Happiest Holidays...

December happenings....

Happy December!!
It is one of my favorite times of year.
We celebrate our Anniversary in December (this year will be our 24th) and my youngest son has a birthday on the 26th day of December...and of course Christmas is one of my favorite holidays!!

I hope you are all staying warm and feeling the seasonal glow spread wherever you are...

I found a few things to share that I thought were worthy...

I really loved the creativity of this site dearphotograph ...the idea is to add old photos to the current real life places...kind of cool right??

If you are looking for inexpensive ways to decorate early for the holidays, in place of fresh flowers that will wilt on you...the folks over at Ruffled gave us a beautiful photo demo  as inspiration or to use as a jumping off point for your own ideas!

And finally, over at orange you lucky they are offering the CUTEST holiday gift tags to download...There is more to see and download at their web page.

Warm hugs to all!!

Thankful...

“Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life!" ~ Albert Einstein

Photo Amber Heagerty 2010

Blessings of Thankfulness to my friends and family far and wide...

My newest work...digital deconstruction, hope you like it!

digitally deconstructed photo 2011 Amber Heagerty

Without giving away all my secrets here is how I did this fun new photo processing technique...
1)I turned the photo below into a B&W simple line drawing with my photo editing software. There are many programs out there and many different  ways to do this...you will have to experiment and find out on your own program what works for you...
2)I saved it to my computer as a png file to be used for later...
3) I then brought up the background photo ...which just so happens to be an out of focus flower photo into my photo editing program.
4) I then used the B&W "overlay" and layered it over the background
5) added the heart and words
and whoolah! it was done 8)

If you have any questions about this you may email me, I'll be happy to try to answer them...

digitally colored vintage B&Wphoto via 2010 Amber Heagerty

I've also been spending some time over at Society 6...I would love it if you would come visit me there !

She blushes in shades of Autumn...

@ Amber Heagerty

The two textures I used this week for Kim Klassen's  Texture Tuesday challenge was "Dreams" and "Dropcloth"...

This is a shot of some tiny pears from our beautiful pear tree reaching out to the sun for sweetness...

You can see the original photo below. 

We are now starting into much cooler but still equally sunny weather...sometimes I forget to wear a coat, but not for long 8)

original photo @ Amber Heagerty

Much love and sunshine!!

Some people say I'm a dreamer...

Just wanted to say THANKS to my friend Sue Simpson at earhtonestudios who mentioned me in an article on her blog...and asked me to do a little feature post   www.earhtonestudios.blogspot.com ...


Don't forget to come back here when you are done reading Sue's blog!...

 by Amber Heagerty 2010

"I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because i couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs i would choose. i wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and as i sat there, unable to decide, the figs…began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."-s.plath

This poem kind of haunt and taunts me...I guess because it reminds me that good things left unused will rot or at best be unusable...and that is sort of how I have been leaving my art these last many months...

by Amber Heagerty 2010

 ...a little like little miss Muffet I suppose...sitting on my art so to speak, like a tuffet...not listing it for sale or pursuing getting it published, etc...

What I feel like I need to do is share what I have, then create some more...

because like the poem, I feel that I don't want to let my art wither and fall unused to the ground... 8)

by Amber Heagerty 2010

Thanks again to Sue for the blog feature and to many of my art friends that encourage me even though you may never know it...
I appreciate the creativity and energy that blogging, art and friendship brings to me on a regular basis!!

much love and happiness...

Color makes the world a little more, well, colorful!

http://www.truththeory.org/do-you-see-what-i-see/

I love the concept behind this...
when I see my concept of color, do you see the same color as I do?
A girl is interviewed who only sees only in black & white...wow! So thankful for my colorful world, counting my blessings 8)

People with beautiful eyes and skin combinations-youtube

Amazing to see all of the beautiful combinations of people in the world...fascinating to watch!!!

All photos taken at my MIL's home in Bandon  OR

                                                                                   


http://www.xrite.com/ph_toolframe.aspx?action=coloriq

This is a fun test to take...I actually took it twice and the first time I took it I scored a 3, the second time a 4. If you take it, please post your results so I can see how you did and if you liked the test as much as I did!!!

It does the soul good...

It does the soul good to get away every so often...

and to try to make sense of it all...

...to count your lucky stars and to know that you have been blessed beyond measure...

...to make new friends...

...and find beauty everywhere...

...to find treasures for your pockets...

...and leave a few memories behind...

...goodbye beach, see you next Summer!

road trippin'

be back next week...

                                                                                                                         via

caught in the divergent riptide

This time of year there is always a slight disconnect for me...a time of stark contrasts.

A flowing in of back to school plans and a glimpse of Autumn and a washing out of Summer with a final hurrah...
and still somehow for me it never fails that they all seem to merge within the same couple of weeks! LoL

silhouette tutorial


We are still planning a trip to the beach to see relatives, and a garage sale, and me? a high school reunion to round out the Summer...
Then there are high school classes to register for my middle son, a wedding of a family friend and well, you get the idea, right?

SilhouetteSweetheartNecklace

I added the above links to silhouette tutorials that in themselves are beautiful works of art but metaphorically illustrates my point of contrasts so well...please enjoy!

loving this sunny color currently...makes me happy

You should definitely check out the happy chair website...I love the fact that she's not afraid of taking risks... shawna robinson designer...

I've also been collecting a few pins of favorite things for future design inspirations via pinterest

my current guilty pleasure

so...what makes you happy?

happy hugs xxoo!

She is a friend of mine...and getting waxed

Sometimes I know, after building someone up in your mind after only having an internet friendship and then finally getting to meet face to face is slightly strange or unexpected.

Their voice is unfamiliar...well, what were you expecting, you question yourself? I don't know, I guess the same voice in my head that reads all of the online script and text...silly , I know.

And when you finally get to meet in person,what do they look like?...a little taller?thinner? I suppose...in online photos you only get pieces of people like a jigsaw, and your mind puts them together how it wants...You recognize the smile but in a face to face meeting you get the added benefit of  a hug!

Sue Simpson, myself and Crystal Neubaur

 So without further ado, I had the incredible pleasure of meeting some beautiful and talented artists at the Encaustic camp recently and Crystal Neubauer...she was who I, in particular, traveled from Central Oregon to Salem, Oregon to meet in person....she is a friend of mine...

When I heard  Crystal was going to be here in Oregon from her usual dwellings on the shores of Illinois, I jumped at the chance of meeting this very special friend face to face, after knowing her through my internet art groups...

It was a wonderful meeting her and spending time...and as a bonus I got to meet Sue Simpson as well, who was also in the same art group from many years ago...

And although this year I wasn't able to be at the Encaustic Camp it looked so inviting and full of creative energy I will be planning on being there next year...Crystal was one of the teachers and has a nice write up about it here.

I also got to meet these delightful and talented ladies...

Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch

...as well as a few more I didn't get snaps of! Quite a treat for me to say the least! 

I even got to try my hand at encaustics and I I think I'm hooked...I

 love layering, colors and textures so I am thinking encaustics is an art form that is here to stay with me!

Mary Beth Shaw