Dragonfly

MCN: CAY1Q-9NX4F-MU191

This was a photo of a necklace I made for a friend a while back (the necklace is made from vintage chains, vintage beads and charms and mostly semi-precious beads although a few are crystal).  I wanted a mysterious, tragic mood for this image so it is heavily edited and colour adjusted to give a vintage 'film noir' feel.

Part of my new series of images for licensing on Arcangel-Images  use this code: SYST-0097

Created with my own photographs in Photoshop, no stock used.

All my licensing images are available on Redbubble, Artflakes and Bluecanvas as prints, cards, posters, skins for laptops, Blackberry, iPhones and other phones (for the skins go to Bluecanvas).

Alison in Wonderland

Inspired by Alice in Wonderland and dedicated to my friend Alison who kindly sends me fabulous photos for my manipulations. :-)

Credits

Model 1

• o dear 2 by Tracie76Stock

Stock

• Mushrooms and moss covered rocks by Alison Ashwell
• The Dragon Fly by SmileForGooper
• Photo Corners and Tags Images by seiyastock
• FREE STOCK, Magic Bottles 1 by mmp-stock

Backgrounds and Textures

• Untitled 16 by scotto
• glitter texture 5 by Tracie76Stock
• glitter texture 20. by Tracie76Stock
• Entropy Texture Set by Shadowhouse
• Classic Aged Tones Texture Set by Shadowhouse

Brushes

• Water Photoshop Brushes by redheadstock
• Splash Brushes by Baringa-of-the-Wind

All other images/textures/stock/brushes my own.

MCN: CGNMH-BPRG3-WNWMR

Mind Castles - Photo Manipulation

This is the illustration to accompany my poem of the same name.

It's easy to be smug about other people's escapism, but I believe it's an essential survival tool for most of us, be it watching a soppy film, reading a thriller (and imagining yourself as the dashing hero) or sitting on a bench during your lunch break and day dreaming. Let's face it, most of our lives aren't the kind you find in films, often there isn't a happy ending and a deus ex machina is a rare occurence.

So this is for all the daydreams that made our lives a little brighter and a little happier.

The image was as difficult to get right as the poem... however, I am happy it has the feel I was after now. :-)

Credits
Model

• Portrait by Blair-W

Stock

• Chateau 16 by greenleaf-stock
• Dragonfly stock 7 by hatestock
• And more birds by mimose-stock

Textures and Backgrounds

• Cloudy sky stock by ArwenArts
• Smoke textures by mysnapz
• Adult about this by CKdailyplanet
• Texture 140 by Sirius-sdz

All other images/textures are my own.

MCN: CA3DL-TQW5E-34DWQ

Shop Update - New Designs

New collections available!

Heart Seeds

Pea Pod Hearts

Dragonfly

 Paper Crane

Cherryblossom Dreams

All available from my new shop:

Prints for the designs are available from Redbubble:

Tote Bags - Dragonfly and Peacock Heart

Here are my new tote bag designs:

Both available from my new Envelop Shop:

Fly, Fly Away! - More tees and another print

Drawing of a dragonfly and photo manipulation combined.

MCN: CXDGD-5H73R-BQ69D

Credits

Grunge Texture 03 by goodtextures
Antique1 by SheisprettyStock
grunge textures 01 by buzillo-stock
Backblech 01 by Sundel
All other images/textures and drawing my own.


T-shirts:

MCN: CXPT6-KWXR2-YD7WR

MCN: CP9KX-VNPUG-65WWX

The Secret in the Wall

Photo manipulation by Sybille Sterk to accompany the short story The secret in the Wall also by me. You can read the story here.

Both the story and the image are inspired by the myth that giants hide their hearts to be invulnerable.

