Abstract Collage...

Bonnie's challenge this week in Photo Art Friday was to play with a couple of her textures and create an abstract image.  I decided to use some more of my 'pinhead kitty' shots from last weekend's shoot.  I could see using this as some funky wrapping paper. :o)

I played around with a few other filters in Elements and came up with these additional versions.  The first one reminds me of a chalk board.

Idleness...

It's been a while since I've posted any photo art, and since I got PSE11 (upgraded from 9) last week for my birthday, I thought it was time I played with some of the new features.  I spent way too much time working on the text in this image.  I'm sure there is an easier, faster way to write on straight lines while using the 'draw your own path' tool, but then again I guess I could have just written it straight and rotated it too...so much to learn :o)

I took this shot a couple of years ago, but since I've been organizing my images in Lightroom 4 (got that for my birthday too!) I came across it and just had to use it along with this quote.  I found the quote while working on a fibre art piece that uses my rust dyed fabrics.

original image

I cropped the image slightly, did a minor levels adjustment to the image, then added a couple of layers of textures.  I used Kim Klassen's new texture, kk_minus43 (you can see it, read about it's name, and get on Kim's free texture list here) and Bonnie Zieman's PDPA Beauty is... texture (you can see it and download it here).  I'd tell you more about what I did, but I don't remember and unfortunately didn't take a screen shot of my processing this time.  Sorry!


These photos are being linked to Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday, and Photo Art Friday.

Picking Favourites...

This week, for Photo Art Friday, Bonnie's challenge was for us to choose our favourite photo art piece from the year.  The idea was that if you were going to create a photo book of your images for the year (a great idea by the way!) Bonnie wanted us to consider which image we would put on the front cover.  This is a lot tougher than you might think!

As it turns out, I did make such a 'coffee table' book of all my favourite photography back in the spring.  At that time, I chose to use this image on the cover:

However, since then I have taken a lot of new photos and created a lot of new photo art.  I love last week's image of the gorilla's hand:

The other one that I might use is this one of the monarch chrysalis just before the butterfly emerges.  In the summer I put a couple of monarch caterpillars in a terrarium and photographed the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly (you can see it here).  I used one of those images to create this:

So, it's a toss up between these two right now, but since I won't be creating another photo book for a while, there will be so many more to choose from when the time comes...

These photos are being linked to This or That Thursdays and Photo Art Friday.