Today’s Photo Upload

Today, I uploaded three more photos I took earlier in the year. I hope you will enjoy these! As I usually do, these prints are available for sale in my deviantArt gallery. Please click on the photo(s) you like to read more about them or purchase a print of your own. Thanks!

“The Road To Nowhere” photo by Melody Kittles – To read more about this photo, or to purchase a print or gift item, please click the photo to be redirected to my deviantArt page.

“Spring Comes Softly” photo by Melody Kittles – To purchase a print or photo gift, or to read more about this photo, please click it to visit my deviantArt page.

“Fiery Blades” photo by Melody Kittles – To read more about this photo, or to purchase a print or gift, simply click it to visit my deviantArt page.

If ever  any of the photo links do not work, please do let me know.

Another exciting event happening for us this weekend is our local Artwalk event, hosted by some of the local businesses in Eunice, LA. Many of the stores on 2nd Street display art from the local artists and artisans and help us get our work seen. I hope we have a good turn out! I was able to replace some of my older work with some of my newer pieces and I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of attention it will draw. I framed up “Spring Half Dreamed”, “Desolation”, and “Purple Pouf” and all that’s left is to wait and see. John is also going to replace some of his older pieces with some of his newer ones, though the prints may not all arrive in time for the Artwalk on Saturday. If you’re in the Eunice, LA area and want to see some really awesome art, please stop by at 7 pm. The event starts then, and ends at 9 pm. Support your local artists, artisans, musicians, thespians, and small businesses!

More Photography From January

Here are some more photos from January. I’ve been playing a vicious game of “Catch Up” and trying to get all the things I created this year uploaded and shared out. Here are three more of my photos. I edited all these in Gimp. I think my best photo is “The Shadows Grew Long” but the most fun was “Twins”. What do you think?

“Twas All But A Dream” – photo by Melody Kittles – To read more about this, or to order a print or gift item with this print, click the photo to be directed to my deviantArt page for this item.

“The Shadows Grew Long” – photo by Melody Kittles – To read more about this piece, or to order a print or gift item, please click the photo to be redirected to my deviantArt page.

“Twins” – photo by Melody Kittles – This should probably be qualified as a photomanipulation, as I did quite a lot of editing on it. To read more about it, or to purchase a print or gift, click on the photo to go to my deviantArt page.

I hope you enjoyed viewing these! Please feel free to leave comments. Which one is your favorite? What do you like about it? Any constructive criticisms are welcome, as well. Thanks in advance!

Art and Photography Mashup

I have several things to share with you today! I had an idea about two or three months ago and I was only able to complete it over the past weekend. I’d painted three background panels in three different styles for a mixed media project. I won’t share the photos of each of them because I really like how the collage photo came out. I’ll share that to save space, since I use the free version of WordPress and space is limited. I also have four photos I snapped and edited with Gimp for you to view. To find out more info about any of these items, please click on the photo you like here to be directed to my deviantArt page for each. (Info on the triptych is all on the same page at dA.) There, you’ll also be able to see which of them are available for purchase and in what form (print, canvas, art print, mug, magnet, cards, etc.) None of them are available to download.

The Glitz and Glamour Triptych is made up of A: HoloShi; B: DiscoRo; and C: Purple Pouf and they are all named for three lovely and wonderful ladies in my life. To read more about them, please click this photo to go to my deviantArt page.

“Dreamset” photo by Melody Kittles – To read more about this photo, or purchase a print or photo gift, please click it to go to my deviantArt page.

“Mystic Sunset” photo by Melody Kittles – To read more about it, or to purchase a photo/photo gift, please click on the photo to be directed to my deviantArt page.

“Waking Dream” photo by Melody Kittles – If you’d like to read more about this piece, or purchase a photo/photo gift of this work, click on the photo to go to my deviantArt page.

“One Crazy Day” photo by Melody Kittles – To read more about this photo or make a purchase, please click to visit my deviantArt page.