Credits:

• Spiderweb, Alison Ashwell
• Dragonfly stock 7, Hatestock
• Grasses and Plants PS Brushes, Redheadstock:
• Grungy and Dirty Brushes, Redheadstock
• Nuit lascive, Dazzle-Textures
• Vintage Grunge Textures, Princess-of-Shadows
• Turn Back Time Texture Pack, Princess-of-Shadows
• Texture 24 V2, Sirius-SDZ (V2 is part of a texture pack, so the colour is different)

All other images - heart, brickwall, weeds, ivy, ladybird are my own. Either edited photographs or painted (ladybird).

MCN: CER1Q-P9TYN-5VXG4

Love is... Collage

Someone sent me a poem recently with a view of a collaboration, however, the person in question wasn't quite happy with the poem (yet), so I hope this might spark the poem to be published on RB after all...

The image is inspired by the poem but also by Duerer's Praying Hands I've always liked the serene feel of this sketch.

The poem is about enduring love and I wanted to do something that showed the gentleness of the poem and the deep feeling of it.

This image is part photo collage, part digital painting and uses the following components:

Stock photo of entwined hands by Pale Scarlet Stock.

My own photos of flowers (Magnolia, Hydrangea, and Queen Anne's Lace), my own textures and flourishes and dragonflies.

Textures by Sirius_SDZ, Buzillo and Freaky665.

Tempest

This is my latest collage and so far the most complex. Many, many layers later... Please click on it to see a larger version as some of the detail is hard to see in this smaller version.

The dragonfly - a grasshawk - has been handpainted and then been combined with the background.

Here's the dragonfly by itself:


I've used lots of textures this time:
Absynthium Stock Flame Textures
Buzillo Grunge
Fudgegraphics Grunge Nebula
Freaky665 Memories
Princess of Shadows Vintage Grunge
Lordarq Clouds

I have also used several textures of my own, including one of sea glass pebbles and sand, a photograph of the breakers at Southwold, a cloud picture etc. etc.

It was a more difficult picture to work on as the lighting needed to be exactly right to make you feel like you're looking at a storm without all the detail washing out.

Dragonfly Flying Over a Pond Necklace

This is my baby sister's birthday present. It's her birthday on Saturday and I still have to send this... So don't go telling her!

She loves blues, especially turquoise.

A while back, when she came visiting she wanted me to show her how I do my jewellery and make some with me with the idea of making some herself. However, she found it all took far too long and was far more difficult than it looked. LOL Just as well I think it's fun. :-) We made a bracelet in blues together and the necklace should hopefully match it.

The necklace started off with the blue and turquoise beads. I wanted to make a versatile necklace so I made it long and added the vintage Art Nouveau dragonfly, this is a very rare silver plated one as most of the vintage ones are brass. The clasp is right next to it so it's easy to open when doubled up.



This shows what the necklace will look like doubled up. Unlike the Safari necklace this one has no order to it, but the beads are randomly strung.

All the beads are glass, there is everything from size 6 seed beads to Miyuki cubes to lustered beads to Indian lampwork beads to catseye beads and many more.



Here I've pushed the beads together in a little nest to show why and how I came up with the name. :-)


Here you can see the design of the dragonfly and the clasp right next to it.



Another close-up of the lovely detail on the dragonfly.

Safari Necklace

This is a necklace I made for my mum. I had the beads for a while and wanted to make an all wooden necklace and I think my mum will like it.



The necklace has a simple but clever design as it can be worn very long or double up. It's long enough, even doubled up to be still comfortable.


Here you can see some of the beads in detail: I've included some of the lovely beads I bought recently from ebony and bayong wood, and also textured wooden saucers with a leopard pattern, little cubes with a pattern half leopard half tiger, long coconut tubes, and round flat coconut discs with a spiral pattern carved into it plus lots of wooden spacer beads in varying shades of brown.


Here you can see the brass clasp I made and that all the beads have been wrapped together to make sure the necklace is strong - especially if it gets a lot of handling by being doubled up.


The beautiful teardrop shape looked a bit lonely set against all the beads so I added the little vintage dragonfly. It really is teeny - the wingspan is just over 1cm.


I have some beads left over from the mix I put together to make this necklace so I might make another short necklace similar to this which will go in my Etsy shop.