At The Water’s Edge Throw Pillow for Sale by Sarah Vernon

At The Water’s Edge Throw Pillow by Sarah Vernon. Our throw pillows are made from 100% spun polyester poplin fabric and add a stylish statement to any room. Pillows are available in sizes from 14″ x 14″ up to 26″ x 26″. Each pillow is printed on both sides (same image) and includes a concealed zipper and removable insert (if selected) for easy cleaning.

Source: At The Water’s Edge Throw Pillow for Sale by Sarah Vernon

Take care and keep laughing!

Thanksgiving Hideaway Greeting Card for Sale by Sarah Vernon

Thanksgiving Hideaway Greeting Card for Sale by Sarah Vernon. Our premium-stock greeting cards are 5″ x 7″ in size and can be personalized with a custom message on the inside of the card. All cards are available for worldwide shipping and include a money-back guarantee.

Source: Thanksgiving Hideaway Greeting Card for Sale by Sarah Vernon

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Scent Of Pines Tote Bag for Sale by Sarah Vernon

Scent Of Pines Tote Bag by Sarah Vernon. The tote bag is machine washable, available in three different sizes, and includes a black strap for easy carrying on your shoulder. All totes are available for worldwide shipping and include a money-back guarantee.

Source: Scent Of Pines Tote Bag for Sale by Sarah Vernon

First Night Design | Saint-Étienne Re-imagined #Art #Repost

As you know, I can never resist altering a modern photograph in order to give it a vintage feel. The original photograph of Saint Étienne Fontaine du Square Jean Cocteau in Paris is by Daniel Vill…

Source: First Night Design | Saint-Étienne Re-imagined #Art

First Night Design | At the Water’s Edge – New #Art

At the Water’s Edge Framed Print at Fine Art America © Sarah Vernon

I confess to being inordinately pleased with how this turned out. Taking a photograph of rotting hulks on the Isle of Mull by DeFacto from Wikimedia, I gave it two coloured pencil treatments in Topaz Impressions. I inverted one of my muddy terracotta backgrounds so that it became blue. The final touch was to layer the photograph over the background in Photoshop’s Multiply mode.

All the usual products are available.

Available at the following galleries:
Redbubble
Crated
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America [14 fulfillment centers in 5 countries]
Saatchi Art

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | A Burgundy Rose in Snow #Art

Thank you all so much for commenting on my Rose in Snow post and giving me the confidence to upload the piece to my galleries. I made one change, which was to ensure the rose itself covered the whole area so that no background green is showing. I like it better this way.

A Burgundy Rose in Snow Flask by FirstNightDesign

A Burgundy Rose in Snow Throw Pillow by FirstNightDesign

A Burgundy Rose in Snow Card by FirstNightDesign

A Burgundy Rose in Snow Postage by FirstNightDesign

Available at the following galleries:
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Crated
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America [14 fulfillment centers in 5 countries]
Saatchi Art

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | The Sports Pavilion #Art

The Sports Pavilion © Sarah Vernon at Crated

The Sports Pavilion uses a photograph from a store called Clark Street Mercantile who have added what I assume to be their brochure photographs to that great free resource, Unsplash.

In the first instance I used Topaz Impressions’ chiaroscuro effect but I wanted something else. To this end I added 2LO Texture Artists 2 in the Multiply mode and enhanced the brightness and contrast. The image now appears to be a charmingly aged print of an old sports pavilion from, say, the 1920s or ’30s. Well, I like to think so!

The Sports Pavilion Tote Bags © Sarah Vernon at FAA

Available at the following galleries:
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Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America [14 fulfillment centers in 5 countries]
Saatchi Art

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Shadow Deer #Art

Shadow Deer © Sarah Vernon Greeting Cards

I was profoundly moved recently to read about the carbon ‘imprint’ of a man who had been sitting on the stone steps outside the Sumitomo bank in Hiroshima when the bomb fell at 8.15am on 6th August 1945.

The ‘shadow’ left by his body was visible for many years until time and weather all but erased it. “Receiving the rays directly, the victim must have died on the spot from massive burns. The surface of the surrounding stone steps was turned whitish by the intense heat rays. The place where the person was sitting became dark like a shadow.” Google Cultural Institute

When the new bank was built, the steps were taken to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and an etching of the ‘shadow’ was created in memory of that fateful day when so many lives were ruined or — depending on your point of view — many more were potentially saved.

Shadow Deer © Sarah Vernon – Samsung Galaxy Cases & Skins

Whether this happenstance was in my subconscious when I decided to do something with Paul Earle’s photograph of deer in Bushy Park, Hampton (near London), I cannot say. If you like to ‘read’ things into other people’s work, you might say it’s my stand against the destruction of nature and wildlife where the planet will soon be a world of just such shadows.

My tongue is slightly in my cheek because I’m always amused by the things the critics read into the work they’re discussing and the ideas they attribute to the creator. I can just imagine the said artist or writer looking down from above and pooh-poohing the symbolism being expounded. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous — I wasn’t thinking anything of the kind!”

Shadow Deer © Sarah Vernon Throw Pillows

The deer in Earle’s original photograph are already in silhouette but putting the image in Linear Burn mode over the Ancient times 20 texture by 2 Lil’ Owls has increased the effect and given the image a rich, vibrant hue that you could say portends future atomic destruction!

Shadow Deer Flasks by FirstNightDesign

Available at the following galleries:
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Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America [14 fulfillment centers in 5 countries]
Saatchi Art

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | The Chinese Vase #Art #StillLife

The Chinese Vase © Sarah Vernon

I’ve been nosing around the autochrome photographs on Wikimedia again and on this occasion I turned up the slightly-dull-but-full-of-possibility ‘Still Life with Ornate Chinese Vase’ by Frederick S Dellenbaugh, an American photographer. There’s no date attached to the image (it’s part of the Google Art Project) but autochromes were patented by the Lumière brothers in 1903 and marketed in 1907; it was the only colour process until superseded by colour film in the 1930s.

