Digi Dares: Dot and Little Maree

A PUZZLE OF D
Digital collage 9ins x 9ins
click here for larger image
This week's Thank God It's Friday challenge has an alphabet theme and I've chosen to work with just one letter: D. Here's a challenge for you: all SEVEN items incorporated into this image have a connection with the letter D. Can you identify them all? Don't look further down yet if you want to have a go before reading the answers...


1. The portrait of a lady, aged 35 is DUTCH SCHOOL circa 1620
2. The lady is holding a foxglove, the Latin name for which is DIGITALIS
3. The overlaid print extract on the right of the image is from Henrique Brunswick's DICCIONARIO Illustrado da Lingua Portugueza (award yourself an extra point for guessing correctly that the language is Portuguese!)

4. The wings are an illustration from this dictionary, of a small moth-like insect labeled DERBE (I have not found an English translation of this word. Can anyone help?)
5. The background is a photograph that I took at the Oxford Museum of Science, of the blackboard that Albert Einstein used for a lecture at Oxford University in 1931. The handwritten lines establish an equation for "D", the measure of expansion in the universe
6. The background photograph is overlaid with a DAMASK pattern
7. The large letter D font is DIDOT

How many did you get?

The Three Muses: Surreal

CECI N'EST PAS UNE PIKE
digital collage 12ins x 12ins

This week's Three Muses challenge has been set by Marie (Ozstuff) and she has invited us to create a Surreal image. As is often the case, my image took on a life of its own and evolved into something possibly more whimsical than surreal although arguably, ducks have a pretty surreal air about them, most of the time, without recourse to donning on fancy dress. Anyway, it's a duck and to create it, I scanned three paintings from an auction sale catalogue and digitally collaged them together. The head and wings were extracted from Ducks on a Pond painted by Walter Hunt in 1901; the torso and arms holding a dog, and the bloomer bottoms and feet were extracted from two English School paintings, both dated 1830. I do wonder who these lovely girls were, what became of them and how they would feel if they knew that almost 200 years after being painted, bits of them would become the body parts of a digital duck. To do them both justice, I intend to develop two more images that will include their faces. In fact, the face of one of them remained in the image until quite a late stage of its development when the duck finally won. The skirt was made with a feather element from a digital kit.

And now, as they say, for something completely different...


Alberta of Amusing Muses is a remarkable lady. If I had just returned from a trip to New York, I'd be unpacking my smalls and drinking industrial quantities of gin and tonic to recover from the flight, but what does Alberta do? She hasn't been home for five minutes and she's giving out awards to other artist bloggers. What's more, she has sent one to me! Thank you Alberta! There is, however, a catch: I have to share seven random facts about myself. Whilst typing my seven facts, it occurred to me that it might be more fun to scrap a page or collage about them, so that is what I'm going to do. Watch this space Alberta but please, don't hold your breath...

The Three Muses
Ozstuff
Amusing Muses

Credits: skirt made with a feather element from Kiss Of The White Princess by Glam Fairy Designs; striped bow and picture frame from Altered Halloween available at Miss Crow's Magickal Emporium; dried flowers from Dried Fall Florals by Jen Ulasiewicz; Paper scrap behind fish from Fancy Neutral Melody Papers by Jen Ulasiewicz; fish from Gone Fishing by Cindy Wetmiller at Wetfish Designs; Background paper (recoloured and overlaid) is from Jofia Devoe's The Bright Night and the floor was extracted and recoloured from an interior papers in the Bunnies, Bees and Bird's Big Balloon collection by Lorie Davison

