Essence Graphic Design and Photography

Some fun graphic art pieces designed to group together.....

2012-02-05T19:09:00.000-08:00

I have been working on a few pieces that I designed to hang together in groups! They add a nice vintage touch to any room or office! These prints were created from some hand painted vintage wall paper images, then I took pictures, and I live traced them to black and white, deleted the white until I got a nice black image, stamp to go over the vintage wallpapers. Like I said, imagine them hanging together in groups! They are very colorful, and interesting to look at! You can find these prints in my etsy shop! :)

I designed around 100 stamps or overlays! I can put any overlay over any background. These are just a few samples of what different ones look like over different backgrounds!

Kiwanis Park

2011-06-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

There is a beautiful little park in Pleasant Grove Utah. It is called Kiwanis Park. A friend showed me where it was because I love to find different places to take my kids hiking in the summer time! I started to research Kiwanis Park, and found some history about it that was quite interesting. It is said to be haunted. I guess in 1849 there was a battle between the pioneers and the indians and many people were killed. It use to be called Battle Creek. I was very curious, for I'm very interested in such things. I've had weird things happen to me in the past where I've felt different energies in different places I've gone to. I had to check this out. Not only to satisfy my curiosity but to see the famous Kiwanis Falls! I love natural waterfalls, and about a mile up a little shale rock trail along a cute little creek, we found the beautiful waterfall. Here are a few pictures of the falls and the creek! It is said that if you go to Kiwanis Park at night time, black shadows are seen running around. I guess there is an archway of trees as well that is said to be some type of spiritual gateway, and some people have reported hearing screams, and smelling bad smells as they walk through this archway of trees. I felt a weird presence close to the pavilion, which is the other way from the trail to the waterfall. I'm not sure how to explain it. I felt a certain silence, and I think I did find the archway of trees, but right as I was about to walk through it, a snake slithered in front of me. It scared me, so I decided to not go there. The Navajo Indians are quite superstitious about snakes, but after hearing that place was haunted and seeing a snake right before the archway, I'm starting to think that maybe the Navajo's know something we don't! Anyways, here are some of the photos I took at Kiwanis Park!

As you head up the trail to the waterfall, if you glance up, there are some of the most amazing and beautiful rock sculptures up above the trail. They were very interesting to look at.

This little butterfly, or moth kept flying right in front of us, as if it were guiding us up the trail. It kept going a little ahead, then it would just land, and sit there. I was able to get a few close pictures of it!

Here it is again, I thought up against the grey shale rock it would make an interesting photo of contrast!

One again, it was there, just waiting for us.

There is a river bed up there, that you have to cross to get to the pavilion area, it was dry, but it looked really cool! There were several squirrels hiding in the rocks there, if you look at these two pictures closely, toward the bottom right, you might see one of the squirrels!

Another picture of the river bed! I'm not sure why they didn't have the water opened up to it yet, it was damned a little ways up the trail!

Part of the river. I loved the mossy rocks. So beautiful!

This would have been a great picture, if those people weren't in the left hand corner!

The bottom of the waterfall. The trail takes you to the top, but you can also go to the bottom!

The bottom of the waterfall again. It splashes ALOT down there because it's so steep coming down, and the bottom is so shallow, that it just splashes. There's water particles everywhere down there!

This is the top of the waterfall. The trail goes all the way to the top, then it keeps going, we didn't go any farther than the top of the waterfall. My kids were tired. When I don't have them with me, I want to go farther up the trail and see where it leads!

A lonely Iris. This Iris was in a grassy area close to the pavilion. It was close to here that I saw the snake!

Replacing Color in Photoshop.....

2011-06-05T23:38:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite tools in Photoshop is the "Replace Color" tool. I Love this tool because you can get a very unique look after you replace colors. I took this photo of myself with my cell phone. Then I desaturated the photo, I simply went to "Image" then "Adjustments" then "Desaturate" Click where you would like to replace the color, when it chooses your shade, then go to "Replace Color" Choose the color you want, and it will replace it with your new color, its simple and gives your piece a very unique look.

This was a magazine cover I had to design for a college class. We had to desaturate a photo, and recolor only a part of it. So I chose to add the pink and blue.

Another way to replace color in Photoshop is to desaturate your photo, and choose your paintbrush, then your color, and very carefully and precisely paint the photo, where you want the color to be. I have an example below of a family picture I took of a friends family. I changed the photo to Sepia, then I repainted their jeans blue. The trick is, you have to change the opacity on your brush. Make sure you start a brand new layer, only for your painting. Change the opacity on that particular layer.

A couple more ideas, are to desaturate the photo, and only paint the flowers. Another idea is to take a close up portrait of someone, desaturate the photo, and repaint only their eyes. Back in the olden days, you have probably noticed photos painted, or dyed. Its basically the same idea, only back then they actually dyed or painted the photo with a special transparent dye. We are lucky now because we can do it digitally! There are countless ideas for this particular tool in Photoshop! You could even take a black and white photo of an old house, and only paint the house.

New Prints..........

2011-06-05T23:22:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a few more prints for fun, check them out......

Fun Vintage Clothing Flyer.........

2011-06-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

This was a flyer I designed in InDesign. It was for a vintage clothing company!

D'Laina Jae Photography Logos..................

2011-06-05T12:25:00.000-07:00

I designed some Logos for Unmistakably D'Laina Jae Photography. She wanted red and black for the colors. I messed with a few different options. I used Illustrator and Photoshop. They are posted below.

This is a camera with wings. Something simple, for stamping her photos.

This was also designed for photo stamping.

