Fat Cat Cupcakes

For last night's Bunco theme of  "It's Raining Cats and Dogs", I made these Fat Cat cupcakes.
Aren't they cute??

It took me six hours to decorate 11 cats and that was baking the cupcakes and making the fishbones the day before! Of course, I can't take credit for the idea. It comes from this fabulous book:  Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make

Although I didn't win at Bunco, I did manage to drop my iPhone into the toilet. After leaving it overnight in a bag of rice, it seems to be working...except the camera lens has condensation all over it and is hazy! Not good for iPhoneography so I am off today to the Apple store. :(

iPhoneography Mission #10

Mission #10:
Make a cup of tea and follow the color saturation of the water.


I'll admit it. I'm a tea snob. I've been drinking tea since I was seven. Unless I'm over the pond, sick with the flu or it's super cold outside, I drink my tea iced. Over the years, my tea palate has been spoiled by high quality teas in England. No teabags for me. I buy organic, loose tea or make my own using flowers picked from my garden. This is the best way to truly experience the flavor of teas and infuse yourself with the best antioxidants from nature. It's not the best way however, to do an iPhoneography mission. It's hard to follow the saturation of water with loose tea. Once you pour the just boiled water over the tea, the color moves quickly. I used the Hipstamatic on the "shake" mode and did end up with a few images that speak to the tea lover I am. ♥

 The Beginning

Organic Early Grey & Rose Petals from SerendipiTea

Waterfall

Distortions

Shades of Autumn

Black & Brewed

My preference is black tea with earthy and floral flavors. I do however, have green, herbal and white teas in my pantry. One of the teas I like to make when I have company, are flowering floral white teas:

Pod

Steamer

Polar

The Body Elusive

Delicate Flurries

Golden Flower

Pitcher Perfect

Breathe

Urchin

Clouds Rising

Pretty in Pink

Now, ponder the next mission while I go have another glass of tea. :)

Mission #11: Meet an imaginary friend.

(oooh...interesting...open for interpretation!)

Lost and Found: Photo Manipulation Edition

In preparation for the New Year, I've begun cleaning up my photography files. This purging of the hard drive consists of making sure all my processed images are up on flickr. Did you know that flickr allows you to store full-res images (up to 20MB) and re-download those large files at anytime? It makes for a perfect online storage system!  Once everything is up on flickr, I then copy the files to external digital storage. And guess what? I usually find images I forgot to upload and share:

 Winter is Coming

(Inspired by Game of Thrones)

 Return to Sender

Ever Watchful

It's always great to rediscover something you forgot about!

iPhoneography Mission #9

Mission #9: Admire the color palette of butterfly wings.

Let's start with an iPhone video, shot while out for a run:

Zebra Longwings on Porterweed

This week I found a mixture of real and faux butterflies. This Zebra Longwing on Porterweed was shot with the native camera and no processing:

Zebra Longwing on Porterweed

The following images were shot with the Hipstamatic. I used the Melodie lens paired with Kodot XGrizzled film:

Tree Nymph in Sunrays. (The Tree Nymph is my all-time favorite butterfly)

 Painted Wings

Tall

Monarch on Mexican Vine

I did change the lens/film combination a couple of times. These were shot with the Hornbecker lens and Ina's 1969 film which I thought was a good combination for the morning light:

 Black, White & Red

 Eyes

 Halloween Color

 Malachite on Fence

Monarch Wings

And a few random selections:

 Shade of Blue

Lens: John S

Film: DreamCanvas

 Glittering Pink

Lens: Salvador 84

Film: Ina's 1969

Luminous

Lens: Melodie

Film: DreamCanvas

And finally, let's end with a video too!

Emerging

I love anything to do with butterflies so I really enjoyed this mission! Here is the next one:

Mission #10: Make a cup of tea and follow the color saturation of the water.

Adventures in Watercolor

Still continuing on with the watercolor lessons and this week I discovered Yupo Paper. I originally purchased the Yupo paper for work on the Doll Dreams but decided to try it out for an original watercolor painting.

