A Dramatic Effect

Before



After

Ooohhh, I like this one! It's a more dramatic effect on the photo.

Vignette

The other day I did another little online tutorial on how to add a vignette to a photo. A vignette is a photograph whose edges fade out gradually. Well, mine doesn't do that but I do like how everything got a little brighter and the color's more vivid. I'll have to try this again, but I like how the photo turned out.

Before


After

My First Attempt at Photo Editing

I still have have high hopes of one day working from home and doing web page design stuff. If I could afford it and had the time to do it, I would go back to school in a heartbeat and take some graphic design classes. Maybe later when Sophie and baby no. 2get older. I would love to be able to work from home when the kids are in school so I can still pick them up from school, help with homework, and cook dinner, while earning some money. Not a bad idea..... may have to look into this. So I'm trying to become "self taught" during my free time. Ha ha, free time. What's that again? Between raising a soon to be toddler and training for my 1/2 marathon in 6 months, AND working full time......

So you see where free time may be a problem. Like anything, if there's a will there's a way and I can be a very determined individual.

I currently use GIMP, a free photo manipulation program that I did some of my blog design with. It doesn't come with a users manual so I've googled a lot of "how to's." I would L-O-V-E to buy Photoshop but it's like $80 or something and baby needs some shoes, so that's on the back burner for now. GIMP isn't so bad, it's just different. And free is always good.

So today I did a tutorial called Split-Toning. It's an effect where you can have a certain color for highlight and another color for shadows. I used the blue and yellow that were done on the tutorial but am going to go back and do some of my own color's another time.

So here is my before and end result. Nothing fancy or extraordinary but it's a start.

Misson Accomplished

The third and final painting is now complete. My mission for the weekend is accomplished. What a relief to have that done and out of the way. This last one gave me a little bit of trouble, I didn't have quite the "vision" I had with the other two. Sometimes your mistakes turn into something better. I'm happy with the way they turned out!
Now all Ricky needs to do is build frames, which isn't hard at all. Then we can get them hung on the wall!

Nursery Paintings

This is how Zoe was sleeping yesterday.

Wylie loves to lay at the top of the stairs.


Flowers 1 and 2, not quite finished but a great start.

Flower 3 will be on the bigger canvas in the middle.


This past weekend I started the paintings for Sophie's nursery. Here are a few pictures of what I've done so far. The two aren't quite done, I've still got some finishing touches to put on and then the third is the bigger canvas that's going in the middle. It's a start, much more left to do.
And of course, random pictures of the dogs.