I Remember, I Remember

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER

digital collage 12ins x 12ins

I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

Extract from I Remember, I Remember by Thomas Hood

Ten years ago, I took a trip to one of the villages in Herefordshire where several generations of my maternal ancestors had lived. My 2 x great grandmother was a school mistress and I hoped to take photographs of the place where she had taught. Sadly, the village school was uninhabited and in a sorry state of semi-dereliction. Undeterred, I stood on the back of an obliging friend and, peering into the darkness, took a few quick snaps. Recently, I scanned these pre-digital age photographs and was struck by their curious atmosphere. One in particular, taken through rotten, ragged curtains, of a window across the other side of a deserted classroom, has since crept into a few of my artworks. It brings to mind one of my earliest memories: that of lying in my darkened bedroom and looking towards the window opposite my bed. Possessed of an over active imagination, seeing strange faces in the wallpaper, curtain fabric and any shadow that flitted across the room, my poor mother could do little to calm my fear of the dark which persisted well into adulthood. Setting out to use the window photograph in another image reminded me of Thomas Hood's sad poem which many English children of my generation were taught to recite by heart and I was struck by the difference from my great grandmother's "Little Recitations", remembered from her schooldays, which included "Flo's Letter": a jolly piece about a little girl writing to ask God to send her baby sister some teeth for Christmas.

I create my work on a Mac and an aware that images usually look darker on a PC, so apologies to all of you viewing this on a PC, if it looks like nothing more than a pile of mush!

Those of you who share my interest in decaying ruins should visit the Abandoned Britain site.

This has been a week of lovely surprises. First off, I want to thank LaWendula for asking if she could feature my blog and artwork on her blog, LaWendeltreppe (which means lavender spiral staircase in German). especially as she has previously featured two artists whose blogs are a constant inspiration to me: Seth Apter and Bridgette Guerzon Mills. LaWendula has chosen to share three of my pieces that she particularly enjoys and you can see them here. If you are curious and follow the link, be sure to spend some time looking at the beautiful work of other featured artists. Next, another big thank you to Linda of Rosie and Linda's Big Art Adventure, a challenge blog that was one of the first places I discovered and bookmarked when I began blogging. A lurker on the blog for months, enjoying the wonderful array of art created in response to Rosie and Linda's prompts and leaving an occasional comment, I've recently responded to two of their challenges. Linda has posted one of my contributions here and is now thinking of trying digital art for herself.

Credits: The image began life as a photograph taken in the village of Foy, Herefordhire. It also comprises a scan of a photograph in a toy auction catalogue, of an 18th century wooden folk-art doll. The image was then developed by layering and recolouring papers including French Country Papers by Christina Renee; Washed Artist Canvas Papers available at Miss Crow's Magickal Emporium; a paper from the Creation 23 Collaboration Kit by Catherine Designs and Create Wings; several CU papers by Amanda Rockwell and Digiscrap. Also used to create texture were the following elements from Holliewood Design's She's So Trashy: tape, dirt and stain (all recoloured and overlaid). The net (recoloured and overlaid) is from Geist available and Miss Crow's Magickal Emporium and the loose thread stitching is from Needful Things by Sausan Designs.

Big Art Adventure: Dragonflies

DRAGONFLIES
Digital collage 12ins x 12ins

click here for larger image

This month's Big Art Adventure challenge is Dragonflies.

The two girls are from an English Provincial School painting of three children, dated circa 1730.

Thank God It's Friday: Alphabet

A PUZZLE OF D
Digital collage 9ins x 9ins
click here for larger image
This week's Thank God It's Friday challenge has an alphabet theme and I've chosen to work with just one letter: D. Here's a challenge for you: all SEVEN items incorporated into this image have a connection with the letter D. Can you identify them all? Don't look further down yet if you want to have a go before reading the answers...


1. The portrait of a lady, aged 35 is DUTCH SCHOOL circa 1620
2. The lady is holding a foxglove, the Latin name for which is DIGITALIS
3. The overlaid print extract on the right of the image is from Henrique Brunswick's DICCIONARIO Illustrado da Lingua Portugueza (award yourself an extra point for guessing correctly that the language is Portuguese!)

4. The wings are an illustration from this dictionary, of a small moth-like insect labeled DERBE (I have not found an English translation of this word. Can anyone help?)
5. The background is a photograph that I took at the Oxford Museum of Science, of the blackboard that Albert Einstein used for a lecture at Oxford University in 1931. The handwritten lines establish an equation for "D", the measure of expansion in the universe
6. The background photograph is overlaid with a DAMASK pattern
7. The large letter D font is DIDOT

How many did you get?