I hope you enjoyed seeing these photos, which I’ve had to sit on for a while. The absence of internet at our home has put a severe halt to how often I can share. I also have to choose which items seem the most important to share first. I’ve tried to upload my items in the order in which they were created but this set, I felt, needed to be grouped thus. I’ve been uploading current works as I complete them since we’re now able to go to the library on a somewhat regular basis. I thank you for taking the time to stop by and check out my work and for your kind words and encouragement, which seem to come when I most need them. Thanks again!

What I’ve Seen

I have been able to slow down some but that doesn’t mean I can get posts uploaded any easier. This kind of frustrates me but not to the point of pulling my hair out. 🙂 Since the last time I blogged, I have let go of my business license. It doesn’t mean I can’t sell you an item. It just means I can’t do it as a business…more as a hobby and only sporadically.

On to happier things, I have two photos to share with you today. I hope you will enjoy them. I’m trying to get back into my art creations but it’s been tough. Finding the time and energy to pull out all my gear, paint something, then put it all away properly is sometimes impossible at the end of my day. I know I need more rest and maybe that’s because I’m getting older…physically. I don’t know but it’s my best guess. So photography has been my creative outlet lately. It’s cleaner and less cumbersome when it comes to creation. Instead of needing a paint surface, one or more paint brushes, one or more kinds of paint, pens, pencils…whatever I need for the target product that day, I simply need my cellphone and my laptop. Easy-peasy, so to speak! Without further ado, I present for your perusal…

“Looking Up” – I created this photo twice, once in the Pixlr app on my phone so I could upload it to Instagram and once in Gimp so I could create a piece to sell. This is my Gimp creation. To see my Pixlr creation, you can check the sidebar menu and follow me on Instagram. No Instagram account? No problem! I’m also on Flickr and Tumblr, where I share many my Instagram uploads.

“Looking Up” self-portrait by Melody R Kittles

“Disconnected”- I created this panoramic photo when we had a nice cloud deck hovering over our area. It provided a wonderful chance to see what details I could bring out in a black and white photo. When I uploaded the photo, much to my dismay, the phone lines were misbehaving. I don’t know if I shifted position when I snapped my shot or if it was something else but it ‘ruined’ and otherwise pretty awesome photo. I had to figure out how I could still save this. I made some border overlays in Gimp a month or two ago and when I added one to this photo, it solved my problem. I’m really pleased with the outcome and I hope you enjoy it.

“Disconnected” – panoramic photo created by Melody R. Kittles

No downloads, please, as this is detrimental to my family’s total income. If you’d like your own copy of one of these photos, click on them to go to my deviantArt gallery page when you can choose the option that works best for you. If you like the panoramic photo, I highly recommend you consider one of the larger prints, as some of the details may not be as visible on the smaller ones. I appreciate your consideration 🙂 I hope to see you again soon!

The Busyness Slows Down

…And life resumes a more sedate pace. Finally! All I’m planning for now is a birthday party. No simple task, that, when I’m creating costumes for my daughters to cosplay as their OC’s. (That’s Original Characters, for those like me who tried to puzzle that out.) An Original Character is one created specifically for yourself, if I’m understanding this correctly. Our oldest daughter recently became interested in fanfic stories and writing just before we shut down our internet service. So I’m working on a Tengu costume (a Japanese crow demon) and an Elven Warrior Fairy. The costumes are coming along nicely. I’ll share photos when they are complete.

Over the past two months, life has been something of a whirlwind. I’ve been trying to keep up with blogs and post to my own blog through my phone. Sometimes I’m successful, other times…meh. So this post is sort of a ‘catching up’ post. I hope you enjoy the photos.

“Peace” – Our oldest daughter in August of 2014 – I hung on to this photo, not sure what to do with it. The lighting was bad. The photo was mediocre. I just had fun creating a comic book style poster effect.

