Summer Vocation

You're probably so summertime-busy you haven't noticed, but it's been nearly a month since my last post. I wish I could claim that I took an intentional electronic furlough, or that we were on vacation. Sadly, that's not the case. Summer is my busiest time of year. I traveled (for work) and taught. I came home with a cold, which I shared with my husband. We've had four search and rescue dispatches in the past 10 days. But I did finish the 6-week online class Gimp For Textile Designers-- hooray!

I took the class from Sharon Boggon through Joggles.com and was really happy with it. I have a big fat reference notebook now, and plan to go through the course exercises again in September on my own. My head is swimming with ideas.

For now, though, here are a few things I did in the class.

This began with a photo I took during my Sievers Local Color class. Using blending modes on several layers totally transformed the cracked windshield of a commercial fishing boat, Bill's dusty shop floor, and a Steampunk brush.

This design is from an exercise on working with brushes, layers and gradients.

This marching ant repeat uses a brush I made from a design I drew digitally.

I need to scan all the doodles I made on the evenings when I felt too crummy to stitch or blog, and go through the 50 or so photos I took last week to make into Gimp brushes. I also need to finish a small mountain of class demonstration elements that have been piling up the last few months, and do some major housekeeping and weeding before my parents come to visit next week. And defrost the freezer -- it's hot enough to make that a fun job for this evening.

But first, maybe one more look at those blending modes...