Larry's Papers: Our Day Out

IT WERE ALRIGHT BUT OUR RON
COULDN'T STOP SNEEZING ALL DAY

digital scrapbook layout 12ins x 12ins

Some of you may remember reading about my Uncle Larry. He was my Mum's only cousin on her father's side and about 21 years her senior. My mother was removed from her family at the age of eight years old. Growing up in an orphange and then a boarding school for physically disabled children, she lost contact with most of her family including five of her nine siblings. When I discovered Larry, about ten years ago, he was living in a nursing home and hadn't seen a relative for over twenty years. After his death, all that was left of him was a tatty cardboard suitcase containing the remnants of his life: several pocket diaries unwritten in, save for a few addresses and phone numbers; old bills and rent books; pay slips; invoice books that recorded just about every job Larry had carried out as a painter and decorator; hotel and B&B cards; unwritten and unsent postcards; a few letters (none from anyone that I know of); instruction manuals for household equipment; receipts for meals and rounds of drinks in hotels. Then there are the photographs of people who I never knew and whose names I will never know, none of them family and probably all long-gone. I found Larry's suitcase incredibly depressing and for a quite a while, could not bring myself to spend too much time looking at its contents. Seth Apter's Disintegration Collaboration inspired me to bundle up some of the utility bills and hang them out on my shed where, way past the finish date of May 1st, the elements are still working on them.
Last week, I took a deep breath and opened the suitcase once more. The people in the photographs are nameless and forgotten and yet, there they are: full of life and smiling for the camera; shouting "cheers!" at a Christmas party; posing in a jolly group next to their holiday coach; out of focus, walking and falling out of the viewfinder frame, in black and white and faded colour. Perhaps I can recover their stories by piecing together the remnants in Larry's suitcase? Of course, we will never know the real stories, the real connections between the items, but does that really matter? Surely what matters is that these people live and love and laugh again. The layout posted here is my first story and below are some of the items from Larry's papers that I have used to "discover" it:



Why should Larry save the top of a nasal spray box? Perhaps to remind himself of the name on his next visit to the chemist? I'm sure that my final box of papers will contain a few items like this. There are several unused paper handkerchieves in Larry's suitcase, along with the nasal spray box top, and with these items, I "found" my story. The photographs were clearly taken on different occasions but in this imaginary history, the flyaway tie and the fish and chip dinner happened on the same day.
So...here is Marjorie, emptying the contents her handbag onto the kitchen table, putting on the kettle and telling her friend Ethel all about her day trip to Conway...I'm hoping that your imaginations will enjoy filling in the gaps between the clues.

The handkerchief is from Larry's suitcase; pre-Decilimisation coins are scanned from my own collection; pill from Everyday Heros a freebie kit; background paper and sweeties are CU items; the postcard back is...the postcard back!

Acquired Collective: Lost

LOST
digital scrapbook layout 12ins x 12ins

view larger image here
Eternal father, strong to save
Whose arms hath bound the restless waves
Oh hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea!

Several weeks ago, an item came through on the Arts Council mailing list that announced:
"the formation of a brand new collective. Based predominantly on the scavenging of found object... collaboration... communication... and fundamentally the creation of publications showcasing contemporary illustrators and artists in new mediums. Online plus paper based archive of results. Get involved." How could I resist? I emailed to register my interest and in due course, received a photograph and instructions.

Instructions: Use this photograph in an artwork. The content and media are entirely up to you. Take your time with it, but please take no longer than a month. Then please send the creation to Acquired Collective.

The little photograph looks to be a copy that has been mounted on thin card and the original was clearly a cheap print, badly retouched. The simple backdrop and lack of props, suggest that it may have been taken in a makeshift travelling booth by an itinerant photographer. Closer inspection has led me to believe that the child was a young lad who had not yet graduated to wearing trousers as the hands are quite large. The woman's left hand appears to be deformed in some way. Who were these strangers? What was their story? I needed to live with this little group for a while, to get a sense of them before deciding what their imaginary fate should be. They were clearly poor. The couple (whom I assume to have been the child's parents) look pensive, possibly nervous and preoccupied; the child looks straight ahead, clear-eyed and determined. Perhaps this image was captured as a last momento before they embarked upon a long and perilous journey to a new life on the other side of the world: a risk worth taking for a family with little or nothing to loose. What happened next? Did they make it safely to their new land? As they have been put into my hands, I feel some responsibility for their fate, but I cannot promise that this story has a happy ending.