Pastels

In between all those journal pages it´s time for another texture play for Nancy Donaldson´s texture challenge. I´ve used a photo that I´ve taken three weeks ago in an art supplies shop and put some mystery in it by using six textures with different blending modes (Nancy´s textures encaustic, pole 8, garage, crackle, pole 4, and pole 1). Before adding the textures, I adjusted brightness/contrast and levels, and finally I used a mask frame on the whole picture. Did you recognize a shelf with pastels when you had a first look at the textured photo?

Don´t Give Up

Today´s lesson 4 page for our Digital Art Journal has the prompt "Goals", so mine illustrates the goal of not giving up but reaching for the stars instead. This one has been difficult because Photoshop crashed several times when I tried to fill in the type loops with colour ... but as this has been one of the learning targets (besides soften a background, warpen a text etc.) I DIDN´T GIVE UP!

The lady´s shape is from Hollie Haradon, the rest is from our class kit.

Beautiful.

Today´s prompt for our Digital Art Journal is "Beautiful". At first I had no idea what to do with it because I´m more on the weird side, but then I´ve had fun making this page with a painted over background from Tangie Baxter, an eye from Hollie Haradon and a border by Marcee Duggar. The dog is taken from one of my own physical art journals, so maybe you recognize him ...

Live Forwards

Here´s my digital journal page for our third lesson; the theme was Family. I´ve tried to illustrate a quote by Kierkegaard that means that you have to know where you come from but have to go and find your own way.

I See ...

... has been a difficult journal prompt for me - but here´s my Thursday page for the Digital Art Journal class, using the class kit including the font we got from our own handwriting (how cool is that?).

Happy at Home

I´m a bit behind with my Digital Art Journal class, so here´s my page for the Wednesday lesson themed "Home". The quote is by Samuel Johnson.

Her Treasure

Today´s journal prompt for the Digital Art Journal class is "Treasure" - here´s what I´ve made with it. (Vintage woman is my own photo, background self dyed book page, circus lady from TumbleFish Studio, all other elements are from the class kit).

Prepare To Live Again

I´ve started another online class today: Jessica Sprague´s Digital Art Journaling class. Our first assignment was to make a heart themed journal page using angled text, masks and outlines, dingbats and a stroked border. I´ve learned a lot in this first lesson and am quite satisfied with my heart page now. The quote I´ve used is a poem by one of my favourite writers, Anna Achmatova.

With All My Heart

This is a birthday card for a very special friend, made with the new PaperArtsy stamps by Lynne Perrella.

Doodling Unleashed Class

I´ve had fun Traci Bautista´s free online class at Strathmore tonight - above you see my result of week one. I´ve used a Moleskine journal instead of a large Mixed Media paper here, but it worked quite well, it´s just much smaller (but still 16 x 5 inches / 41 x 12,7 cm for the whole spread) than what Traci uses in her class. There´s still plenty of time to join Traci in her class here.

More Nick Bantock Style ATCs

Here are the last of my ATCs for a Nick Bantock Style ATC swap. If you´ve missed the first six ATCs for that swap you can find them here.

Have a Zetti new year!

May the new year be like Zetti artwork: sometimes dark but with enough colour to give us hope, a bit adventurous and surprising, but with some constants to hang on to and navigate ... and creative of course!

Be Lucky

In Germany, toadstools are considered as lucky charms though they can be fatal. In my contribution for this week´s TMTA challenge, the lucky charm is the little girl warning you that this mushroom is uneatable. I hope you´ll always have someone by your side in 2012 to say no-no at the right moment ...

Christmas Tags

Happy Holidays to all my visitors! Here are two tags I´ve made today inspired by the wonderful examples from Kim Dellow - please go and have a look at her blog to see how beautiful hers are!

Vintage Christmas

... is this week´s theme for the SPA challenge, so here´s my traditional postcard with a little bling.

Baby It´s Cold Outside ...

... so here´s my December page for our monthly bird journal page exchange. I´m SO glad that at least we don´t have any snow yet!

A Zetti Christmas

Even my Zetti page for our monthly journal page exchange is quite christmassy this month ...

Starlight

Last weekend I´ve stamped a batch of Christmas cards combining a lovely star background paper with Dina Wakley´s star stamp and the wonderful starlight text stamps from Red Lead.

Technique & Tool

Today you´ll find me featured on Seth Apter´s blog answering his survey about favourite art techniques and tools. You won´t be surprised that it´s stamping in my case ... yes, I could have answered gesso, scissors, or glue stick, but I´m in love with stamps for 12 years now, and it´s a love that continues to make me happy. Even when creating digital art with Photoshop, you´re able to use brushes as digital stamps, so you´ll hardly find any artwork of mine that doesn´t have some kind of stamping.

A Christmas Fairy

Christmas Fairy is this week´s theme for the SPA challenge. If you know me a bit, you know that I´m not into fairies, elves and such, so my fairy is a bit different ... maybe you recognize the same deer that I´ve used for my SPA card a few weeks ago, and yes: I´ve had the same junk mail in my mailbox today and immediately cut out this lovely deer again!

I think it goes well with that Tim Holtz die cut wing and the stamps from Stampington/Dina Wakley and Red Lead.