This is a new international contest, promoting the art of photographs taken using mobile devices. There were over 3000 stunning entries and I am thrilled that one if my photographs (posted below) was selected in the final 15. An exhibition showcasing the competition has been staged in Berlin and I understand that there is to be a publication. I'd like to thank the Eye'Em team for all their wonderful work, promoting this new artform.

A Boy's Own Story: digital collage. Runner-up in the Eye'Em Awards 2010

Here's the link to Buried Treasure 2010:
http://thealteredpage.blogspot.com

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This Is The End, My Friend...

2010-06-24T22:56:00.000+01:00

Mrs Whistler Finally Gets A Visitor

digital collage January 2009

In response to today's announcement that the pension age is to be raised, I'm re-posting one of my very early blog entries...

"Old Mrs Whistler? Oh yeah, she's in the room at the end of the corridor. Funny old stick, doesn't say much, never wants to go in the lounge with the others. We've put a telly in her room but she hardly ever watches it. She's got a son, artist or something like that, but he never comes to visit her. Would you like to take her cup of tea in with you?"

It can be a lonely, scary place and we're all going there.
Please support Help The Aged and Age Concern
http://www.helptheaged.org.uk/en-gb
http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/AgeConcern/default.asp

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Little Night Music

2010-06-14T04:50:00.001+01:00

Yet another sleepless night has dragged into a bleary-eyed morning but at least I've had the beautiful sound of nocturnal rain to soothe me. This series of iPhone images was created back in March, following an early evening walk in winter rain.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Awake At 4am

2010-06-07T07:05:00.001+01:00

Unknown: processed on iPhone 3GS

As is often the case, I awoke at about four o'clock this morning and could not get back to sleep. As is also often the case, I reached for my phone. The photograph of an unknown woman was found on Flickr, sone time ago, but I am sorry to say that I cannot recall precisely where. If you should be passing by this place, and recognise her, please do let me know, and I'll amend this posting.
The texture was found on a recent visit to Painswick Church in Gloucestershire.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

It's been a while...

2010-05-29T12:13:00.000+01:00

Street Walking : Lyon, December 2009. IPhone 3GS

It's been a while since I blogged so I thought I'd share this image from Lyon. Originally taken in Camera Bag, I've revisited the photograph many times. This version has been re-processed in the latest version of Picture Show.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Juliet Journals: Please Come Home

2010-05-10T17:47:00.008+01:00

PLEASE COME HOME: MIXED MEDIA ART JOURNAL PAGE BY JULES CAPULET AGED 16

digital collage 12ins x 12ins

best viewed larger HERE

This morning, Mudlark Production's Charles Hunter tweeted: "the last few days of SuchTweetSorrow. Can we do Tragedy on Twitter?" For those who have been avidly following the Twitter retelling of Romeo and Juliet, it's a daft question: many of us are already emotionally wrung out and hung out to dry on the line with the washing. That's one of the joys of this production: the scary, bottomless depth of it. The director, writers, and cast's ability to convey and engender in their audience, such a vast range of emotions and levels of meaning, through sporadic Tweets of 140 characters or less. It's astonishing, but no less than we should expect of a Royal Shakespeare Company production.

The version Romeo and Juliet that we are witnessing is, amongst many other things, an angry, often frenetic exploration across the messy landscape of Loss. When we first meet them, the three Capulet children are each, in their own way, damaged by the traumatic death of Susan, their mother. Jess, the oldest, is over-responsible and has taken on the role of emotionally parenting her siblings. Following his mother's death, Tybalt suffered even more loss when he was sent away to boarding school and his unresolved anger knows no bounds. Juliet's sheltered, compliant life is about to be torn apart as hormones blow the lid off her grief. Beyond the Capulet family, Mercutio, in effect, an orphan, as his unloving parents have gone to live in the South of France, fills the emotional vacuum by becoming a surrogate member of the Montague family and he loves Romeo as a brother. Romeo falls in love with Juliet, leaving Mercutio feeling abandoned by his mate. In turn, Romeo looses his friend when Mercutio loyally defends the Montague name against out-of-control Tybalt who kills him and is then himself accidentally slain by Romeo. Laurence Friar's desire to reunite the warring Capulet and Montague families is almost certainly a misdirected attempt to deal with his own loss and regret: his father is dead; he has turned his back on a shady past but still carries a torch for Susan Capulet, whom he secretly adored. Whatever their motives and despite their best efforts, Laurence and Jess must ultimately witness and feel in some way responsible for the deaths of all the young people whose lives they have desperately sought to protect.

The intimacy of Twitter enables followers to engage with the play's characters on a very intense level and we've certainly had our minds toyed-with: our belief systems and loyalties storm-tossed from one Tweet to the next. And then, ready to prod us, whenever we get too comfortable with our sympathy for someone's dilemma, there's always Jago, the malevolent, disaffected adolescent lurker, lingering around like the bad smell of rubbish bins during a garbage strike, reminding us that this drama portrays the lives of spoiled, rich kids. Admirably, the actors don't beg us to love them either. Jules is charming but complex and not easy to like: we first meet her, ten years after the death of Susan Capulet, a teenager with unresolved abandonment issues, who has created a perfect, romantic version of the mother she lost when she was six years old. Let's face it, had her mum lived, Jules would, almost certainly, now be a rebellious daughter of divorced parents, going through the usual mother/daughter love/hate ritual. She has coped with her loss in the best way she can but she is not equipped to make good choices. Instinctively drawn to Romeo, the boy that her family will most disapprove of, her intense love is accompanied by equally intense fears that she will loose him. Whilst dealing with these conflicting emotions, Jules is told, not only that her brother is dead, but that the love of her life has killed him. Her response to the news is denial: the first stage of grief, followed by violent emotional regression: back to the age when she experienced her first traumatic loss. From now on in, none of the others are emotionally equipped to reach her. This is where I've chosen to re-join Jules: a place where all the teenage romance has been stripped away, leaving only a frightened little girl who just wants her brother to come home.

Juliet's previous journal page can be viewed HERE

Credits: all items available at ZigZag Scraps, blended background papers are from Cozy and Corrosion by Lynne Marie Favreau, Office Papers 01 by Annick Philibert and a CU paper overlay; paper behind Polaroid photograph is from Homespun Holiday Papers by Cheeky Monkey, recoloured and further modified with an overlay from Tattered Overlays 01 by Lynne Marie Favreau; doodle at top right of page is from Creative Word Art by Lynne Marie Favreau, Polaroid overlay by Lynne Marie Favreau; sticky tape on Polaroid (modified) from Matilda by Lynne Marie Favreau; Sycamore seed from CU Foliage by Lynne Marie Favreau; font (modified) is Lucy Lu by Creating Keepsakes.

I would like to thank Lynne Marie Favreau, Annick Philibert and Christine (Cheeky Monkey) for allowing me to use their products for this project

ZigZag Scraps

Sexy Things

2010-05-06T11:21:00.004+01:00

GUNNERA

taken and processed on my iPhone 3GS

Hipstamatic shot processed in PhotoFX and LoMob Apps

These handsome beasts were sighted last weekend at Lydney Park in Gloucestershire.

I've posted a freebie texture from Lydney Park on my other, more random blog:

Slowly Loosing The Plot

Saved From The Skip!

2010-05-02T16:01:00.013+01:00

My contribution to the "Save Mercutio"campaign currently been waged by followers of Such Tweet Sorrow: the Twitter version of Romeo and Juliet, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and Mudlark productions. Surely they cannot ignore the "evidence" presented here???!!!