Frederick S. Dellenbaugh (American – Still Life with Ornate Chinese Vase

Although I haven’t added any painterly textures, the result of adding a texture from Kerstin Frank and another from 2 Lil’ Owls has made it look like a still life painting where the detail is immense, so great that you’re not sure whether it might not be a photograph. I’m thinking particularly of the Christmas Still Life by Eloise Harriet Standard that I put up for sale at Christmas.

Kerstin Frank

People often ask if my work is really ‘accidental’ but I can assure you it is. I didn’t start The Chinese Vase off with the idea of a ’painted’ still life. As ever, I experimented with various textures and modes (‘overlay’, ‘burn’ and so forth) until an effect grabbed my aesthetic eye.

2 Lil’ Owls

I would never have imagined the two textures above would have brought out the colour of the flowers and the brush strokes of the vase in the way they have nor, indeed, made the background recede to black as it has. It’s all very satisfying.

Available at the following galleries:
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Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America [14 fulfillment centers in 5 countries]
Saatchi Art

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Scent of Pines #Art #Gifts

Buy prints of Scent of Pines © Sarah Vernon from Crated

I have combined a beautiful landscape photograph by Ales Krivec at Unsplash with two textures from 2 Lil’ Owls, one in Photoshop’s Normal mode, the other in Linear Burn. The photo is the top layer and in Multiply mode.

© Ales Krivec

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“…freshly cut Christmas trees smelling of stars and snow and pine resin – inhale deeply and fill your soul with wintry night…”
― John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

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Scent of Pines Pack Of Gift Tags

Scent of Pines Greeting Card

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“I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer — and what trees and seasons smelled like — how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odors is very rich.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

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Scent of Pines Food Trays

Scent of Pines Bicycle Playing Cards

Available at the following galleries:
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Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America
Fine Art England
Saatchi Art

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First Night Design | Drifting Downstream #Art

Buy framed print from Crated

Original photo by Scott Webb from Unsplash lovingly blended with a texture from Kerstin Frank to create a ‘painting’.

Buy Greeting Cards from Zazzle

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“Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

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Buy the duvet from Fine Art America or Fine Art England

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“Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. – Amir”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

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Available at the following galleries:
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Crated
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America
Fine Art England
Saatchi Art

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Thanksgiving Hideaway #Art

Thanksgiving Hideaway © Sarah Vernon

Original photograph by Mr FND adapted in Photoshop for Thanksgiving with textures from 2 Lil’ Owls and Grand Hotel monogram from The Graphics Fairy.

Thanksgiving Hideaway 4.25×5.5 Paper Invitation Cards from Zazzle

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“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”
― Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

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“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”
― Jon Stewart

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Thanksgiving Hideaway Drawstring Bag © Sarah Vernon from FAA

Available at the following galleries:
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Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America
Fine Art England

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Don’t look now but here comes another Lighthouse #Art

Decaying Light © Sarah Vernon

After the success of Scorched Earth both here and in my galleries, I couldn’t resist trying the same process with the 2 Lil’ Owls texture—2LO Distressed 21—on my Chania lighthouse photograph. However, instead of Photoshop’s Overlay mode, I used Soft Light. I tweaked the tones of both the photograph and the texture so that the overall effect had more red than in Scorched Earth, or a Titian tone as I like to call it: such a lovely word.

Regular readers will know I do a lot of tweaking but I haven’t mentioned it for a while. I’m saying this just in case you experiment with the same processes I describe using similar photos or textures and discover you end up with something that doesn’t come close! For exact descriptions of what you can achieve in Photoshop, do visit Syd at DigitalLady. I don’t like to give away all my secrets!

I dedicate this post to the friends who commented on The Magic Lighthouse by saying how fond they were of lighthouses, a passion I share, as I think you may have guessed. Do visit these lovely blogs, all very different to each other. In no particular order I give you:

Beetley Pete
Yesterday After
Just Olga
Aquileana
Living with Batman

Available at the following galleries:
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Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America
Fine Art England
Saatchi Art

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Saint Étienne Re-imagined #Art

Saint-Étienne Re-imagined © Sarah Vernon

As you know, I can never resist altering a modern photograph in order to give it a vintage feel. The original photograph of Saint Étienne Fontaine du Square Jean Cocteau in Paris is by Daniel Villafruela on Wikimedia which I have blended with textures from 2 Lil’ Owls.

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“Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.”
― Jean Cocteau

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 “Be yourself. The world worships the original.”
― Jean Cocteau

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“We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like? ”
― Jean Cocteau

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Available at the following galleries:
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Crated
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America
Fine Art England
Saatchi Art

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Save the Elephant

Here’s an elephant design in place of a new computer!

Take care and keep laughing, just as I’m trying to do!

Sarah x

First Night Design

‘Another elephant?’ I hear you cry. Or even, ‘Yet another elephant?’ Yes, yet another elephant but very different from the last. One day soon, when poaching, trafficking and killing for pleasure have  been eradicated from the planet and the herds are increasing, I hope we’ll be saying the same thing with delighted relief.

Save the Elephant © First Night Design

This magnificent creature comes originally from Wikimedia, that great repository of public domain images.

Elephants [Wikimedia]

You might imagine that I added a layer of black in Photoshop to create the effect, this is not so. I duplicated the elephant to the power of four and used several of my backgrounds and textures. By playing around with blending modes, I was able to create the effect of an elephant coming out of the darkness.

I just might do something with the baby elephant next!

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