Binali the Robot

I just found Binali buried in a folder! She was one of my first pictures made entirely on Adobe Photoshop, about May 2007. I used a mouse, not a tablet. I had posted her picture on an Artist Trading Cards website then thought I had lost her when the website closed.

I love robots, especially humanoid. Her name means 'music instrument' in Hindu or something like that. I have no clue why I chose that name at this point. She has a radio in her torso and is a dancing, mobile d-jay in a club.

Digital Humor

Digital Works

Gone Digital!

I've been editing photos in Adobe Photoshop 5.0 LE for a while, but a friend recently got me started creating images like paintings. This is my first piece, made for an ATC swap for someone who requested "faces." This was done with a mouse, and it was a very satisfying experience, so I quickly moved on to other experiments.

I've been playing on Photoshop daily and keep making more request cards. I'm loving learning all the buttons on the tool panel. One of my favorite projects was an accidental discovery using the "magic wand" tool. It is Urania for a request for a Greek muse. She is the muse of astrology and astronomy.

I also am in a Shakespeare swap. I did Ophelia in Photoshop, but then hand painted flowers on the border.

Tribal Roots Theme

Making backgrounds is one of my favorite art activities. I like leaving the world behind and submerging my consciousness in paints, inks, stamps, glazes, pens, ...and following whatever idea comes to me. Sometimes I think of them as textiles, as if I were designing fabric. So for this latest swap, I created earthy, natural patterns on brown paper, filled with metallic frosts and covered with a deep, reflective glaze. Then I cut female silhouettes out of black paper, adhered, and embellished.

Running Ducks

There is a breed of duck that stand upright, tall and thin, and it runs that way. So, called "Running Ducks"! I made a series of cards of the ducks cut out of different papers. The finished card is coated with a glossy glaze that makes the card look like enamel, especially over frosty Lumiere paints. Styling these cards is ADDICTIVE!

Drawing Again!

When I was a preteen, I started drawing. I am, by natural urge, an "illustrator." I loved pencil, pen-and-ink, colored pencils, charcoal, anything I could hold in my hand like a pencil. I also always wanted my work to be photo-realistic. I was less creative than I was really good at reproducing any image I could study. I loved the exercise of cutting a photo in half and completing the photo by drawing the missing half. I also always wanted to do people, faces, and figures. I went to college with the original intention of being a fashion illustrator.

When I got in art school and had to start doing assignments that I wasn't interested in, I lost interest in art school. I switched from art to English in the spring of 1986. By 1990, I wasn't even drawing anymore. I did paint one portrait in 1996, and I tried to draw my daughter in 2000. Nothing else.

Now I am in a few trading card challenges that require images of people. I have been struggling over what to do, when suddenly yesterday I was DRAWING AGAIN! I was suddenly inspired by the cups of pencils on my desk and by the oh-so-handsome William Shatner a la Star Trek. (I love that guy! young or older) It feels good to do something original again, not all cut and paste and stamp and glue which I ADORE but this is different.

Of course, I'm never 100% satisfied with anything. I'm looking at the Shatner picture thinking, "That eye is too high, the nose is too small, the expression is not quite right, the white isn't bright enough....."

Back to work!