The Observer: Sunday 2nd May 2010

Lost version of Romeo and Juliet

stuns academics and theatre world

Papers found in skip “no hoax” says expert

Saved from the skip: Shakespeare's "Lethal Joker" Mercutio. Photo: L.Lyon

A fabled lost revision of Romeo and Juliet, often referred to as the “Holy Grail” of Shakespearian scholarship, has been discovered during the insulation of a Birmingham pensioner’s loft, thus saving the fortunes of one of Shakespeare’s most popular but doomed characters. Mercutio, “The Lethal Joker” was a special favourite of Queen Elizabeth the First who, it is said, was so distraught, following the play’s first performance, that she penned a personal letter to the Bard, demanding script changes, on pain of death. In the orginal, Mercutio meets his death in a fight with rival Tybalt, punning to the last: “Ask for me tomorrow and you will find me a grave man”. In the revised text, he flees the scene, but not before making an aside to the audience: “Ask for me tomorrow and you will find me at Gravelly Hill”. He later returns, revealing himself to the Nurse, and declaring his passionate

love for her “ Buxome wenche, thye scoldes have stirred mye errant loynes”. His act of contrition wins Nurse’s heart and they consummate thier passion beside the bodies of the star-crossed lovers: an act that unites the warring Capulet and Montague families.

Following the news, directors, producers and writers from the Royal Shakespeare Company and Mudlark Productions are holding an emergency script revison meeting with actors from the Twitter version “Such Tweet Sorrow”. Ben Ashton, who plays Mercutio, commented: “I want a pay rise.”

Whilst academics and theatre directors assess the impact of the discovery, Jubilant residents of Gravelly Hill, a much maligned suburb of Birmingham, are celebrating an end to years of local speculation that Erdington was the orginal inspiration for Shakespeares’s “Verona”. Local resident Elsie Whitehouse commented “it stands to reason doesn’t it?

Why else is the Gravelly Hill Interchange known as ”Spaghetti Junction?"

Such Tweet Sorrow can be found HERE

More iPhone collages

2010-04-29T15:12:00.005+01:00

BURNT OFFERINGS

iPhone collage

I'm taking another short break from Such Tweet Sorrow, to catch up with sharing some more of my recent iPhone work with those of you who don't visit Flickr.

Burnt Offerings is a collage of several flowers and flower pattern photographs, taken in Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.

ATTACHMENT

iPhone collage

Attachment is the title of an on-going series that I'm working on: exploring memory, sentiment and lies in family relationships. As in The Juliet Journals, I'm creating images from the perspective of imagined characters, but in this instance, I'm also inventing their stories. As is often the case with my iPhone work, I made many versions of this piece and finally settled on this one as it best suggests the fragmented and fragile nature of desperately clung-onto childhood fables.

A BOY'S OWN STORY

iphone collage

A Boy's Own Story was made following a trip to STEAM: the railway heritage museum in Swindon, Wiltshire, where I had been drawn to take photographs of the mannequins used in tableaux that depict aspects of work and recreation in the age of Steam. I wondered what other narratives might occur once the inanimate figures were extracted from their museum settings, so I took close-up views of figures and faces, from different viewing angles than those naturally imposed upon visitors by the positions and arrangements of displays (whilst at the same time, trying not to attract the attention of the museum's staff and be guided-off the premises for suspicious behaviour). This image is a collage of two photographs: the young lad was originally enjoying the view from a train carriage window, as he travelled with his mother and sister to an unknown seaside destination; the scantily clad lady was extracted from a photograph that I took by pointing my iPhone down the viewfinder of an antique What The Butler Saw Fairground machine.

The Juliet Journals: Sleeping With The Enemy

2010-04-28T17:52:00.007+01:00

SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY: MIXED MEDIA ART JOURNAL PAGE BY JULES CAPULET AGED 16 (right panel)

digital collage 12ins x 12ins

At some point during last Friday or Saturday, depending on which time zone they were in, followers of Such Tweet Sorrow: the Twitter-based re-telling of Romeo and Juliet, finally witnessed the eagerly-anticipated meeting of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers. This being a version set in contemporary Britain, and all that, 16 year-old Jules Capulet had no sooner clapped eyes on OMG! OMG! OMG! The Most Beautiful

Boy In The World, than she was inviting him up to her bedroom for a night of enthusiastic love-making, edited highlights of which were relayed via Romeo's mobile phone. Personally, I would have swiftly shown the boudoir door to any lover who engaged in post-coital Tweeting, but maybe I'm just old-fashioned. Could it be that today's teenagers, raised on a diet of reality TV, have no problems with the live-broadcasting of their sexual encounters? For all I know, Jules might have been mortally offended if Romeo hadn't let the rest of the world know what a great time he was having. Being a typical, self-centered teenager, Jules choose meeting up with Romeo, for round two of Strictly Come Shagging, over going down to London to cheer on her sister Jess ("Nursey") in the London Marathon. This rebuffing of family-solidarity did not go down well, but it paled in comparison to what came next. "So which one of you muppets stole my sister's cherry?" raged Tybalt, and indeed, some of us had to suspend our disbelief: how could Jules have engaged in so much intimacy with Romeo and not discovered his surname? When Jess spelt out the truth to a disbelieving Jules, was it really by mistake, or was Big Sis getting her own back? The news that Romeo is a member of the reviled Montague tribe left poor Jules so dazed and confused that she lost the will to Tweet. Meanwhile, Romeo, bereft of his new playmate, skulked around at home like Puff the Magic Dragon: his spirits so low, that even his mate Mercuteio, Tweeting surreptitiously-taken photos of female decolletage could not cheer him up. Whilst on the subject of Mercuteio: Twitter is currently all-a-jitter with anticipation of this popular character's impending demise. As those who already know the story are aware: Mercuteo's youth is indeed a stuff that will not endure.

The collage posted here is the right-hand side of a double page, the left hand side of which contains Jules's journaling but it is not yet complete and ready to post.It may have to wait until later, as the action over at Capulet Towers is moving swiftly on and really must try to keep up.

The previous journal page can be viewed HERE

Credits: Papers blended for background are by Lynne Marie Favreau (Corrosion and Mixed Media), Holliewood Studios (Love and War) and Tangie Baxter (grab bag); paper picture craps (modified to look hand cut and glued) by Holliewood Studios (Love and War, Sweet Shoppe and Spring Fever); Tattered heart shape overlay is by Something Blue Studios; paper doilie scrap from Paper Doilies by Annick Philibert. BLISS word art from Glittern Word Art by Tangie Baxter. All other papers, brushes, elements and papers by myself.

The Juliet Journals: Butterfly's Ball

2010-04-23T13:23:00.011+01:00

BUTTERFLY'S BALL: MIXED MEDIA ART JOURNAL PAGES BY JULES CAPULET AGED 16

Digital collage 24ins x 12 ins

This morning I woke up with a MASSIVE zit on my face

I feel like such a minger! I have SO TOTALLY hated being 15

It feels like a nothing age when you are not a girl

any more but not a woman either.

On Friday I will wake up 16 and suddenly

Everything will be different. I am SO excited about

my party! Even if I still feel like

an ugly grub I can put on a mask and

I will become a BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY

This is the first time I've worked on companion pages together: both image and journaling. At some point, I shall spend more time re-working the font to make it look more hand-written, but it's a job to keep up with the young people as they dash towards their inevitable fate. This page is already a few days out-of-date: today is Jules's sixteenth birthday and this morning, before going to school, she Tweeted happily about her new mobile phone and how excited she is about tonight's party, which is to be a masked ball. The entrance rules stipulate home-made masks only. Laurence Friar has gone up in my estimation, as he has miraculously, and some might suggest, unbelievably, managed to get Romeo to make a mask without yelling "THIS IS SOOOO F*CKIN' BORING!!!!" and storming back to his comfort zone of Xbox and internet dating. Romeo believes that he has just found THE ONE in an online chat room but, unless Jules has been up to something that she hasn't shared with us (which would be completely in character for a girl of her age) we, of course, know better and so are eagerly awaiting tonight's famous, romantic encounter.

