2014 December Desktop calendars

2014 December Snowman desktop calendar

2014 December Blue Bird desktop calendar

I know I'm a bit early for December...I'm rushing the holiday season.  :)

I got in the Christmas mood early and started making calendars.  Right now, I have the snowman one on my desktop.  I wasn't happy with the November one...it seems that Sketchclub had a bit of an issue with things saving as a low res JPEG instead of PNG so the quality was not there. Sketchclub is fixed now but I didn't want to re-do it so I went straight to December. 

Snowman desktop - done in Procreate.  Blue Bird desktop - done in Sketchclub. 

October 2014 Desktop Calendar

October 2014 desktop calendar 

Week three watercolour class - This is a tree I sketched from a photo, then painted with watercolours. We had to look at the photograph and decide on one primary colour and then use the complementary colour as the accent. 

For the desktop calendar, I scanned the painting into my iPad and reworked it in a series of painting apps. 

September 2014

2014 September desktop calendar

September is one on those in-between months where it's not quite summer anymore and not quite Fall yet. It's time to start looking at cozy sweaters without worrying about heat exhaustion. It was a really warm summer. The plus side is that our garden loved the heat...especially the tomatoes.

Tomatoes are at the end now, time to harvest what's left in the garden.

Painted in Sketchclub, Procreate, & Glaze on the iPad.

August 2014

August 2014 desktop calendar 

It's August and the year is more than halfway over. Hubby has another two months to his retirement and I have another two years to go.

As a kid, August was a time of laziness for me. It was ok to lie on the cool grass for hours at a time and do nothing but watch the clouds go by. August was endless.

As an adult, August goes by way too fast. August is the other side of the year. The days feel shorter now.  There always seems to be so much to do and so very little time to do everything. A two week vacation is gone in a blink of an eye. I feel like I'm running out of time.

August 2014 was done in Procreate, filters created in Glaze, with everything imported to Sketchclub to combine and final editing. Calendar insert is from here.

...in a corner.

...in a corner.

...in a corner brings to mind the old saying "painting yourself into a corner." Getting yourself into situation with no or very limited options. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and walk out onto the wet floor and hope for the best.

For this picture, this was meant to be a twist on the saying. The photo was taken of a favourite corner of our house. The photo was then edited on the iPad using several filter apps.  I wanted the painted effect and the splatters to say yes, I painted that corner...I'm in control...good or bad.

Game Face

Game Face

Although I don't wear make-up anymore, every morning I wake up and put on my "game face". It's something everyone does, whether or not they admit to it. It's a way of protecting our inner thoughts and our vulnerability. 

Photo was manipulated in Sketchclub using the transform tool, mask was painted on a separate layer and feathered. Butterfly brush for the hair was created in Procreate. Hair and background was erased using a soft edged brush with the opacity down. I turned down the opacity in small increments as I worked into the figure to soften the blending and to make sure there were no harsh lines. Once everything was done, the picture was imported to Snapseed for the grunge effect and the border. 

Wildflowers

Wildflowers

Digital painting done on my iPad, using Procreate and Artrage for the canvas texture. Inspiration for this piece came from Splatter paint tutorial over at Tammy's My Flower Journal. Although the tutorial is for real paint and paper, the techniques can easily be translated for digital painting. I used the splatter brush in the spray can set in Procreate. Once the painting was finished, it was imported into Artrage for the canvas texture.

Flower arrangement

Flower arrangement

This started as a digital collage in Sketchclub, using some of the soft edge brushes to make jagged shapes to simulate ripped paper.

1.  Load base drawing/photo.
2. Create a new layer on top and fill with a colour you want your "paper" edge to be.
3. Using a soft edge brush, set it on erase and create random shapes.
4. Merge top layer to photo.
5. Select fill and set to erase.
6. Erase colour, leaving shapes.
7. In Sketchclub, how much of a "paper" edge remains depend on how sensitive you set your fill function.

Once I created several sheets of shapes, I imported them into Procreate. Procreate now has a selection tool so you can select specific shapes. You can cut & paste and move the shapes where ever you want.

The picture was then imported to the Glaze app for a painterly effect but this could be easily achieved in Procreate or Sketchclub using Smudge.

Picture was then imported back to Sketchclub for the pen sketch.

New journal book

Journal - July 13/13

 I bought another little journal book. It's small and black with a hard cover but soft binding so it will lay flat. The million dollar question is - will I use it? I'm not sure. I've been reading everything I could find on the Internet and the one glaring fact is that I need to just do it. You can't get better without practice. I know all that. But I really prefer my iPad. There's no undo in a paper journal. I will carry this little kit around until the novelty wears off or until I use it. Until then, it's an iPad page again.

It doesn't matter...I love new notebooks.

On the fibre front, I'm still knitting my sweater from the recycled denim. I regret doing this in 3.75mm needles!  It's going to take a long time!

Canada Day

I find it scary in this day and age that so many people still have so little rights. I am so very thankful that I live in a country where my personal right matter.

Happy Canada Day!

Just a doodle

June 27/13 journal page

Done on my iPad using Sketchclub and imported to Artrage for the texture. Coffee cup brush was created with Procreate.

Journal page June 4/13

June 4 journal page