This was designed for flyers and business cards.

This was just something fun, I messed with.

This was simple and ended up being D'Laina's favorite.

The first official day of summer........

2011-06-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

Well today is our first official day of summer break. I actually got to sleep in until almost 9:00. It was so nice. All of my kids stayed the night at friends houses except one, who had a sleep over here. My project for today is to get my house cleaned really good, make a job chart for the kids for this summer, and I am going to try and set up a work space in my new town home! I don't have as much room in this house for my craft space, but I think I have a whole wall in my room I can set up with my sewing machine, and a painting space! The house is quiet, my kids are all out playing. Its nice to have some peace. During the school year I swear I was in my minivan driving kids around to school, from school, and to friends houses the majority of my day. Maybe I will get some stuff done now. The weather is still cold and cloudy, which is really weird for this time of year in Utah! Hopefully I can start laying out in my bikini and get some sun on this white body of mine, if the sun ever comes out, that is!

One day and one hour..........

2011-05-31T17:44:00.000-07:00

My kids officially have one day and then one hour left on thursday of school. Honestly I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad about this! I have been enjoying some time alone when they are at school, but I am getting sick of trying to get them up early every morning! So I'm torn between them being home, and being at school. At least now I will have some time to take some pictures. I'm getting ready to take on the huge job of redesigning an animal sanctuary website for one of my best friends. She owns the Denkai Animal Sanctuary in Grover Colorado. I'm so excited to get her website done, but it is going to take ALOT of work! Lots of information needs to be put on it. I am going to give it more of a modern look! So that is my goal for the next few days! Wish me luck!
Denkai Animal Sanctuary

Some fun digital collages.................

2011-05-31T10:51:00.000-07:00

I have always loved Surreal Art. I remember as a child seeing a few pieces of surreal art, it was then, that I became addicted. I daydream so much, and I fantasize a lot too. Surreal Art, stimulates my imagination, and helps me think of surreal possibilities of fantasy lands only found in the human mind! I love to get lost in lands of fantasy and wonder. These are a few of my digital collages, I would love to know what you think of them. I created them in Adobe Photoshop! If you have any digital Surreal Art to share I would love to see it, so I can daydream once again, of places found only in my mind!

I call this photo collage "Castle Lovers" I used about 20 layers of different pictures. I used the transparency setting for the water!

I call this one "Imagine" It was created in photoshop with mostly the rubber stamp tool!

I call this one "Young and Old" Created in Photoshop mostly using the Transparency setting!

This was a simple Yoga Poster, I used photos from the Hubbell Telescope then I cut them out, to create the planets. I then used photo shop brushes to create the flowers and ivy.

A cold Memorial Day..........

2011-05-30T20:41:00.000-07:00

Well I was really hoping the day would finally be nice and warm so I could take my kids hiking. But it continued to rain throughout the day! Tomorrow is suppose to be 80 degrees, so I'm crossing my fingers. There are only two and a half days left of school, then my kids will be out for the summer. I am excited to sleep in, and enjoy my summer. I didn't have the time yesterday to post the fall photos I took of my kids, so I am going to post them now! We actually found a little spot right off the road, with greenery and fall leaves everywhere. It also had a cute little bridge. It was a fun spot to take pictures.

Thanksgiving Point Gardens

2011-05-29T18:57:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite places to take photographs is at Thanksgiving Point Gardens in Lehi, Utah. Thanksgiving Point has forever changing gardens throughout the spring and summer months. They have different themed gardens on I believe its 40 acres of land. Here are some photos I took there of the gardens architectural land marks. I took so many photos its hard to know which ones to post, so hopefully I won't bore anyone with my ramblings! I am adding the colored version as well as the black and white version. Its interesting how color can affect the whole artistry of the photograph.

I added the colored photographs as well as their black and white version. Its just interesting to see the artistic differences in color verses black and white photography.

Yellow Stone Fine Art Photography

2011-05-29T18:41:00.000-07:00

Yellow Stone is so beautiful. I sure enjoy taking pictures of nature. We went to Yellow Stone about two years ago. I couldn't believe how cold it was there in July! But it was beautiful. The following are photos I took there. You can purchase 8 by 10 photos in my Etsy shop!

This was one of what everyone kept calling a "HOT POT" I could not believe all the natural colors that these hot pots created. I felt like I was in a lost wonderland of weird things, and bright colors!

This is one of my favorites. The natural colors in this photograph are amazing. You can literally see every color of the rainbow in this hot pot. The colors are so vibrant and beautiful. The sky was very cloudy that day. You can see reflections of the clouds and the trees if you look closely, in this photo.

The colors in this hot pot were so bright and vibrant. I could not believe how beautiful the colors were. You can see the reflections of the clouds in this photo as well. Its amazing how abstract nature can be.

They called this the Grand Canyon of Yellow Stone. It was truly amazing. And the name Yellow Stone actually came from this canyon. Notice how the stone is Yellow!

Waiting for this rain to stop.........

2011-05-29T16:31:00.000-07:00

I swear its been raining now for 2 weeks straight. I am so excited for the rain to stop and the sun to come out. My kids have only 3 days of school left. It will be nice not having to wake up early every day to take them to school.
I have been getting the itch to start making some things again. I use to make primitive dolls, candles, and all kinds of stuff before I decided to go back to college again. Now that I'm done with school and I have finally graduated with my Associate degree in Graphic and Web Design, I need to find a job. I would much rather work for myself. I have an Etsy shop with some of my designs and some of my photography work. We will see how that goes. I have some ideas, on a bunch of things I want to make! Now if I can find the time to do it!