Now this is a Costume

Me and my Mojiganga

Happy Halloween 

Infusion of Judy Wise in San Miguel

Our first art marks in San Miguel de Allende

 We lined up at the Jardin Principal 

to sketch Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel

 Judy instructed us to start with the outline....

I chose a page in my Moleskine that already had some background....

after the outline, I moved to a bench behind my new art Amigos

 and switched to my tiny Moleskine

Thank you Judy for the infusion to sketch again.

♥

Infusion of Color in Mosaic

 An infusion of color and inspiration that will speak for itself.

Infusion in San Miguel de Allende Mexico

I'm back!

Infused.

A couple of days before leaving and still doubting myself about the trip, my friend said to me in an email, 

"You need an 'injection' of artful people around you right now."

One of the first round-table discussions or rather questions asked of the pilgrims was, "why did you come or what did you come for?"

My answer:

"an infusion"

(I was remembering the email......that actually said "injection".)

The tiny stitched booklet I'm sharing above was not one of the art projects presented by Katie and Judy.

However, on the last afternoon of the pilgrimage, using small left over textiles and canvas, I stitched this tiny booklet  to be left behind. 

A surprise!

This very morning...in just a few minutes...the pilgrims of the second group will assemble for their first breakfast.

This is when they will discover their "under-the-plate surprises. 

You know how stitching is when and where I reflect, clear the chatter, feed my soul, and rest. 

This tiny bit of stitching was a wonderful few last moments for me in San Miguel.

I have more to share another day.

♥

Away on Adventure

 Just stopping in to say, I will be away for a few days.

Must go to Mexico to exchange my ATCs!

Also, wanted to give you a quick update on the new palette. 

Sure enough I put the top on and didn't get back to painting for some days. I never gave it another thought because I have been so busy being a little sick and getting ready to attend the retreat in Mexico. 

Oh mercy-me! When I opened it, WOW what an awful odor and it had started growing!

I'm not giving up. Next time, I will just be certain that I am really going to paint and paint big before I put out a bunch of paint. 

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

NOTE:  Thank you to all who have recently signed up for my online classes.  

I will not be able to attend to new registrants while away. I expect to be back on October 25th.

About leveraging your original art to make new original art

 I completed my Artist Trading Cards that I will be taking for trade on an art retreat adventure. 

I could not pass up the chance to show and tell with a tutorial on how and why I decided to leverage a piece of my own art to get the job done.

So first of all, there was the issue that I need a whole bunch of cards to trade 

and

not a whole bunch of time to make them

and

I wanted to trade all original cards.

I started exploring my options and brainstorming ideas when I painted Catrina in my Journal.

My thinking was by using floral napkins, I could speed up the process.

During the journal page session, an inspiration bomb hit me. 

I had the perfect piece of original art with lots of flowers painted by me and 5 faces to work with. 

That excited me!

 I opened the above photo in Photoshop Elements.

First thing, I made duplicates of this image to crop from and closed the original image.

I cropped the faces in proportional 2.5" x 3.5" sizes.

Using the five faces and cropping some pairs of faces, I ended up with 9 crops. 

In Photoshop Elements, from the File menu, I set up a → New →Blank File

for 8.5" x 11" document.

Then I drug the 9 crops onto the new document as shown above. 

From the PS menu bar → View and select →rulers and grid.

The crops are in the right proportion; however, each may be a different size when you drag it to the blank document. 

Grab the corner of the crop and stretch or shrink using the rulers and grid to get them exactly 2.5" x 3.5" and arranged on the document.

The above photo shows my layout ready to print.

I print the "actual size" document from PS print function.

I printed on Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Paper (Matte).

You can get this paper at some office supply stores.

But I have printed on watercolor paper from a pad of such paper. 

Because I was in experimental mode that day: 

I printed one sheet using my Epson R2400 which is an ink-jet.

and

I printed one sheet on my HP ColorLaser Jet. 

I was curious to see if there would be any difference. 

There is none. 

Before cutting the cards from the sheet, I brushed on a layer of Golden Matte Medium #R3530. 

Seal with what ever you like to use. 

From left to right the above photo shows the unpainted card cropped from the original piece of art, one version from the laser sheet and one version from the ink jet sheet. 

I got the job done.

It was much fun.

But still took a fair amount of time. I could have gone on and on embellishing their faces. 

I ended up with a stack of original ATCards each one different.

I hope you enjoyed this and if you give it a try, please come back and tell us so we can go see.

♥