My sixteenth birthday was a long time ago but I do remember the frustration of being 15: still very much a child but feeling oh-so-grown-up and ready to fall in love. If I could go back and give some advice to my 16 year-old self, I'd tell me not to take life so seriously or be afraid to make a few mistakes: not that my mother and grandmother didn't give me that sensible advice at the time, it was just that, of course, I knew far, far better than they did...

If you missed Jules's last journal page, you can find it HERE

Credits: Background is a modified paper from Corrosion Papers by Annick Philibert ; torn sheet of pink paper is modified from from Mixed Media by Lynne Marie Favreau; yellow retro-patterned paper is modified from Burnt Sunshine Papers by Christina Renee. Paper Doilie scraps are from Paper Doilies by Annick Philibert; taped string and white glitter splat from circle of Friends by Lynne Marie Favreau; Caterpillar (modified) from Bugs, Bugs, EVERYWHERE! by Christina Renee; butterfly wings (modified) from Glitterflies by Tangie Baxter; 15 and 16 paper scraps from Paper Cuts Vintage Alpha by Cheeky Monkey; pink glitter spatters, yellow fabric flowers and green string swirl are all recoloured elements from Saturday Night Fever by Moonscraps (Sunshine Studio); Flower doodle from Land Of Odds by Lynne Marie Favreau. all other elements are my own created with CU products by Tracy Little and Genedes. Lynne Marie Favreau, Annick Philibert and Cheeky Monkey products can all be purchased at ZigZag Studios. Font is Anotherhandfont

Recent iPhone work

2010-04-21T20:41:00.006+01:00

ALONG THE LINE

ABANDONED

WINTER WAS HARD

EVENSONG: MALVERN PRIORY

These have already been posted in my Flickrstream but I thought I'd share them here too. All were taken and processed on my iPhone 3GS which is the only camera I now use.

The Juliet Journals: Secrets Of Sixteen

2010-04-19T23:10:00.010+01:00

Secrets Of Sixteen: Mixed Media Art Journal Page By Jules Capulet Aged 16

digital collage 12ins x 12ins

I am nearly 16

Secret thoughts within me

I really want to have a boyfriend and fall in love

But what if I loose him like Mum?

I'm really enjoying the process of creating journal pages whilst assuming another persona: an exercise in exploring the role of artist as actor. It is very like designing a costume but even more intense and involved, as when I'm working on a page, I not only have to inhabit the character but also attempt to express their creative language, leaving my own as far behind as I can whilst at the same time, using my personal artistic judgement and technical know-how to oversee the operation. Today I thought back to the time just before Christmas when I ran collage workshops with groups of sixteen year olds and this helped me to focus more clearly on how Jules might make her pages.

As I'm intending each page to have a companion containing extra journaling, I'm not crowding these first ones with too much text, just laying out themes.

Friday is a big day for Jules: her 16th birthday and she is planning her party. Over the weekend, she tweeted "I've been thinking about like...turning 16 and like...getting a bf and...you know..."Doing It"...Advice anyone?"

Jules's last journal page can be found HERE

Credits: Papers blended for background and texture are by Lynne Marie Favreau (Kaleidoscope collab and Mixed Media kits, both available at ZigZag Scraps); Brushes from Mixed Media Brushes by Lynne Marie Favreau; lipstick, daisy and strawberry scraps (modified to look hand cut) from Spring-A-Rama by Moonscraps (available at Sunshine Studio); Valentine scrap (modified to look hand cut) from I HEART YOU by Sherrie JD; Typed word paper scraps (modified) from What Lies Within by CheekyMonkey at ZigZag Scraps; Glitter from Glitter disorder by Tangie Baxter. Other textures and elements are mine. Font is Anotherhandfont

The Juliet Journals: Stronger than Death

2010-04-18T11:14:00.013+01:00

MY HATRED IS STRONGER THAN DEATH: MIXED MEDIA ART JOURNAL PAGE BY JULES CAPULET AGED 16

Digital collage 12ins x 12 ins

detail of journaling

Who do those bastards think they are?

I hate all Montagues

They killed my mother

Now they want to destroy my life

But I won't let them

I am a Capulet and I am stronger than that

Over at #suchtweet, the the air is ripe with hormonal activity: Jules is having a Sunday morning lie-in but the lads were out on the razz last night and are now nursing hang-overs. After some serious fisticuffs, Romeo went home with bleeding knuckles and, not for the first time, Murcuteio has woken up next to a young woman who's name he doesn't know or can't remember. Meanwhile, poor LaurenceFriar is fretting over what to do about the growing level of violence between the young people who frequent his Fair-Trade cafe. Personally, I think he should leave well alone and stick to making lentil burgers: there is no doubt that these children hate each other with an intensity and energy that only adolescence can muster and Laurence's Middle-Aged-Hippy aphorisms are falling on very deaf ears.

Lovely Jules has deep, unresolved emotional issues surrounding the death of her mother, ten years ago, and her vulnerability makes her an easy target for bullying at school. It probably also means that she's not going to be very good at choosing boyfriends. It's all too horribly predicable...

If you missed the first of Jules's journal pages (and have no idea what I'm writing about), you will find it HERE

Credits: blended papers from Corrosion by Annick Philibert, She's So Trashy by Holliewood Studios and Haunted by Sherri JD; paint splats are adapted from the glitter splats in Saturday Night Fever by Moonscraps and from splats by Lynne Marie Favreau and Creashens in the Kaleidoscope collab kit available at ZigZag Scraps. Scratchy-ink page frame from Corrosion by Annick Philibert, circular scribbles are modified elements from Lynne Favreau's Mixed Media kit. Sculls head in hat stamp from the Day Of The Dead kit by SherrieJD, overlaid on a scrap of printed paper ephemera from Christina Renee's Collector's Plethora. Paper scrap with skeleton print from Haunted by SherrieJD, tape from Matilda by Lynne Marie Favreau, scrap papers used as journal mat are from She's So Trashy by Holliewood Studios; "MURDERERS" text is on a modified item from Worn Journal Overlays by Something Blue Studios. Fonts are Downcome and Nailscratch

The Juliet Journals

2010-04-15T23:38:00.007+01:00

10 YEARS: MIXED MEDIA ART JOURNAL PAGE BY 16 YEAR OLD JULES CAPULET

digital Art Journal page 12ins x 12ins

For over twenty years, in what now seems like another lifetime, I designed sets and costumes for the theatre. During my last residency, I developed a bit of a reputation for work that was regarded locally as "avant garde", which actually just meant that I approached plays in unexpected and therefore potentially challenging ways (at least, to local theatre-goers). On one memorable occasion, a punter called our box office to enquire whether a forthcoming production of Macbeth would be "done properly". When the bemused ticket salesperson enquired how this might be defined, the response was "with people wearing tights". Our version of Macbeth (which, for reasons of traditional Theatre superstition, shall henceforth be referred to as "the Scottish Play" in order to avoid any chance of an iPhone-black-out as I blog) featured actors covered in gallons of fake blood and wearing very little else; a backcloth that could have been said to resemble the knife-mutilated private parts of a female body; and a fair bit of simulated sex. It wasn't a perfect or particularly subtle re-telling of the story and fans of historical hosiery almost certainly hated it but the young people in the audience totally "got it".

As I write this, actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company are "performing" a version of Romeo and Juliet in which tights will, almost certainly, feature only in a scene during which "Laurence Friar" engages in some form of drug-induced fetishism or "Mercuteio" rips the scanties off his latest party pick-up. The story is unfolding over six weeks, in real-time, via Twitter and we, the audience, are regularly invited to respond to the characters' personal dilemmas and vendettas. Last night, "Jess Nurse" asked us how she might cheer up her younger sister "Jules" who had been bullied at school. My suggestion was that they should put on their PJs, snuggle up on the sofa under a cosy duvet, with lots of chocolate at hand, and watch a good DVD. Jess later tweeted that they had done just that and watched Twilight. Result! I had forgotten what fun making theatre can be! I've declined "Mercuteio's" request to join "Team Montague" and chant abuse at the "Crapulets" because what I really want to do is put his head down the nearest virtual toilet, which is where most of his dialogue appears to have come from. This is, of course, exactly as it should be: the yoof of today eh?

