The Yellow Lighthouse

The Yellow Lighthouse, by Mary Stebbins. Digitally altered photo-composit Smudge painting. This scene was made by combining pieces of photos and smudging them in photoshop--it does not exist as seen here in the phenomenal world.

Still life with Serving platter and Two Bottles of Wine

Still life with Serving platter and Two Bottles of Wine, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. From the restaurant at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. (Click image to view larger.)

Digital Smudge Painting of Biker Buddy

Digital Rough Smudge Painting of Biker Buddy, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. I made this from a freehand sketch of BB in Ammon's Mole.

Underground Chess

Underground Chess, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. I hope you're having a great weekend.

Click image to view larger. View an altered detail here. This is for Monday Artday "Underground" challenge. It is an illustration for a children's story.

Geraldine, 1967, and blog awards

Geraldine, 1967, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. This is another illustration
of Geraldine for my chapbpook. This is in 1967, when she was 17.

I received a blog award for my photos from Dick at Eye on Texel and I
am passing it on to three people:

Andrea at Big Gay Dragon
Anonymous at Anonymous Photos
JoAnn at JoAnn's Digital Eyes
and Mick Mather.

OK, so four, I can't count. Lots of others of you also deserve an award! If you are here reading
this, you are probably one of the winners in my book!

The Gross Pointe Light

The Grosse Pointe Light, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. This is another
digital smudge painting made from a collage of photos I took. If you
are interested in seeing the original photos, click here. Click the
images to view larger. The first one is the final or near final
"official" painting. The others are digital variations.

Transitions: October Wind

Transitions: October Wind, by Mary Stebbins Taitt, a self-portrait
when I was about 19. Transitioning into adulthood (ha ha!) in a
transitional season.

The Water's Edge

The Water's Edge, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. This is a reworking of a detail (the detail) from yesterday's smudge painting. (It is a digitally altered photograph.) You may or may not be able to see the changes, but that's in part because the pictures are so small on the blog.

Elphie

Elphie, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. My latest digital Smudge Painting. I did this on Leopard, my new Mac, but then emailed it to myself and cleaned it up a little on Tabitha, my Toshiba PC tablet laptop. I don't have a "pen" or "tablet" with the Mac and it is really hard to do details well because the mighty mouse is a little spastic.

A Painting of Rachel on Christmas

A Painting of Rachel on Christmas, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. This is a smudge painting made from a photo. The Photo came out completely black because the flash failed. I manipulated it and smudged it to get this. 26.5 x 35. Click image to view larger.

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!

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.

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.

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).

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.

Camels at the Detroit Zoo

"Afifah, have you heard the one about the blond camel with two humongous humps?"
"Fahad! Shhh! Must you be so crude?"

Camels at the Detroit Zoo, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Click image to view larger. This is another rapid smudge painting, because a week isn't long enough for me to make my usual kind of painting. For Zoo theme at Monday Artday.

Tulips in heaven

Tulips in Heaven, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. A painting from one of my mother's tulips when I was at her house after she died.