Donna B Miller

Finding the Muse: Elaine Brady Smith

One of the nice things, maybe the only nice thing, about being ill is that you can play on your computer without guilt. So, stuck indoors with a really nasty sinus infection, I have been working on all kinds of art projects.

Over at Scrapbookgraphics, we're being inspired by the work of Elaine Brady Smith, a Pennsylvania-based artist who specializes in collage and mixed media work. You can learn more about her and see her work here. Thanks, IndyBev, for introducing me to this new artist.

Here's a piece I finished this morning, Mariposa.

CREDITS: Birgit Kerr's Wellnacht paper; Meredith Fenwick's Sweet Notions paper; Christina Renee's The Original Grunge Papers; Flerg's Vintage Garden torn border; Berna Datema's Gunge Overlays 1; Traci Sim's Everyday Essentials: Trims; Manu's Happiness lace; ON Cardboards No. 1 butterfly; and Sausan's Verde rusty pin. Photo from ArtEZine.

I've participated in two other challenges this week, both at Digital Art Quirks.

The first was a Stock Photo challenge using this balcony photo from FreeFoto.com



Here's my interpretation, On Wings and a Prayer.



The other was the Digital Art Quirks Quirkle Challenge. Each week, we take turns setting up challenges for other DAQ participants. This week was my turn. I challenged the Quirks to design a piece with 1) a movie star; 2) some alliteration (able ape abs, bossy buxom beauties, etc.); and 3) a monotone color scheme (any color). It's been so much fun seeing what everyone has come up with.

Here's my ATC, featuring the late Charlie Chaplin.

We'd love to have more participants in these challenges, so please stop by and play along with us. If you have any questions, just drop me a note in the comment section, and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Little Miss Sunshine

I had a chance to do a photo shoot with one of my young nieces this weekend. She's such a doll, with such a sunny personality. I wanted to do a collage that reflected that.

I used a tutorial by the oh-so-talented Nicole Hinrichs for the background, and added some funky flower paper to enhance the happy mood. Nicole is an artist, photographer, and author of several books on scrapping and art. You can see her colorful and quirky work in the Digital Art Quirks gallery.

Here's what I ended up with. I'm thinking about blowing it up onto a poster and suprising my niece with it.

Inspired by Botticelli

Don't you just hate it when life gets in the way of creativity? And would someone please explain to me why, when life gets stressful, the first thing I give up is my art? It's the one thing I can count on to relieve stress, yet it's the first thing I give up. Does that sound like a sane act?

All of which is my roundabout way of saying I'm sorry for being such a bad blogger.

This week over at Scrapbookgraphics, we're looking to Sandro Botticelli, the Renaissance painter for inspiration. For my piece, I wondered how Botticello would have approached his work if he were a collage artist. Here's what I came up with:

Credits: Sausan's Altered Artistry Urban Art paper; Taran Conyer's Lipstick Chic paper; and Berna Datema's Eye Love You Grunge Overlays.

Tag: I'm It

My dear friend and fellow SBG Crew member, the LovelyMissKait, has tagged me with the following message:

1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So here goes, you can check out Kait's blog and see her lovely layouts at LovelyMIssKait's Place.

Seven Random Facts About Me

1. I'm the oldest of five girls. We were all teenagers at the same time. My poor parents!
2. I was once editor of "Kentucky Living" magazine.
3. I just illustrated the book cover for Patti Digh's "Life is a Verb" (now available for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
4. I love the color yellow.
5. I met my husband in journalism school.
   
6. I have a collection of about 300 Kentucky cookbooks.
7. I once worked as a butcher's assistant.
   

If you have a chance, please check out the following blogs.

1. Jen Ulasiewicz Designs
2. Greetings from Robin
3. Canay's Corner
4. Helen's Journal
5. Melissa Scraps
6. DecoMom's Dalliance
7. Kori's Lilac Dreams
   

Life is a Verb: My First Book Cover

I've been dying to tell all of you about my most-recent project, but I had to keep mum until all the details were worked out. I've designed my first book cover! And it's going to be on the shelves of your local bookstore this fall.

