A Portrait of Paul

A Portrait of Paul, by Mary Stebbins Taitt.

This is a digitally altered photograph. I painted over the photo with a smudge brush in Photoshop. It took me over seven hours to complete this portrait. I did not do it with filters and effects. I did it in the car driving from to Detroit to NY (where I am now) and some after
I got here. Click image to view larger. There are five versions of this so far, this is version 2.

In this small version, it is hard to see the details, so I think I will add a detail.

see a sepiaed version.
see purple and green version.

The Rongovian Ambassador visits Piran

The Rongovian Ambassador visits Piran, A smudge-painted portrait of
Harry Teichert by Mary Stebbins Taitt.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

(We're entertaining out of town guests and this is a (funny, for fun) portrait of one of them.)

(Click image to view larger.)

PS: we are leaving the day after tomorrow for a trip to NY and may be off-line for the duration until next year. HAPPY NEW YEAR --oh, I said that already.) Oh well, happy new year!

new pens

My Holiday pens arrived from Andrea today and this is the first piece
I did with them. There was also a small moleskin sketchbook and a
traffic accident stencil and I used the moleskin, the stencil and one
of the new pens to make this piece. Thank you Andrea. :-D

A little early-auturmn Snow

A little early-autumn Snow, by Mary Taitt.

About this image: I photographed this tree at Onondaga Lake Park in
Liverpool NY. From the photo, I made a pen and ink line drawing,
drawing hundreds and hundreds of leaves by hand. I scanned the pen
and ink drawing, which was large, and printed 8 3.5 x 5 copies. I
hand worked each of those eight with charcoal, chalk, pastels, and
acrylics. 12/07

Each one is different. This one is a Gift Card for Leaf Lady: I've
been making hand-made cards, but I haven't gotten far, this is only
the third one I've finished and I may have to give it up. As it is,
this one will probably be late.

Click image to view larger.

Self-Portrait in a Divided World

Self-Portrait in a Divided World, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. for Mick.

Cheers!

This is the icon for my Excess Piece for Illustration Friday which is posted this week on No Polar Coordinates. Mary Stebbins Taitt. Please visit me there. :-D

Goddess (and Fearless Leader)

Goddess (and Fearless Leader), by Mary Stebbins Taitt, For the Goddess and Artist Challenges on Monday Artday. Click image to view larger.

Polar Bears at the Zoo

Polar Bears, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Click images to view larger.
For Zoo theme at Illustration Friday. The second is a detail from the first.

Migration

Migration, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Click image to view larger.

Sunflower's Last Stand

Sunflower's Last Stand, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. This is the last
sunflower of autumn, ortonized (with the Orton Effect applied.) For
Thursday Photo Challenge: "Black and White."

The Opening

The Opening. Original photo by Keith Taitt, cropping and digital manipulation by Mary Stebbins Taitt, for Mick Mather. Click image to view larger. See photos of opening here, here and here.

Sunflower "Babushkas" (Details)

Sunflower Babushkas, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. These are details from
the sunflower painting. Click to view a little larger.

Sunflower Painting

Sunflowers, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Click image to view larger. (see
earlier version)

My Opening

The Westcott Community Gallery is hosting an opening of their holiday show on Thursday, November 15, 2007 from 5 to 8 PM. There will be food, drink, and enjoyment. Prints of six of my latest flower paintings will be exhibited, along with the work of Karen Tashkiovsky, John McGath and others. God willing and the creeks don't rise, I will be there and I would love to see you! Please come! Mary :-D

Beamer's Barn

Beamer's Barn, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. This old barn was located
across the street from Beamer's Falls about 8 miles east of Hamilton.

Continuing Sunflowers

Remember those sunflowers I posted a while back? If you have a very
good memory, you'll remember a sketch and three stages of that
painting. Well, I worked on it in Hamilton, but it is still not done.
In case you can't tell (lol!), for one thing, it needs a stem, also a
few more leaves. I've spent hours and hours on it, but it needs help!
If I keep working on it, maybe it will be a real painting someday.

Koy at Royal Botanical Garden in Hamilton

Koy at Royal Botanical Garden in Hamilton, by Mary Stebbins Taitt.
Click image to view larger.

Herb Robert; Spring Wildflowers in Autumn

Herb Robert; Spring Wildflowers in Autumn, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Click image to view larger.

We're headed for Hamilton later today. Last time we were there we saw spring wildflowers blooming in November! Maybe we will see some again this year. Whatever we see, I hope to post it here at some point. :-D Have a good weekend. :-D

On the Shore

On the Shore, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. We are leaving tomorrow (Oops, it's already tomorrow--we're leaving TODAY) for Hamilton Ontario Canada. We will be back Tuesday.

Nashua Creek

Nashua Creek in Autumn, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Click image to view larger.

Watercolor Heart

Watercolor Heart, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Made with water color paints and hand-made stencils.

Red Hibiscus Painting

Red Hibiscus painting, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Click image to view larger. I smudge-painted this yesterday by hand on the computer while driving to and from the corn maze (an hour or so each way) and then fininshed it at home. It probably took a little over three hours.

Trick or Treat

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Here is my Trick or Treating picture for Illustration Friday. Ball point pen and colored pencil on computer printer paper. I hope you have a fun and spooky night!

The Crawdad Hunter, October

The Crawdad Hunter, October, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Click image to view larger.

Biker Buddy and I went to Wolcott Mill Metropark Sunday. We were surprised by a Civil War Muster (which we missed), but we did see all the people in period costume. This girl was actually collecting crawdads (crayfish). We saw her get one (I may post that picture later.)

The Fate of Dreams

The Fate of Dreams, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. A variant of a piece I created for The Unbearable Darkness of Being to go with last night's dream. Click image to view larger.

Red Hibiscus

Red Hibiscus photo, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Hmm, do I have a thing for hibiscus? :-D Well, I sure like this one! Click image to view larger.

EXTREME Speed

EXTREME Speed, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Click image to view larger. My granddaughter, Soccer Girl, loves sitting on Biker Buddy's motorcycle and pretending to be going really fast, so I made this for her. I painted it from a photo. In the photo, she was just sitting on the bike.

Eagle, Detroit Zoo

Eagle, Detroit Zoo, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. I did this photo for my Detroit Daily Photoblg, then made a quick smudge painting from it for Monday Artday's bird theme, so forgive the repetition, but I thought I'd post them both here. I may even post them to Silk Creek Portal, since that's MOSTLY a different audience. (For the overlapping people, I deeply apologize for the repetition).

Gulls

For Monday Artday bird theme. Clik image to view larger.

Scott Fountain, For Detroit Daily

Scott Fountain, For Detroit Daily, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Click image to view larger.

I did this for my Detroit Daily photoblog but I am posting it here (first) because I'm happy with it. It's not a sepia but a duotone I did with curves and masks practicing what I learned at that photoshop seminar. For those few of you who visit more than one of my blogs, I apologize for the repetition, but tomorrow when this shows up on Detroit Daily, it'll have a companion, so it won't be exactly the same.

Little by little, step by step

I've had some questions about process, so I thought I'd share these.

RainRose--OPEN

RainRose, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Smudge Paint, a combination of rough and smooth digital smudge painting. Click image to view larger.

For Illustration Friday's "Open" Theme. (Check out everyone else's entries!)

And for Bearuh and her Grandfather.

This is a brand new painting, even though it resembles another I posted recently. I started absolutely from scratch and did it all over, doing the rapid smudge and then doing the fine smudging for the water droplets. The earlier version was very small, this one is 15 x 20, though I just printed it at 8.5 x 11. The water droplets were a new challenge for me and a lot of work. I studied photos of them.