Being inside the characters' heads makes for an exhilharating ride and I hope that every drama student is following this exciting experiment: and that includes YOU, nephew Dan! My creative response has been to make a series of digital Art Journal pages, based on Jules's tweets, as if she herself is doing the journaling. It's an interesting challenge: what is the visual language of this lovely but grieving 16 year old girl? How might the ways that she expresses her feelings develop as she falls in love? My first piece is posted here: Jules had just made her annual video to her mum and posted it on YouTube. My intention is to make a companion page to the one above. incorporating Jules's words, but in the meantime, you can watch it HERE. I'm off to catch up with the latest on Twitter: when do this lot take thier Equity breaks?

Credits: papers blended for background are by Lynne Marie Favreau (Kaleidoscope collab kit from Zig Zag Scraps) Annick Phillibert ( Office Basics Papers) and Holliewood Studios (Junk Yard) Extra texture and pattern from Christina Renee's Designer's Plethora Kit. Paint spatters and brush strokes by Lynne Marie Favreau ( Kaleidoscope, Mixed Media Brushes) and Creashens (Kaleidoscope) doodles by Lynne Marie Favreau (Kaleidoscope) and Holliewood Studios (Junk Yard) doodled and glitter page frames by Lynne Marie Favreau (Kaleidoscope) Glitter, patterned ink stamp and journal mat from Lynne Marie Favreau's Hennai Kit; journal Mat modified with a piece if paper from Artist's Plethora by Christina Renee; tape from Matilda kit by Lynne Marie Favreau, Stamped number alpha is from Smootz by Roben Marie Smith, alpha bits from Junque Drawer Alpha by Tangie Baxter; word scraps from Word Cuts set 1 by Cheeky Monkey Designs; butterfly scrap by Christina Renee; Vintage music scrap scanned from my personal collection and modified with an item from Tattered Overlays by Lynne Marie Favreau, heart scrap from Heart Sing by Sherrid J D. Pointy Hat from Mixed Media by Lynne Narie Favreau

My Father's Eyes

2010-02-13T09:11:00.036Z

MY FATHER'S EYES

digital scrapbook layout 12ins x 12ins

I grew up during the 1960s and 70s, in a Black Country town that was taking its last, wheezing gasps of Industrialism. Before his parents managed to graft their way into the ranks of middle class shopkeepers, my grandfather's forebears had worked on the canals and as Whitesmiths and Glass Flatteners, so I could lay claim to being a "proper Black Country wench" but somehow, I never felt that I "fitted in" with the other kids at my school. One morning, in assembly, Mr. Heslop, our headmaster, asked us all to mime our fathers' jobs. Adrift in a sea of whirring arms, deafened by the din of hissing and stamping, I was silent, confounded and forlorn, having absolutely no idea how to demonstrate what my dad did for a living. All my mates had fathers who worked in local foundries or at the brewery: places with names that were, at least to me, strange and mystical: Smethwick Drop Forgings; The Birmid; Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds; British Pens. My dad didn't work at any of those places. My dad worked in a shed that he had built at the end of our narrow brick-paved yard, next to the coal bunker and outside loo.

My father, or Brian, as I now call him, was born in 1938, with Myopia and a condition called Nystagmus: an involuntary movement of the eyes, usually from side to side but sometimes up and down and, in certain cases, in a circular motion. My grandmother wanted the best for her only son and despite my grandfather's protestations, was determined to send him to a boarding school run by the Royal National Institute for The Blind. Brian first walked through the doors of Lickey Grange in Birmingham, at the age of seven and, in accordance with the school's rules, he did not take with him, a single toy or momento of his family. At Lickey Grange, partially sighted children were treated in exactly the same way as those who were completely blind and so my father was taught to read and make Braille, rather than read and write text which he has described to me as a tortuous, humiliating experience. Indeed, the emotional scars from his days at this first boarding school have never completely healed. Brian remembers that the matrons were kind, but some of the teachers could be cruel. This was the 1940's, children were still expected to be seen and not heard and physical disability did not exempt them from physical punishment.

At about eleven years old, Brian moved to Exhall Grange in Coventry: a boarding school for young people of all "disabilities". Here again, the headmaster believed that each child should be treated as equal to the next, a view which extended to the nurturing of their ambitions. In earlier childhood, my dad's ambition was to be a lavatory attendant, his reasoning being that lavatory attendants wore a uniform and spent all day, not doing much, in a place that was warm and dry. Understandably, my respectable middle-class grandmother saw things somewhat differently and by the time he went to Exhall Grange, my dad's dreams of a future, working with sanitary cleansing fluids had moved on to working with chemicals of a very different kind.

Like many people in those days, Nan and Grandad printed their family photographs at home and that might have been where it all began, but my dad thinks it was the 9.5 Pathe Box Sound Projector, a birthday gift from his grandmother, that turned him around. Brian was mad about films. He and a chum from school would often sneak into the local cinema until one day, Dad's rather overweight friend got stuck as he was squeezing through a toilet window: their usual way in. After much heaving and pulling, my dad had to finally admit defeat and call for help. Fearing their headmaster's cane, at the very least, the boys were met by a perplexed cinema manager who couldn't understand why two lads from Exhall Grange were sneaking into the matinee, when they were actually entitled to free seats every Wednesday.

Brian now desperately wanted to be a film projectionist and asked if he could sit in the box during school film shows. To begin with, his teachers were concerned that a partially sighted lad might accidentally damage the expensive-to-hire films, but eventually he was shown how to thread up the reels and in time, was even allowed to run the projector while his teacher kept a close eye. Brian began a photography club at Exhall Grange and recognising his potential, but lacking the facilities to teach photographic printing, the school arranged for him to attend Birmingham Art Collage, every Wednesday. These days, blind and visually impaired young people can learn photography at collage or University, but my Father may have been the first visually impaired person in the UK to become a professional photographer and film maker. He doesn't seem to make much of this and when asked for tips to share with other visually impaired photographers, his advice is "Bullshit will get you anywhere!"

My father's chosen career was the cause of much family unhappiness and memories of hours spent with him in the darkroom shed: the dim red light; the unforgettable smell of photographic chemicals; the ghostly negative images appearing under the enlarger, intermingle with the vision of my mother ceremoniously burning her beautiful lavender-coloured wedding dress, atop a bonfire of photographic prints and negatives, not long after dad had run off with a glamorous young woman who modeled for the local photographic society. It has taken me forty years to reach into the embers of that fire and pick my art from out of its ashes, to come to terms with my own love of photography, to accept it as part of who I am.

LEN & NETTIE: MALLIN STREET 1960

photograph taken and processed on my iPhone of an original print by my father

CHRIS: RHYL 1963

photograph taken and processed on my iPhone of an original print by my father

digital collage credits: all papers and elements (very modified) from the following kits: Land Of Odds; Matilda; Cozy, and White Linens by Lynne Marie Favreau at ZigZag Scraps. Additional texture from Playing With Brushes at Flickr. Photograph of my father was taken in the Dubarry Studios, Great Western Arcade, Birmingham in about 1944

Chocks Away!!!

2010-02-04T16:23:00.003Z

The pages used for the iPhone/AddLib collages above are from a vintage Odhams Press publication: Britain's Wonderful Fighting Forces by Captain Ellison Hawks, R.A., who was clearly born to take to the skies.

