Sweeter Than Honey Etsy Treasury - Good Night and Good Luck

I am honored to have my photo "Good Night and Good Luck"  featured in an Etsy Treasury. While I am new to Etsy (my store opened in July) I am learning the ropes. Having an item in a treasury definitely brings it to the attention of many people. Please click on my Etsy link above and mark my photo as a favorite. I'm told that having it marked as a favorite by many people makes it come up higher in the searches. I have not sold anything from my Nancy Olivia Designs shop, but I am hopeful. Thanks for your help!

My daughter named this photo. To me it means night is coming and if we are lucky, the sun will come up tomorrow.

                                      GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK

Please take a moment to check out my work at NancyOliviaDesigns.com. Any comments and advice would be appreciated. Like all artists, I want to sell some work so I can buy more supplies - ink, paper and jewelry making materials. A new Fire Mountain Gems catalog arrived and I can't wait to place an order!

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Peonies Photo in Etsy Treasury

My "Peonies in the Spotlight" photo is featured in an Etsy Treasury. 

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Art Show in Norwich, CT

These pictures are from the opening of the show Dreamtime at the Gallery at the Wauregan, 200 Main Street, Norwich, CT.  The show will be up for the month of August. I have four pictures in the show.

This is my Digital Art work in the show. It is titled "Colors."

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Messy Photography Studio

Don't you love how artist's and crafts people's studios are so very neat and organized in all the magazine pictures? That is not real life. I have been printing and framing art for three shows here in Connecticut. It is a messy process.

These prints are being considered for framing. 

 

 This frame had to be drilled with my dremmel for me to put hooks into.

I am participating in three shows that run for the entire month of August. Work has been delivered to the Dreamtime show at the Gallery at the Wauregan, 200 Main St., Norwich, Connecticut. Also two photos have been taken to the Windham Regional Arts Council show at the Windham Hospital Gallery, Mansfield Ave., Willimantic, Connecticut.  Next to frame is art for the Windham Arts August Pop-up-Gallery at the Thompson Library,  934 Riverside Drive (Route 12), North Grosvenordale, CT

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Creating Buttons

Notice my new linked buttons in the right sidebar. Now to go to my Website and my Etsy shop you are only one click away! Would love some feedback!

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Making Life Easier

My friend, Carol, uses a salad spinner and her salads are fantastic. I am now the proud owner of an Oxo salad spinner. No more watery salads. This was on sale at Kohls, plus I had a 15% off coupon. And I paid for it with Kohls Cash!

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Etsy, Facebook, Pinterest, Web site

I have been a busy person this month and it is only July 8th! I have decided to put my art online under the name Nancy Olivia Designs. Here is what I have done -

1. Revamped and renamed my web site -   http://nancyoliviadesigns.com/NancyOliviaDesigns.com/

2. Set up an Etsy shop -  http://www.etsy.com/shop/NancyOliviaDesigns

3. Created a business Facebook page -  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nancy-Olivia-Designs/252763488182256

4. Set up a business Pinterest page -  http://pinterest.com/nancyoliviah/boards/

If anyone has any words of advice, I would love to hear from you! Does anyone have experience with Smugmug, Zenfolio or Fine Art America? I would like to know the quality of their printed art work and how it compares to the others.

Doing all this is rather scary. It means putting myself out there. It is also a stretch technologically to create these sites and learn how to do all that is required. Actually, it has not left me much time to create any new art work.

I have been back at my jewelry making and hope to add that to my offerings along with photographs and digitally created art. Please visit my sites and do all the "liking & favoriting" that will make me look good! Thanks in advance. And if you could repin any of my artwork on Pinterest I would greatly appreciate it!

  Here a recent photograph taken in the "Quiet Corner of Connecticut."

                                       Nancy Olivia Hoffmann - Nancy Olivia Designs

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Don't you hate it when things don't look the same?

My boy Ken bought me the Updated version of Photoshop Elements (#11) when he realized I was 5 versions behind. He was updating my computer to prevent Elements from closing unexpectedly. There is a learning curve with the new program. Everything looks different! This is my first effort.