Yupo is a slick, tree-free paper that is 100% waterproof. How can you paint watercolor on waterproof paper?
It's not as hard as you would think! Yupo allows you to "clean up" and correct watercolor mistakes which you can't do on traditional watercolor paper. Once dry, the glossy sheen of the paper adds another element to the painting, making the colors pop.

I've only done one painting, a self portrait of sorts since it was an image of myself in the outfit and pose that served as the idea. I originally sketched it into the Moleskine for my Sketchbook Project (OMG..due in January!) for my pages on Hyde Park in London. I then decided to sketch it in pencil on regular watercolor paper and then again on Yupo paper in ink. You'll probably see more of this image in the future as I also did one sketch on canvas to paint in acrylic and yet another to paint entirely in Photoshop and Painter XI. Maybe I'll even do one in oil! :)

Here is the one on Yupo paper:

Feed the birds, tuppance a bag

Ink & watercolor on Yupo paper

And here it is, scanned and taken into Photoshop to be "messed" with:

Here I've added a texture by Jewell to give a dreamy feel and one by Shadowhouse Creations to add some depth. In addition, I've done some more painting using one of the watercolor brushes in Photoshop. It made me long to get back to painting digitally. Remember the Phoenix? That was damn good! Or how about the Pinup I've YET to finish. But instead, I did another watercolor this week. I painted a cock! Hey now dear readers! Shame on you! Get your minds out of the gutter! :)

Until next time, creative hugs and painterly kisses!

iPhoneography Mission #8

iPhoneography Mission #8: Notice the position of your feet.


I had a hard time remembering to "notice the position" of my feet. Unless my feet were in the act of doing something, where they were the star of the moment, so to speak, I completely forgot about them. Maybe it's because I've lived with these feet for 46 years. Maybe it's because my feet always hurt and I've gotten good at ignoring the pain. Whatever the reason, feet are feet and unless you have a foot fetish, they ain't nothing to write home, or in this case, blog about. But, here ya go anyways...my weekend as told by my feet!

Morning Coffee

Out for a Morning Run

Pool Soak

Driving Miss Laura

(I just noticed as I posted this...the date on this image is the date Alice passed away, my husband's birthday. Every other time I've taken a shot with this retro-dating it's been "Sep 81". I think it's Alice's way of saying she's here hanging out with us tonight.)

Afternoon Break on the Patio

Waiting

Mountain Pose

Let's move onto a mission that is more aesthetically pleasing:

Mission #9: Admire the color palette of butterfly wings.

The Week in Traditional & Digital Art

Actually, all of these with the exception of my watercolor lessons were done last week but due to my mother-in-law passing away, I wasn't able to find the time to blog and post them. So, here ya go...just some fun in the art room!

Patches & Crow

Mixed media on canvas

Hello?
Arcylic & colored pencil in art journal.

I've not much time these days it seems for art or even processing photos but I'm trying! I'm still working on watercolor lessons and have now moved on from painting water (which I was horrible at) to painting snow (which, I'm not so terrible at). Next up is learning to paint earth textures such as mountains and rocks. I bought a new Japanese squirrel hair brush which has seemed to make all the difference in the world. I'm also more comfy now with how much water to mix in with the paint.  Here's a little taste of the snow lessons:

We don't have winter down here but at least I can look at this and think about having hot chocolate while thawing out my toes near a log fire. :)

And finally, I did an iPhone digital watercolor. I snapped a picture of an old painting in a museum and then blew up just part of it. I changed it a bit in Photoshop, adding my own touches (like the birds...recycled art! Yay!). I then used the ArtistaOil Haiku app and voila! Instant watercolor! Wouldn't it be nice if that was all there was to it in real watercoloring?

Down on the Farm

Here's one I did using a shot of my garden:

Wildflowers

Now, if I can just make my actual watercolors look this spontaneous, I would be a happy little painter. :)