The AddLib layouts below were created with items from my personal collection of Lithuanian portraits and Soviet Movie Star post cards.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Add Libbing

2010-02-03T22:42:00.001Z

I've been mashing up items from my ephemera collection, with a lovely new App named AddLib. The last two were taken a little further, utilizing a few more of my favourite Apps.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Winter Walking: Hyde Park

2010-01-29T23:58:00.000Z

Hyde Park Winter Twilight: taken and processed on my iPhone.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

More Explorations In Natural Historie

2010-01-28T09:40:00.002Z

My stories are silent for now.

This is a time of contemplation, a time of making quiet, simple, explorations...

Creating several versions of each simple image and asking myself what each one says

Photographs taken during a birthday trip to the London Natural History Museum were the starting point for these simple collages

Some of the textures here are from Nesster and Renee of Playing With Brushes, others are mine and I've just posted this one on Flickr, in case you'd like to play with it.

grab here!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Winter Walking 08: Twilight Thaw

2010-01-12T11:46:00.004Z

Twilight Thaw

Photograph taken on my iPhone

Walking down from the hill

Snow melting and falling from the trees

Last glow of day

Car headlights illuminate

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Winter Walking 07: Through a Lens Dimly

2010-01-11T10:00:00.005Z

My favourite toy of the moment is Hipstamatic: a lovely little iPhone App that simulates the experience of taking photographs with a selection if vintage plastic cameras, flashes and films, right down to a dodgy viewfinder, lens that you have to wipe and the wait for the flash to warm up. Also as in the Olden Days, you can barely see the subjects that you are shooting and this adds an exhilharating element of chance to the process of image-making. For yesterday's walk, I chose one lens, one film and played around with several "flashes". Here are some of the resulting images:

And here are two of the collages that I have made with photographs taken on Walk 7, utilizing a variety of iPhone Apps:

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

WINTER WALKING 03: COLLAGES

2010-01-07T21:25:00.005Z

WINTER WALKING 03: BEYOND THE WIRES

collage made on my iPhone

THE TRUTH WILL OUT

collage made on my iPhone

Both of the above images were created using the same two photographs, taken with my iPhone, during yesterday's walk. There are many variations and developments, some of which are complete abstractions, and will post a selection of those tomorrow.

Special thanks to Les Brumes (Flickr) for two of the textures

My First Bloggerversary

2010-01-05T09:39:00.013Z

SUMMER SISTERS 1963

digital scrapbook collage created on my iphone

One year ago today, during a period of dark and lonely depression (the aftermath of a deeply traumatic experience that had left me terrified to express myself for fear of "giving too much away") I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and made my first, faltering steps into the Land of Blog. It wasn't the greatest of debuts: the short, perfunctory paragraph that accompanied a digital collage, took the best part of a day to write and for some time after, I continued to find blog posting almost as stressful as a visit to my dentist.

At the time of that first post, I hadn't really lived my life for over a year: I hadn't worked; I didn't know who I was any more; I had lost every shred of personal and creative confidence that I had ever possessed, but a close friend had told me "one day, you'll wake up and you'll do SOMETHING. You don't know what it is yet, it may be something you've never done before and you may not understand WHY you are doing it, but you will just do it, because you HAVE TO." His words were like a prayer or a charm because that is precisely what eventually happened: one day, I woke up and created a digital collage, something that I had never done before and I was so surprised that I had made something, after feeling dead inside for so long, that I felt compelled to share it, to say "look World! I'm still here!".

Once I'd settled into my new home in Blogland, I started to take a look around the neighbourhood, visiting the blogs of creative friends and through them, discovering other blogs and making new friends, some of whom began to follow me and leave messages. My confidence grew and I began to share the stories behind the images that I was posting: personal stories, family stories, invented stories. These days, if depression returns and I find it difficult get motivated, I find inspiration in the blogs that I follow: beautiful thoughts, ideas and images, created by equally beautiful human beings. After feeling alone for so long, I now feel part of a wonderful community. So, thanks to all of you because I am absolutely certain, I would not have kept going without you sticking by me and cheering me on, despite occasional "dark periods".

This year, I hope to find the courage to write in more depth about my life and work. As a genealogist, I spend hours seeking out evidences of the lives of my forebears and it has occurred to me that because of my fear of personal disclosure, my blog does not always bear witness to my life as completely as it might. My Slowly Loosing The Plot blog was intended to be more of a personal scrapbook-dairy and I hope to post there more often. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to take a walk, however short, every day and post at least one photo from each walk on the other blog.

The digital scrapbook-collage at the top of this post evolved from a photograph that my father took of my sister Aprill and I, during a seaside trip to Rhyl, Wales, in about 1963. It is dedicated to Prilly who, as a child, always felt that she was walking in my shadow, but actually, she is one of my guardian angels. God bless you sweet sister x

first walk here

A WISH

2010-01-01T08:56:00.001Z

A WISH

digital collage created with my iPhone 3GS

Wishing all those who pass by, a 2010 full of peace, happiness and creativity!

Image credits: photographs taken with my iPhone in Lyon, France and Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. Texture and alphabet kindly provided by Renee ( Playing With Brushes )

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

S.A.D.

2009-12-31T15:06:00.005Z

REMAINS OF THE DAY

digital image created with my iPhone

The end of the year has always been a melancholy time for me. This may be due to the lack of daylight and I suspect that I suffer from Seasonal Affective disorder, which is strange as I love the twilight hours and the cloak of ambiguity they cast across landscapes and interiors.

Yesterday was spent on steam trains, travelling through the frosty Cotswold countryside and the image above is a gentle composite of two of my photographs.

Fragment 01

2009-12-29T22:27:00.003Z

FRAGMENT 01

Digital collage created on my iPhone. With thanks to Renee at Playing With Brushes.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Remembering Martha

2009-12-14T16:57:00.008Z

REMEMBERING MARTHA

digital collage created on my iphone

I will not wish you riches

Or the glow of greatness

But that where so e're you go,

Some weary heart may gladden at your smile

Some weary life know sunshine

For a while

The above little poem used to hang in a frame, by the door that led into the kitchen of my nan and grandad's house in the Black Country town of Smethwick. Nan was a Smethwick woman, born and bred, but the statement in her father's newspaper obituary, that he was "from an old Smethwick family" was part of the fiction that dear nan liked to present to the world: one of established respectability and belonging. Nan's father, George Neal, had grown up in rural Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire, migrating to Aston in Birmingham at the end if the nineteenth century, to work on the trams. Nan's mother, Elizabeth Handy, was widowed- George's second wife and, by all accounts, as large-hearted as she was large-framed. She capably raised her husband's three infants as her own and bore him a further ten. Nan was deeply loved by her parents and although an iron-willed grandmother for whom "no" meant "no", she was firmly against the physical punishment of children,saying: "life'll give them enough knocks as it is." As I sit in my bed, recovering from flu, I recall that several of my grandmother's siblings perished in the 1918 Flu pandemic. These tragedies effected the family deeply but their motto was "there's always someone worse off than yourself" and Nan would remind me of this, whenever I began to feel sorry for myself during the tempestuous teenage years that I spent living with her and Grandad.

My great grandfather was a Special Policeman and an active member of the "Sally Army": a Salvationist. My great grandmother was the daughter of a Romany Gypsy who had married a Gorgi and become a house-dweller. Family friends remembered Nan's parents as as "the sweetest, kindest people you could ever wish to meet": one recalling how, as a child, he and his friends had taken flight from a policeman, during a game of "kick the can" in the street. The boys ran down a narrow "entry" that ran between the Victorian, red-bricked terraced houses of Trafalger Road, Smethwick, into the back yard of my great grandparents' house, through the kitchen, the parlour, and then, the hallowed front room, where Nan's family were seated, having dinner together. By all accounts, the Neals smiled serenely as the children ran past them, persued by the policeman, my great grandfather cheerily commenting "hallo there!" as the noisy group disappeared out of the front door.

