Long time no see...

A picture I took in the fall. Just found out about Picknik and am having a Blast trying out all those crazy effects they have. Really cuts down on the amount of time I would have been spending on photoshop in some cases. So basically, i just adjusted the contrast and lighting, and then added a focal point, then did some burning in photoshop on the individual buds.
Pretty much same process with the lion statue.
First time actually using watercolour in ages... not saying that I'm good at it.... But this was an experiment in masking. The sparkles are embossing powder.

So it feels like I havn't been on in forever, but thats because I really have not. My english teacher decided to give us a taste of what university would be like and gave us three assignments to do on analyzing short stories that totalled to around 40 pages of writing. So I've been busy :). But of course, not busy enough to stop procrastinating. So here are the non-homework results of my English Honors ordeal.

Cards 2

One of my new favorite stamp makers! Motivet has some of the cutest rabbit stamps ever. vSo stamped the Rabbit with a dandelion, then colored with pencil crayons (gotta save up for some fancy markers ) and blah blah blah stuck paper on and done
Motivet stamps again

Sweet November stamp.
Dont particularly like this one too much, but someone might...

So heres the second batch. Kinda mad I can only upload 5 images at a time :S.

Cards 1

Dahlia made with a five petal flower punch. Cut around 5 or 6 in blue paper, then separated the petals of all but one. used a ton of tape to tape them together, painted/ inked the edges then curled them up. put little rhinestones in the middle and TAADAA!
Took one stamp (from the Michaels bargain bin :) studio G stamps) and stamped it randomly over 9 squares of cardstock. Embossed the two darker blue ones with glitter embossing powder, then stuck all the squares to the card and put on a piece of dyed hemp through a button.
Used 3 precut painted paper labels, fastened them to the edge of the blue cardstock, glued the other edge down. Stamped three flowers on gradiented yellow paper, stuck them on with pop up tape. then put 3 ribbons down.
Cut 3 strips of patterned paper. Distressed the edges and glued them to the card. Punched out two 6 petaled flowers of each color, distressed the ends and sewed them together with a button. Stuck them onto the white cardstock with a pop-up sticky. stamped the "YOU" on white cardstock and cut it out. Stuck everything together.
This is one of my favorites :). I make the thanks definition part on photoshop. Just wrote it out in the format i wanted and made it grey instead of black. Cut out and distressed all the paper, glued it on and added a vellum strip for some visual break up.

So iv been working on cards like MAD this past week. For some reason i just had the urge to keep making them. So here are the first five. Im too lazy to post all the materials but if you have any questions about a specific stamp or paper i can find out for you no problem.

So Amy has reached her goal of using 1000 sheets of paper and her one year anniversary of blogging. to see her page go here --> http://athousandsheetsofpaper.blogspot.com/2010/08/1000-sheets-for-thousand-sheets.html

to enter go to her blog!

Some more Random pictures from my garden.

Fireworks

so went to camp and we had fireworks. these are some of my favorites. (used a low shutter speed)

Goldfish

Finally bought myself some canvases, this is my first attempt at painting on one. Done in Acrylic. Still very much in progress.

Homemade cards

Two cards i made recently, one for a friend who was graduating and the other for an advisor of a program i had attended.

Summertime Sparkles

Two photos i took in my garden, then manipulated on photoshop.

Miscellanious

This was a card i made for my grandpas funeral

A frame i made for my aunt as a housewarming gift.

A school project. Each letter represents someone in our group.

Just a couple of the scrapbook/ traditional art things I'v done recently.

INK 2

Horses were the first animals i fell in love with. I've been drawing them for a long time but I'm still not very good at it. I probably just need to take some art classes so i can figure out how to do things properly instead of just fudging through them. So this is a picture i drew originally on watercolour paper, but it turned out better than i expected so i scanned and copied it and finished it on normal paper. I'm still too scared to do the watercolour version because I really DON'T know what I'm doing with watercolours. So this is as far as this one is going to go for now.

INK :)

So I was at the art gallery yesterday and saw these really awesome stylized flower drawings/paintings. I didn't really get much of a chance to look at them but I decided to try my hand at it.

I tried digitally painting them but i really didn't like the result so i think ill try them in watercolour or acrylic. These two are the second version just done in ink on printer paper, I still need to add in some shading.

Typography!

The Typographic version

The original picture

So i just learned about typography lately and i thought i would give it a try. so i took a picture I took myself, and some Photoshop brushes from "http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=scrambled+letter+brush#/d1lg7vx" and this was my result. Tell me what you think.

Botany Adventure

So, looks like i have to backtrack a bit. Approximately three days ago i went to a botanic park that was by my house to get some pictures. One of my huge hobbies is photography. I have a Canon Rebel SXI and it is my baby, I thought I would share some of my favorite pictures. (I took all of these so please do NOT steal)

First post!

So since I'm new here i might want to describe a couple of things. My name is Christina (aka Hodge) and I love art. Well mostly visual art. I'm not very good at the whole drama "experience". I basically want to try every art form i can possibly fit into my life. So far my main interests are: Photography, Scrapbooking, and Drawing. I've never taken an art class but i plan to this summer. So basically the purpose of this blog will be whatever art things i do or things i find funny. for example, if i went to take some pictures at a botanic park, i would post the best pictures here, or if i built a mini terrarium (which i actually did today) i would post pictures here as well.