Moving to New Site

Hi Everyone!
I am moving this blog to a new website/blog combo. I don't know how long this one will remain up, but there will not be any more posts on it. You can follow me at www.triciadewey.com
 from now on.
Take Care,
Tricia.

New Hot Box Monotypes

I recently ordered and just received my Hot Box from Paula Roland. Of course when it arrived, I had to test it out immediately. What a difference it makes to encaustic work! I played around for just a little while and here are just a couple of quick things done with it. I can't wait until I have more time to see what else it can do.

Encaustic Monotypes

I haven't been very creative lately. My father passed away in March, and was ill for several months prior to that. Since last October, the only art I have done has been digital. I just did not have the time or the inclination to do anything else.

But now I am feeling like I want to try something new, and am learning about Encaustic Monotypes. I have been working with Encaustic Wax for about 2 years and love it, so I am excited about learning this new technique. I bought a DVD by Paula Roland, and am taking her class here in the Dallas area in November.

My first attempts did not come out very well, so I decided to take pictures of them and tweak them in Photoshop, which yielded better results. I glued the brown and blue abstract piece to a board and then put encaustic wax and oil sticks on it. The top piece has just been tweaked in Photoshop. I have not had time yet to see how it prints out.

Easter Cards

These are a couple of whimsical cards for Easter. I made them for my niece and nephew to go along with their Easter baskets. They are 9 and 10 years old.

Today's Image

I got to spend this evening working on this image. I like the brighter colors. These dolls are made of polymer clay, encaustic wax, and fabric. I made these dolls a couple of years ago, and wanted to use them in digital art.

More Digital Work

The first image I worked on today looks like several of the others I have done. I hope I am not in a rut, so I am working on images that are out of my comfort zone a little.

Since I love color, this second one is much more my style. Both images feature art dolls I have made.

Roxie and Angel

2 more pet portraits done digitally with those fab scrapbook elements. One is of Roxie, Lisa's very special Jack Russell Terrier, and Angel, my friend Denise's youngest cat.

For both portraits, I used a third party plugin for Photoshop called Snap Art that lets you turn portraits and other things into paintings. I also used some brushwork to enhance what the plugin could do, and to bring out the pets personalities.

Green Chrysalid

I made this little doll a while back, and decided to see what would happen if I used it in a digital image. I also used elements from the digital sites such as Oscraps, Scrapbook Graphics, and Deviant Scrap.

Buzz: A Portrait

This is a digital image with a picture of a friend's cat, Buzz. He has a lot of personality, and considers himself a great hunter. When he is not bringing home his latest kill for his owner to praise him, he is posing for his closeup.

Butterfly Elf Digtial Project

This weekend I had an opportunity to spend a lot of time working in Photoshop. I decided to use images of a clay art doll I made in a class I call my Butterfly Elf. I really like this little doll, so I took some pictures of it in several different poses and decided to incorporate them into digital images.

I used the same digital papers for each, so I could have a small series of the elf images. I think I want to try to do something like mount them to a cradled board and coat them with encaustic medium.

Color

Since the last few images have been fairly neutral, I decided to do a few in colorful palettes, which is my usual. Both of these images were done with pictures of actual three dimensional encaustic pieces I did early last year, and I decided to use them in digital work.

Images with Art Dolls

My friend Lisa is a very talented mixed media artist, and I maintain her website for her. Since I am embarking on learning more about digital imagery this year, I decided (with Lisa's permission) to incorporate some of her art dolls into the images.

I used products from Deviant Scrap, Oscraps, and Scrapbook Graphics to complete the images.

Pet Project

One of my goals this year is to try out different digital techniques and styles. I prefer this more contemporary version of our cat, Weepy, but will continue to try different things along the way.
My husband also prefers this version of his cat.

Pet Portraits

I spent this weekend working on pet portraits of the family pets. This first one is of Flannel, my mother-in-law's cat, who unfortunately, is not with us anymore. He was a wonderful cat.

The next cat is Twinkletoes, another of my mother-in-law's cats. She is very much a bossy cat, and does rule the roost.

This third one is of Weepy, our cat-or rather, my husband's cat as she only likes him. She is very hard to photograph. She is also the boss of the dogs we have as well.

Another Digital Day

I am enjoying my time off from work, although that is ending this week. I had a chance to finish an image I started a couple of days ago, along with 2 more. This first image I just finished, with elements from Deviant Art and Deviant Scrap. Last week I went to the Paul Gaultier exhibit here in Dallas, and it was really fabulous. there were lots of designs with lace and netting over the face, so this image reminded me of the exhibit.

This next picture also reminded me of the mannequins he had at the beginning of the exhibit.

And, finally, I have an image of Sully, a 95 pound Labrador that we rescued last year. We think he is about 6 years old, and he is wonderful. We also have a husky. Sully is very hard to photograph, and this was one of the best pictures.

More Experiments

I am lucky that I have time this week until my regular job starts up to play around with my digital art. This first piece is done for another friend of mine who had a black cat named Gdowski. Ellen sculpts all kinds of fish and dragons with polymer clay, so I thought they should be represented. Again, these images were created using elements from Deviant Scrap and Scrapbook Graphics.

This next one is of my husky Cheyenne, who is very photogenic. Most of these elements came from Scrapbook Graphics and Designer Digitals.

Finally, the last image is strictly me playing around with different backgrounds, and roses from Deviant Art stock.

Flooring Project

A friend of mine is revamping her art studio, including the floor. She wants to add old book pages and imagery, and has asked her friends to make images for her. I made these two images with both personal photography and elements from Deviant Scrap and Scrapbook Graphics.

My friend needs these images to be more monochromatic and earth toned, which is not my usual color palette, so this was a little bit of a challenge. Anyway, they are ready for her to use.

New Year, New Work

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I have started some new digital pieces, and am having a blast with Photoshop. Since I have some time in January before my work starts up again, I have been doing a number of tutorials and learning new skills in Photoshop. I have also discovered some really great sites for digital elements to enhance your own photography, or to create your own image.

These images used products from Scrapbook Graphics and Deviant Scrap. I also used stock images from JoesSistah on Flickr, and stock imagery from Celairen and Ec-stock found on Deviant Art.

Here are 3 images I have finished this past week.