If Nan knew that she was the granddaughter of a Gypsy, she certainly never let on: it wouldn't have fitted the image of respectable, middle-class shop keeper that she cultivated. Following her bankruptsy, my grandparents moved to a house that was in need of renovations that never happened, due too lack of funds, but everyone remembers how "your grannie always liked everything to be just-so" and as the little image posted above began to evolve on my iPhone, I was guided by memories of the front room in her home: everything immaculately dusted and polished; starched anti-maccassers on the backs of the chairs, lace on the dining table and hanging inside the draughty, rattling, sash windows: filtering smelly, grey Smethwick light, transforming windowsill vases of plastic flowers into something fragile and magical. Never since my childhood have I seen flowers like those in my Nan's house. Were there really giant blue plastic Poppies and Dephiniums, pink and amber Daliahs? Or did I merely dream them? No, they were real, because I can remember Nan taking them from their vases to decorate Easter bonnets for my sister and I to wear for a fancy dress contest at school and somewhere, I have a slide that my father took that day.

These memories never cease to break my heart. Lovely, complicated, infuriating Nan: you didn't approve of me being an artist, you thought I had the brains to do a job that would provide the money for a far more comfortable lifestyle. If you were around now, you'd be telling me to buck myself up, get out of bed, mop the floors and do the Hoovering. Oh Nan, how I miss you!

Grungy Gifts From Lyon

2009-12-12T16:31:00.004Z

IN MEMORIAM

digital image created on my iPhone

I am a little poorly at the moment but have uploaded some free French textures to my Photostream where I have begun a textures gallery.

Links to the textures can be found here on my other blog.

Nature Morte: Lyon

2009-12-07T17:36:00.000Z

Images created on my iPhone, today, at the Cemetière de Loyasse, Lyon

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Rue Hénon,Lyon,France

Backstage at the Biennale

2009-12-07T09:10:00.001Z

This year's Lyon Biennale exhibitions are proving to be as stimulating as ever but I'm too close to it all to blog about it just yet. Instead, here are some images I made of things that caught my eye around the Sucrière venue, that weren't exhibits...at least, I don't think they were, but you never can tell. At one point, my phone rang and a French gentleman asked me if this was Gerrad's phone. As I wandered around afterwards, I couldn't help but wonder if I hadn't just been involved in an artist's electronic intervention, such is the power of the magic hall of mirrors to life that is the Lyon Biennale.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Rue Hénon,Lyon,France

Nature Morte part 1: Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris

2009-12-04T21:30:00.001Z

IMAGES CREATED IN MONTPARNASSE CEMETARY, PARIS, 3 DECEMBER 2009

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Rust and Feathers In The Gutter

2009-11-26T21:17:00.007Z

JAMIE'S BIRD: 01

iPhone collage

I'm thoroughly enjoying the process of creating art with my iphone: taking theraputic Autumn walks (inevitably damp) to find textures and compositions and then popping in somewhere warm and cosy for a cup of coffee, to play and experiment with what I have scavenged. The ability to photograph, edit, search the internet for ephemera, create an image and then upload it, all one little machine, pretty much anywhere I find myself, is exhilarating and liberating. The images are often simpler than the work I would create on a computer, more akin to sketchbook experiments or journal entries. This one began life literally in the gutter as it incorporates a number of photographs taken along the road, near my home. It is named after lovely Jamie at Art-e-ology who provided a beautiful piece of vintage ephemera for me to play with. Thank you Jamie!

Zetti Goes Mobile

2009-11-24T15:13:00.000Z

Everyone Feared The Duplicity Of The Evil Zetti Brothers

Digital collage made on my iPhone

I do hope that those of you who enjoy reading about my work as well as looking will forgive me for being a little quiet of late. please do not adjust your sets, Normal services will be resumed as soon as possible.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Today on my iPhone

2009-11-21T21:38:00.005Z

TIME FLUTTERS BY

birthday card made on my iphone

This innocent little image involved far more jiggery-pokery than probably meets the eye!

Photograph of girl courtesy of Artezine. Background comprises two photographs taken during a recent walk.

Beam Me Up Scotty

2009-11-20T08:06:00.000Z

As I shall be off to Lyon Festival des Lumieres, very soon, I have downloaded an App for blogging from the iPhone. This is my test post and I have no idea how it will look.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Never in Mr. Bell's wildest dreams...

2009-11-19T22:34:00.005Z

MID NOVEMBER

digital print made on my iPhone

Well...it has finally happened...I have succumbed to the charms of the iPhone and I am totally smitten. Watch this space...I'm cooking up a collaboration.

The Romance Of Cheese

2009-11-06T18:46:00.006Z

THE ROMANCE OF CHEESE

digital collage 12ins x 12 ins

LaWendula's Paper Swap is having a serious effect upon me. As my friend has not yet commented on my work with Barbara's papers, I can only presume that she is utterly appalled that her lovely idea has brought about such a rapid degeneration in my creative practice. However, I feel that Barbara must take some responsibility for this as she sent me the little Dutch magazine cutting of a cheese advert that inspired this layout. I find it difficult to be serious about cheese adverts. So, LaWendula my darling, if you want me to produce Paper-Swap art with more gravitas, you must keep Barbara and I apart in future or we are just going to carry on sitting at the back of the class and giggling.
Actually, I deeply indebted to both LaWendula and Barbara for providing me with some silly distraction while my mum and sister have been ill with Swine Flu. This morning, my sister reported that mum is back to talking for England and so MUST be on the mend. Thanks to all of you who have sent best wishes, my mum is thrilled to know that people all over the planet Earth are taking an interest in her health!

WOVEN LETTERS

Credits: papers are a freebie from Donna Miller and one from Cozy by Lynne-Marie Favreau; texture by Flypaper; page template (modified) from Hand Cut Templates No. 4 by Ashley Kennedy Designs; chandelier (modified) from Retro Vintage, both by Ashley Kennedy Designs; pointy hats from Land of Odds by Lynne-Marie Favreau; bird and fish scraps from Mixed Media by Lynne-Marie Favreau; paper scraps from Quirky Crow kit by Polka Dot Plum, overlaid with scrap from Endless Ephemera by Raspberry Road Designs; wings from Creation 23 by Create Wings and Catherine Designs; tape from Matilda by Lynne-Marie Favreau; coffee cup stain from Paint by Something Blue Studios; dates with romance word art from How To Be A Good Hostess by Anna Neagle (1950's); font is Downcome by Misprinted Type; Dutch magazine cutting of romantic fondue meal was kindly sent to me by Barbara Morrison as part of the Monthly Paper Swap at Woven Letters.

Survival Of the Pointyest

2009-11-03T12:45:00.009Z

SURVIVAL OF THE POINTYEST

12ins x 12ins digital collage
click here for larger version

The Postal Strike is over and so yesterday we received a bumper crop of mail through our letterbox, including a plump package from Barbara Morrison who lives in Holland. Barbara and I have been participating in my friend LaWendula's Monthly Paper Swap, over at her blog: Woven Letters. However much I love internet communication, nothing quite compares with the rosy glow inside that a package in the post imparts (so long, of course, that it isn't from the Inland Revenue or my accountant) and I could hardly contain my excitement as I opened my present from Holland. Barbara's creative work is quirky and eclectic and her choices reflect that spirit, including, amongst other items: a (specimen) 20 Euro note (bah!); a Dutch beer mat, a strip of rub-on vintage newspaper transfers, lots of pretty papers old and new and some fun, kitch newspaper cuttings. Barbara and I have agreed that rather than post a photo of the raw materials, we'll blog the things that we create with our papers. Above is a collage created with the first thing to capture my imagination. Barbara may have thought that I'd be inspired by the photograph of the Alhambra Palace, but as I'm still in an "if it doesn't move, stick a pointy hat on it" mood, I was moved to create something with the image on the other side, depicting Man's descent from the Apes. No disrespect to any of my gentlemen readers, but as a female of the species, I feel a frisson of annoyance that it's always a man that we see on these charts. Maybe I'm being a little unkind here and the choice was made simply because it's easier to hide the male "Naughty Bits" behind a carefully posed leg. Whatever the case, these chaps need taking down a peg or two, so pointy hats they shall have!
Thanks for the inspiration, Barbara and thanks LaWendula for a great idea.