Mr. B often talks about "when my ship comes in." Well, when mine comes in I plan to buy ink and print my new digital compositions.  Hopefully it will be a real ship and not a row boat!

I am really loving creating these beautiful blended backgrounds.

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The Process of Making a Digital Montage

This Montage started with a picture of a purple hydrangea bloom. See the second picture below. I choose a background to put the cropped picture on. See the third picture below. The background is made from a photo I took of a stream in winter. Then I kept making changes, all in Photoshop Elements.

I like to keep several versions of a work as I go along. Just make a duplicate and continue to make changes to the duplicate. I work in layers. For the final product the layers are merged. Sometimes I put the work on a colored background to give the effect of a mat.

By keeping versions of the work in layers, it is possible to go back and make changes. Any layer can be deleted or added to. Any of the versions can be changed and made into something entirely different.

Original Picture

Second Step. Picture is cropped and put on a background.

My knowledge has come mostly from experimentation. I do have a book that explains Photoshop Elements. After studying that book, I just dug in and started. My first Montage I posted here. My work has improved and changed since that first Montage.

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She's Back !

Somehow I drifted away from bolgging. But here I am. Still making digital art. Suffering from Cabin Fever or "Tired of Winter Syndrome." Today was seventeen degrees and windy. I was supposed to go snowshoeing but decided I am not hearty enough. Give me a warmer day and I'll get out there!

                              Without further ado .......... "Rose Montage"

by Nancy Olivia Hoffmann

                             

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Overdoing it - Who, Me?

I'm joining Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday.

Having learned  (but not permanently) my lesson about overdoing it in the garden, I had a day of overdoing it in the house. At least I am consistent!

After a full day, I decided to wash the kitchen windows, inside and out, and the woodwork plus the screens. At one point that required me to sit on the windowsill and put my feet in the kitchen sink. As I was wiping glass with my feet in the sink, my daughter-in-law called. While I was talking to her, and still wiping, I glanced behind me to the outside to see my daughter standing there looking up at me as if I were crazy! Well, I wasn't going to miss talking to my daughter-in-law just because I was sitting on the windowsill with my feet in the kitchen sink!

It was worth the effort because the kitchen seemed so much cleaner and brighter. Everyone in the family commented on it.

Thank you all for your favorable comments on my photo montages. Since I work alone at home, it is nice to get feedback. This montage features a cosmos and a butterfly photoed in my yard. Of course I changed the color from yellow to orange. You can see the flower repeated in the top left and the bottom right. In the top right you can faintly see a peony which is repeated in the bottom. The background is a single photo of a cluster of white astilbe blooms over a color layer, covered by a texture layer. This is done in Photoshop Elements 6.

Legal Seafoods in Framingham, MA was the site of our Father's Day dinner. Our son, daughter and son-in-law treated us. Mr. B had raw oysters but I was not brave enough to try one. Why are they called "naked cowboys"? Anyone know?

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Overdoing in the Garden

Have you ever worked so many hours in the garden you can barely stand up the next day? It seems I never learn and I keep working as I think, "I'll quit when when I finish this, and this, and this." And then it is too late and I'm nearly crippled. At least I can still recover in a day. But I know it would be better to garden two hours at the time.

To make my Saturday gardening adventure even more severe, I had pulled weeds for two hours with other garden club members just the day before. Our Garden Club of Windham maintains many public spaces and the largest is the Garden on the Bridge where we were working. I truly believe in the mission of the club to beautify our area, so I help by weeding, trimming, planting and picking up lots of trash. Willimantic has so much going for it. Many new restaurants and other businesses have opened on Main Street in the past year. Making the area prettier and cleaner can help in this rebirth the town is experiencing.

This new work of mine is different for me in that it has a face in it. The lady in the hat was taken from a larger picture that has some of my ancestors in it. I think it was made around 1914 in Surrency, Georgia. The pansies are from my yard as are the astilbe you can see outlined in the background. 

Join other bloggers at The Little Red House for Mosaic Monday.

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