More Altered Photos

I spent a lovely afternoon altering photos with a lovely group of ladies a few weeks ago.  Yes - i "cheated' on my regular play date group!  An old friend, D. saw my altered photos HERE and asked me if i could give her a lesson.  Then she asked if we could get a group of gals together for a potluck lunch and a day of crafting.

The supplies are simple: you need a bowl of water (i used cake tins) and some sugar free Koolaid. I had cherry, orange and grape. But if you can find blueberry or lime - i would get those too! My grocery didn't have them. You also need some kind of sand paper and an awl. That's it! Oh, plus a bunch of photos you'd like to alter. Remember when you used to get doubles at the drugstore because it was only a buck extra? Well dig them out and start creating cute little works of art!

Here are the impressive assortment of photos altered by the gals.  The technique is simple.  Just send me $10 in a self dressed stamped envelope and i will send them to you.  hahaha  Seriously - it is SO simple - just read!

1.  Take a photo back and white or colour, developed at a photo place - ie NOT from your home printer, and NOT from a kiosk.  Sadly really old BW photos don't work as well.
2. Get it wet in a bowl of plain tap water - just a few seconds is plenty.
3. Then start sanding.  Sand off whatever you want - the sky is a good place to start - because you can colour it something else.  Or sand off people you don't like, or ugly things in the background that mess up your composition.  
4. Use the a pointy bit of sand paper to get in close to an object you want to keep.
5. then use an awl to add detail to the photo - like the architecture of a building, or the branches of a tree.  
6. Then drop the photo in a bowl of koolaid.  I used two packets to about two cups of water.  You can leave it in as long as you like to get some nice deep colour - maybe 5 - 10 minutes? 
7. Take it out and dry it with paper towels.  You can sand or scratch some more, and even soak it in a different colour.
8. Then you can add you owl details with watercolour paint, water soluable oil pastels (my favorite), markers and even collage elements like paper, tapes and rubber stamps

 I especially like how architecture works - with the details highlighted with an awl.

 The old photos did not "sand" very well - but they did absorb the purple koolaid in a really cool way - purple mountains majesty, anyone?

 Aren't these cute!?

 What a fantastic assortment of altered photographs from a talented goup of ladies!

Altered Photographs Play Date

 I spent a fun afternoon Saturday altering photographs in a style my friend S learned at Art Unraveled this year.  She took a workshop with Karen Michel and learned various techniques she shared with us.  I  started with a picture i took of the Wentworth by the Sea, an abandoned grand hotel in New Hampshire i took back in the 80's.  After wetting the photo i started to sand off the edges with fine sand paper.

This is what the hotel looks like today - i just googled it - back in 2003 it was rescued and returned to its former glory!  This makes me very happy.

 But when i took this pic - it was just sitting there - sad and alone - perfect material for a creepy altered photo!

 After sanding off the edges i scraped into the trees and added details with an awl.  Then it went into a coolaid bath (unsweetened!) to turn this ghostly red colour!

 Next i took two picures of my neice and nephew sitting on my mom's back patio steps.  The pictures were taken one year apart.

 Here they are after wetting and sanding off all the background.  See below how they look with some added colour.

Here they are after their coolaid bath and some rubber stamping.

 Here is a beautiful victorian house, or Queen Anne perhaps? taken in Kennebunkport.

 Here it is sanded down.

 Here is my sister and BIL on a mountain top skiing.  I added some stamping to this you can see below.

 Here is a "before" shot at christmas about 16 years ago.  I felt quilty erasing my mom out of this one, but it isn't like i don't have hundreds of other pictures with her in them, right?

 Here is an array of L's altered photos.  She went with interesting graphic designs and lots of hand painting.

Here is a closeup of two of her pictures.  Aren't they magical?

 Here are S's and D's shots.They added collage materials and lots of vibrant colour to transform the mundane snapshot into something artistic.

 Here's Z's images - not quite finished - but really cool how you can take something and turn it into something else!

 Here are more of mine with the sanding and colour tint added.

 Some landscapes.

 D's image of a quilt altered to hightlight this gorgeous tree.

 My husband's family at christmas - they'll all be getting fun and kooky looking paper hats!

Jim and I with our respective mom's in front ot our old flowering apple tree on Mother's Day back in the 90's. Both these ladies are alive and well!

  Check out the bottom left house and scroll back up to see the before - too cool!  I added more colour to these with Caran D'ache crayons and a bit of water.

 We just loved how cool those circles look on this image!

Here are all 16 images i altered yesterday - so much fun to spread them all out the next day and see them with fresh eyes.  I need to add some finishing touches, some captions, some stamps - but aren't they cool!  Thanks as always to our host D for another creative play date.  And to S for showing us how to do this.  Fun times!

Estate sales = gotta love'em

Went to another estate sale today. If you are in the area, get yourself on the Marin Estate Liquidators mailing list. this sale was a classic, 75+ yr old lady's house, filled to the brim with goodies. I had to hold back.

Shown here are my treats. Two sheets from a photo album that i found under a chair. Lucky me! If they had the whole album, i'm sure it would have been expensive. just two sheets were cheap!

I also picked up a book of haiku poetry with woodblock illustrations, and another falling apart, beautifully aged and yellowed poetry book. Then for fun a few novelty items: a game called Jack Straws that i never heard of, but has cute little items that would work well in collage. A set of round tarot type cards with bad illustrations, but that could be turned into something cool, and a set of nice wine charms. Finally a pretty white lidded porcelain thing - with sculpted flowers on top. I sort of have a collection of white objects - so i thought i'd add it to the pile. Here is my shelf of altered books. You can see some of my white stuff used to prop open the books.I bought a couple of things not pictured - a wooden pizza peel - you know, the thing to slide a pizza onto the stone in the oven, and to get it out again. And i replaced the middle size corning ware casserole that i broke years ago, after receiving the set as a wedding shower gift. I have the very 80's set with the lavender lilies on the side. You just never know what you are going to find!