Woven Letters
Barbara's blog

Stop press!!! Since first posting this collage, I have discovered the the artist who created the newspaper-cutting Evolution illustration was a gentleman named David Gifford and he has also done a female version. David, thank you, and I take it all back! Please can I play with that one too? David's clever work can be see HERE

Credits: papers from Kraftprint and Cozy by Lynne-Marie Favreau; scale ruler, tree scrap and tape from Altered Autumn available at Miss Crow's Magickal Emporium; pointy hat, butterfly wings and scrap (modified) at top of page from Land Of Odds by Lynne-Marie Favreau; fish, spotted bird scrap and bird wings from Mixed Media by Lynne-Marie Favreau; egg from Catherine Designs and Create Wings Creation 23 kit; grunge and atmosphere created with Vintage Overlays available at Miss Crow's Magickal Emporium, coloured strip at bottom of page was created from a Funky Blossoms paper by Ashley Kennedy Designs. Ascent Of Man (by David Gifford for the Science Photo Library) newspaper scrap kindly sent by Barbara Morrison in Holland, participating in Lawendula's Monthly Paper Swap at Woven Letters.

Autumn With Hannah and Tom

2009-11-01T17:00:00.007Z

Autumn With Hannah and Tom
digital scrapbook page 12ins x 12 ins
view larger image here

One of the things that I am trying desperately to reconnect with, following the loss of our child, two years ago, is my sense of fun. Hannah and Tom are experts on the subject and on Friday, gave a masterclass to me and my inspiring friend Elouise, who as well as being their devoted mother, is also a hard-working doctor. I have made this layout as a thank you gift to them all for being my friends and I hope it conveys some of the spontaneous, joyful magic that we experienced together. It needs to be viewed large, otherwise, you don't see the depth and detail.
I have just discovered that my mum has Swine flu and am not sure when I'll be blogging again. If I have not yet responded to recent comments, please bear with me. Also, quite a few new people have begun following lately: thank you so much for taking an interest in my blog, I promise that I will be in touch to thank you personally as soon as I can. I find it difficult to be mentally organised at the best of times and at the moment, I am even more distracted than usual.

Meanwhile, over at my other blog, I've posted photographs of the amazing work of architect Javier Senosiain. Click here to be transported to wonder...

Autumn With Hannah and Tom layout credits: papers from Cozy (kits 1 and 2) by Lynne-Marie Favreau, Funky Blossoms by Ashley Kennedy, both available from ZigZag Scraps; CU Folded Chipboard Overlays by Southern Creek at Plain digital Wrapper; textures by Flypaper; orange and green glitter splashes from Happy Day by Ashley Kennedy at ZigZag Scraps, rust circle glitter element from Altered Autumn available from Miss Crow's Magickal Emporium; yellow leaf, large and small rust leaves, Sycamore helicopter seed from Canadian Nature by Lynne-Marie Favreau at ZigZag Scraps, rust and green leaf from Autumn Exploration by Cathy Ann Designs; sequins from CU Sequin Spills 2 by Tracy Ann Little at ScrapArtist; Chestnut husk from Return To Fall CU by Droopette; feather from CU Mixed 1 by Studio Lime at Scrapbookgraphics; photo edges are a modified and recoloured frame from What Lies Within by Cheeky Monkey Designs at ZigZag Scraps; twig is from CU Twigs and Twine by Roben-Marie Smith at Paper Bag Studios, stenciled brush marks from Mixed Media Brushes by Lynne-Marie Favreau at ZigZag Scraps

Flickr collages

2009-10-27T20:05:00.004Z

The lovely and talented Renee of Playing With Brushes (Flickr) has been playing with Flickr Toys and made this beautiful collage of images created by members of her texture-users pool, including the one in the middle, by your's truly. I love how beautifully the images, textures and colours work together. and, of course, the ragged edge.
For those of you who don't already know about Playing With Brushes,
it can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/playingwithpsp
Thanks Renee!

Art journaling: soap gets in your eyes

2009-10-18T20:38:00.008+01:00

THE LAND OF THE ODD

digital scrapbook layout

12ins x 12ins

It may be that I am missing out on some the most culturally important dramatic works of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries but try as I may, I find watching television soaps considerably less interesting than waiting for paint to dry and therefore, I can't follow them. However, I do recall that a few years ago, in an attempt to boost viewing figures, producers decided to wake-up residents of the sleepy, sudsy world that was Emmerdale Farm by crashing a plane into the village. Ever since that momentous event, Emmerdale would appear to have been in dramatic free-fall. My dad is devoted to the show and so I turned to him when I wanted to identify the characters featured in a photograph that I'd torn from a copy of The Mirror: for some inexplicable reason, it had screamed out "pointy hats and wings! Pointy hats and wings!". Anyway: on the right of the photograph is the lovely Laurel whom my dad adores. Her first appearance in Emmerdale was at Marlon and Tricia's engagement party, when she was dressed as a bumblebee. A few years later she married the local vicar (I am supposing, having first divested herself of the said bumblebee costume) who is named Ashley (pictured in the centre of the photograph). You may be interested to know that Laurel and Ashley arrived home for their wedding night to find Ashley’s estranged father Sandy in their marital bed. Laurel subsequently helped her husband to bond with his father: not, I assume, whilst all three of them were in the marital bed together. According to my dad, the lady on the left of the photo is another vicar's wife, who fancies Ashley. At least, I think it's the wife, not the other vicar, who fancies Ashley and I don't think either of the vicars wears a bumblebee costume but do please feel free to use this idea as a journaling prompt and link back to this page so that I can enjoy your creations.

My dad was explaining all this to me whilst suffering from a bad head cold and so I thought that perhaps he was getting the plot lines a little muddled-up. But a quick inspection of the Emmerdale web site revealed that my dad was actually in Emmerdale For Dummies mode. Here's a just short extract from Laurel's Wikipedia entry:

On 23 January 2009, after talking to Jasmine about Shane and after voicing concern that she thought Jasmine was pregnant, Laurel learned from Jasmine how Shane had tried to rape her and that she had murdered him. Laurel told Jasmine that she must go to the police and confess as, if she explained how Shane had tried to rape her she might get let off as it may be been as self defence. Jasmine, however, explained that it was not in self defence and that she would go to the police in a few days. However she and Debbie decided to flee instead.

If Emmerdale is on the GCSE syllabus, then I take back everything I might have said about exams being dumbed down. This is FAR more complex than any of that Shakespeare and Marlow stuff that I studied for "A" level English.

This week, I'm blogging this from Holland where I've come to visit my brother. You may well enquire why I've been wittering on about Emmerdale when I could be sharing all the lovely things that I'm experiencing here. It's sad, I know, but ever since I found the Emmerdale photograph, I've had that inexplicable urge to do the pointy hat and wings thing and I could not move on until the deed was done. Brace yourselves: I have so enjoyed this diverting little exercise that I'm considering embarking upon the Zettification of other great dramatic moments. A collection of Market Harborough Amateur Dramatic Society photographs, taken in the 1950s, beckons...

