Finally, she's flying high this year!

I finally was able to persuade my Knight in Shining Armor to include my Kitty Angel in this years decorations. Yay!

(can click pics to enlarge)

I plan to (hopefully) paint a manger scene to go with her, for next year. Yes... a Cat Joseph, Cat Mary, and Kitten Baby Jesus.  It's okay, roll yer eyes at my hokiness. Me not care!! LOL!

I wish everyone out there a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a blessed what-ever-else-you-celebrate. And Happy New Year!

Happy painting,

Retta

Ready to Cowgirl Up?

I've been busy lately puttering around in my Zazzle store, learning how much I did NOT know. Hopefully soon it will be organized.

In the meantime, after having joined a health support group with some like-minded online friends, I created a new motivational card from my ink and watercolor illustration. It was fun!

I left the side front blank (just place holding words that are removed) , so it could be customized, either with a person's  name, or a special greeting.

 Here's a peek:

Anyone interested can pop in to my Zazzle store here (please excuse the disorganization; it's still under construction!) and visit my Cowgirl.

Have an artful day,

Retta

How To "RePurpose" Your Art!

These days we are all learning to reuse, recycle, repurpose stuff. Well, hows about our art?? I don't mean just the usual, like cards, prints, posters, etc; all the fun stuff that online print-on-demand places can create with your image.

I'm talking about ways that I can simply enjoy the image again, in a different format. And since I LOVE quotes, I enjoy making my own little motivational posters.

I think of good quotes as distilled wisdom. Um... notice I said good quotes. ;-)

It's easy to do. If you don't have Photoshop, which is where I play with mine, you can go to free places that do it automatically for you, in a set format, such as This Place.

Here is my latest... please to enjoy.

Happy poster making,

Retta

Playing With Headers

Last year I designed a blog header for a friend. She ended up having to close her blog for health reasons, and didn't get to use the design. Here it was:

I liked the design and font... it fit the feel of her blog very well. And I loved using the image from outer space for the background. So recently when a couple of bloggers wanted to give their sites a facelift, I thought it would be fun to use that idea again.

And what fun it was! I made two, one for a friend and one for my sister. They were done with the individual preferences, needs and personalities in mind. 

For both backgrounds, I used free images from the NASA space photo gallery, and then added text with Photoshop.

Here are smaller versions of each (can click to enlarge):

I enjoyed those projects so much I was inspired to spruce up my own blog... my other one, that is. I used an image that I had painted on 4 x 4 canvas, scanned it in to my computer, and in Photoshop added my blog name and tagline next to it. The image is extremely meaningful to me. It was from my Transformation Series, all butterflies. Here is how it turned out:

Happy painting,

Retta