The fabulous Patti Digh, writer of the award-winning blog 37 Days, and her editor at Globe-Pequoit asked me to design the cover for Patti's new book, "Life is a Verb."  It's a wonderful collection of 37 essays on how to live a joyful and meaningful life. It's illustrated with ATCs from artists all over the world. It's truy an honor to be a part of such a wonderful project.

So you can imagine my excitement when I received a copy of the finished cover in my e-mail yesterday.

LIFE IS A VERB is already available for pre-order at a discount on Amazon. It will also be available for order on the 37 Days website in the coming weeks.

Finding Inspiration In the Stars

Kim Gabriel, my quirky co-host of the Frameworthy challenge at Scrapbookgraphics, has chosen the Zodiac Series by Carolyn Quan for our inspiration this week. You can check out Quan's gallery here.

With a birthday in January, I will be trying to put together a Capricorn piece. Here's my Quan inspiration.

I've been on the Internet looking for resources to use in my work. If you feel like playing along, you might want to check out these Zodiac freebies.

Janita at Seishido.biz  offers Written in the Stars Photoshop brushes, which includes large brushes for each sign.

Kirsty at 500 ML also offers Zodiac brushes, featuring 24 different brushes.

There are several fonts that focus on astrology, including KR Astro Font and  AstroGadget. Both are available at Dafont.

You can even download free  Zodiac clip art at PC World.

I'm really looking forward to seeing some out-of-this-world art in the gallery this week.

Finding Inspiration: Maggie Taylor

I'm so lucky to be one of the hosts of Scrapbookgraphics' weekly Frameworthy challenge. I love sharing some of my favorite artists with the challenge participants. This week, I selected the oh-so-talented Maggie Taylor as our inspiration. Taylor produces prints by scanning objects into a computer using a flatbed scanner, then layering and manipulating these images using Photoshop to create a surrealistic montage. The resulting work is full of vivid colors and magical images.

I found my inspiration in her work Crazy Faith. The photo she used in this delightful piece reminded me of a similar photo of my great grandfather. Living in rural Kentucky, and trying to make a living during the Depression must have been incredibly difficult. I've entitled my piece, A Hard Day's Night.

Photos of sky, landscape, and lightning from stock.xchng. Photo of building from Stephanie O'Neill's Simpler Days stock photo kit; overlay from Sausan's Pixies Overlays. Font is Goudy.

Fun Friday Freebie: Online Word Processing

I'm really excited about one of Adobe's newest projects, an online word processor called Buzzword.

Buzzword is web-based. That means the document you are editing is not stored on your personal computer, but rather, on secure servers. You can access your document from any computer, anywhere.

And, this is the beautiful part, it's designed so that you can easily share these documents with editors, other designers and artists, and friends and family.  It's ideal for collaborations -- you can work together with others to create, comment on, revise and publish your documents, without the need to e-mail back and forth.

And the artist in me loves how easily you can insert pictures of your work. What an ideal way to share ideas for articles, books, and exhibits.

To use Buzzword, simply go to www.buzzword.com and click "Sign Up" to open your free Buzzword account.

One Photo: Dozens of Interpretations

The Stock Photo Challenge is back at Digital Art Quirks. The idea is simple. Members take turns choosing a stock photo for others to use in their art. Past challenge photos have included everything from melting ice cubes to mosaic tiles to rust. This week was one of the easier ones. The challenge was to use a photo of an old notebook, uploaded to stock.xchng by Stefanie. L.

I ended up doing an art journal page, using lyrics from the Paula Cole song, Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

Photos of journal, boots and horseshoe are from stock.xchng. All other papers and elements are from Kathryn Balint's Little Jake kit.

If you'd like to participate in this week's challenge, you'll find the assignment here.

Just Plain Silliness

The theme for the December ATC swap at Digital Art Quirks was "What's Black and White and Red All Over?" All the stupid responses to this riddle ran through my head (a newspaper, a blushing nun, a skunk that's been run over), but I finally settled on the sun-burnt zebra.

Zebra and sunglass images from stock.xchng. Word labels made at Atomic Cupcake.

I had even more fun doing the back of the card.

Stock.xchng image; Lisa Dozier ATC Build a Card brushes; JSL Ancient font.