Credits: the still from ITV's Emmerdale was torn from a copy of the Mirror newspaper; background papers (modified, overlaid and blended) are from Matilda, Kraftprints and Mixed Media by Lynne-Marie Favreau; the scribbled border is a combination of frames from Annick Filibert's Doodled Page Frames Collection 3 and Lynne-Marie Favreau's Mixed Media (modified); striped pointy hat, scalloped newspaper border, Laurel and Ashley's wings are all from The Land Of Odds by Lynne-Marie Favreau; altered paper wings, crown and Laurel's pointy hat from Mixed Media by Lynne-Marie Favreau; sparkly dot circle frame from Circle Of Friends by Lynne-Marie Favreau; bunny scrap, white hand-painted tree (modified) and brown hand-painted twig (modified) from Create kit by Lynne-Marie Favreau; doodles from Creative Word Art by Lynne-Marie Favreau; Pink floral hand-painted element is a brush from Romantic Rose Masks by Chantilly Lace, used as a clipping mask with a paper from Lynne-Marie Favreau's Mixed Media papers; buttons are from Dawn Inskip's Clay Buttons. All items are currently available from the ZigZag Scraps store.

Art Journaling: One Little Word

2009-10-11T11:13:00.007+01:00

ONE LITTLE WORD (edited)
Digital Art Journal page
12ins x 12ins

ONE LITTLE WORD (unedited)

As a person who doesn't cope well with hidden agendas, it's my natural inclination to say what's on my mind, get it out in the open and then move swiftly on. This doesn't always go down well with other people and dealing with the fall-out of my honesty is certainly one of my life's greatest challenges. Being assertive and adult during interpersonal communication works best when both parties behave as adults and how often does that actually happen?
In the company of fellow Digital Art Quirks forum members, I'm currently rambling along The Artist's Way: a self-help manual for those who feel in need of creative-rekindling. The book challenges us to re-examine our lives and the things that have led to us getting "stuck". When I found the "please all and you will please none" quote in Lynne-Marie Favreau's excellent Creative Word Art kit, it completely chimed with one of the issues I'm examining. The words I'd typed on the card originally read "I am sick of worrying about what people think or are going to think" but that made me feel like a pathetic victim, and so I thought hard about what I really want to say, right now, to all the people in my life who have tried to knock me down for being straight and honest. In the end, it came down to two little words and boy did it feel good to type them. There they sat in the middle of the page: tiny...tiny, but effective: poking their little tongues out at any unsuspecting viewer who might be charmed to take a closer look at the small print, potentially capable of upsetting a large percentage of the scrap-booking community. Following the Rude Tomato post on my other blog, wasn't I pushing my luck a bit? Had the "F" word ever been used on a scrap page before? Of course, I was fretting...I was worrying about what people would think, trying to please! I worried that I would be banned from the forums; banned from the CTs I work for and lovely Lynne-Marie Favreau would sue me for inappropriate use of her work. As for any submissions to Stamptington publications...
When a friend suggested that, for the sake of decorum, I should blur the offending word out, I experimented with scribbling over it, thus making, I think, a further point about self censorship, but the page is funnier and I believe, more effective with the word left visible and it makes me laugh and cheer out loud. In fact, I would go as far as saying that typing "fuck off" on a scrap page is one of the most exhilarating things I've done in a long time, which could indicate that I need to acquire a life, or possibly, that I'm teetering on the edge of getting mine back.
I would be interested to hear your views on the subject of creative self-censorship. The scrapping world is such a cosy, family-orientated place, but many of the things that I want to explore are not cosy at all. A number of scrappers tackle challenging subjects but how far can we really go? Does the community we're part allow us complete freedom of expression? Are all of us really saying what's really on our minds when we create our scrap book and journal pages, mindful that we'll be sharing the with the whole world and her dog?

Moving swiftly on: this week I have received a lovely little package from my beautiful, clever and talented friend LaWendula. At the moment, I can't transfer photographs to my Mac, so I have nicked LaWendula's images of the gorgeous goodies. Thank you, kind lady, even the stamps were beautiful!

Journal Page credits: papers from Mixed Media and Cozy both by Anne-Marie Favreau; card by Playing with Brushes at Flickr; "please all and you will please none" quote and scribbles from Creative Word Art by Lynne-Marie Favreau; bird scrap from Mixed Media by Anne-Marie Favreau; Flower from CU Flowers by Lynne-Marie Favreau: all available at ZigZag scraps and Cat Scrap; decorative embellishments on card from Fancy Flourishes by Nancy Rowe Janitz available at Scrap Artist; font is Love Letters by Dafont

Three Muses: Zlightly Zetti

2009-10-01T13:50:00.008+01:00

A POLITE REQUEST

"Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint"
Jane Austin, "Love and Friendship"

Prompted by marvelous Marie over at the Three Muses challenge blog, I have, this morning, been engaging in of the gentle art of Zettiology. Indeed, so gentle is my Zettying, methinks it might not make the Zetti class. However, it is my first ever offering to contain wings, pointy hat and fairy wand and has kept me quietly amused for a several hours.

The lady, said to be a member of the Dundas family (what? You've never heard of them? where have you been?) was painted by Henry Pickering in 1754. In 1989, Christies of London described Ms. Dundas as an important British picture: "the property of a gentleman" and estimated her worth at between 10,000 and 12,000 pounds. Now, somewhere. she hangs on a wall, in the house of a rather well-off person who is completely oblivious to her "other life" as an aspiring Zetti model.

I have just discovered that his week's Theme Thursday challenge is WINGS
and Illustration Friday is Pattern, so, as Ms. Dundas is in an exhibitionist mood, we're going to fly over there.

Gallery Standouts choice October 1 2009

Thankyou Erin x

Credits: papers from Elodie's Baroque Chic and Lynne Marie Favreau's Mixed Media; frame made with a mask from Annick Phillibet's Doodled Page Frames and a paper from Sunburst Kraft Papers available at the ever-wonderful Miss Crow's Magickal Emporium; skirt made with element and paper from Elodies's Baroque Chic; Wings made from one of Vera Lim's Altered Wings and a paper from Lynne Marie Favreau's Mixed Media; black filigree frame from Elodie's Baroque Chic; pointy hat from Lynne-Marie Favreau's mixed Media; flower recommissioned as a magic wand from Creation 23 by Create Wings and Catherine Designs. Overlay is, I believe, by Les Brumes at Flickr.

DAQ challenge: Altered Mermaid

2009-09-29T16:51:00.007+01:00

THE UNEXPECTED GUEST

digital collage 12ins x 12ins

This morning brought with it a most delightful surprise as I logged on to discover that following a comment left on his blog: Saint Verde Digest, Neville Trickett had linked to mine in his most recent post. If you don't already know Neville (he's been in my sidebar for some time now) do pop over to his place and take a wander through his archives of glorious visual delight and excellent good taste. He's as crucial to my morning wake-up as a good cup of coffee with a splash of gingerbread syrup.

Over at Digital Art Quirks, Donna has been shaking things up a bit and she has lassoed some of us (we are an unruly lot) into a Creative Team. My exact contribution is yet to be worked-out but there are some new challenges to be enjoyed and this latest image was in response to two: Altered Mermaid and Altered Surreal. In my usual way, I began with the first challenge subject and after taking a long time to think about it, wandered off into my own little world, by which time, the challenge had changed but what I was doing fitted it anyway. Thus "altered" has amounted to flooding a sitting room and inviting a rather grand 18th century lady to have a cup of tea. The lady was painted by John Astley (1724-1787) who, on a sea voyage between Dublin and England, married a wealthy widow, Lady Dukinheld-Daniell, and gave up painting.

Whilst on the subject of water, the other day, I found a box of beautifully-wrecked lantern slides and am now wondering what to do with them. Here's a scan of one of them, probably the most damaged, but I love all those blotches and streaks.

Saint Verde Digest
Digital Art Quirks

Credits: background from Flitting Fall Faeries by Lorie Davison, Seagull from Junkyard by Holliewood Studios; cup from Phineas Comes to Tea by Tangie Baxter; textures by Les Brumes and PaintingWithBrushes (Flickr) and from Matthew P. Weller's Old Grunge Overlays