“Protect” – I did the same with this photo but did more with colors to reflect our younger daughter’s tastes. I titled the photos to reflect the meanings of their names.

I hope you enjoy these photos. I’ll try to upload more next time. The photos of the special occasion costumes I was creating aren’t edited yet so I can’t share them at this time. Thanks for sticking with me and continuing to read my posts and check out my work. I really do appreciate it!

Harsh Sunset

I snapped this panoramic photo with my phone and edited it in Gimp. I gave it an overlay, using a photo I snapped from our time on the Texas coast over the holiday and tinkered with the modes to get the final result you see here. To read more about it, purchase a print, or purchase a photo gift, click on the photo to go to my deviantART page. This photo is protected under a Creative Commons License (all rights reserved), as are all my other works, so please respect that. I thank you in advance! 🙂

“Harsh Sunset” – photo by Melody Kittles – To purchase a print or photo gift, click on the photo! Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate your support!

An Almost-Dream

Our internet will be off on Friday so I want to try to post up until that day, as long as I have something to share. I hope you will enjoy this.

“An Almost-Dream” – photo by Melody Kittles, edited in Gimp – If you’re interested in purchasing a photo, art print, or photo gift, or if you just want to know more about this picture, please click on the photo to go to my deviantART page.

Inspirational Journey

As a creative family, we do love to travel and experience new things. We aren’t able to do much of that but we can do a bit. I snapped these photos while we were on the Texas coast at Galveston. I hope you enjoy them!

“Reluctant Goodbye” – photo by Melody Kittles, edited in Gimp – NOT FOR SALE OR DOWNLOAD – To read more about this photo, please click on it to visit my deviantART page.

“Not Far To Dreamland” – photo by Melody Kittles, edited in Gimp – NOT FOR SALE OR DOWNLOAD – For more info on this photo, please click it to visit my deviantART page.

“Paper Carnival” – photo by Melody Kittles, edited in Gimp – Please click on the photo to download a digital copy or purchase a print or gift item on my deviantART page.

“Winter Crashing In” – photo by Melody Kittles, edited in Gimp – NOT FOR SALE OR DOWNLOAD – For more info on this photo, please click on it to visit my deviantART page.

Practice In Monochrome

I know it’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been so busy with the holiday preparation and visits and an increased work load. It’s been very hectic around here and I’m trying to take every available opportunity to catch my breath and soak in some peace.

John and I have gone out to view several sunsets and on a couple of those occasions, I’ve snapped a few photos myself. I have two to share with you tonight, though there are more which I hope to share with you soon. I edit my photos in Gimp. If you’d like to know more about them or purchase prints or photo gifts of either of these, please visit my deviantART page.

“I Know Where I’ve Been” – photo by Melody Kittles

Well, I was hoping it would show a bit bigger than that. I don’t have much time to fix it now but perhaps I can do so later if any of you will let me know if you’d like that. If you don’t mind taking a little extra time, you can definitely see it better on deviantART and all you have to do is click the photo to get there. This is my first successful attempt at using the panoramic mode on my cellphone camera. I could’ve left it without the texture but I think this is pretty appropriate for me to convey the feeling I wanted.

“Nature’s Ballroom” – photo by Melody Kittles

With the second photo, I was attempting to capture interesting textures so I could translate them in black and white. I’m not really sure if I was able to do a good job with this one but I am pleased with the overall setting. Again, you can find out more about this photo by clicking on it.

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season! Be expecting a Christmas themed post from me. (Our family celebrates that winter holiday.) Starshine, Magiba, and I created some homemade Christmas cards I hope to share with you soon. See you then!

Dream of Forever Past

This is a bonus photo. I saw this door yesterday and had to snap a shot. I’m pleased with my edit (in Gimp). John, again, was a big help with the reminders and pointers. I hope you like it!

“Dream of Forever Past” – photo by me – Click the photo to read more about it, download a digital copy for personal use only, or purchase a print!