First Night Design | Sky Above, Sand Below #New!

Saatchi Art Prints Available

I created Sky Above, Sand Below with a monochromatic seaside scene from The Library of Congress of Trouville Beach in France between 1890 and 1900.

I layered, blended, and played with the image using a texture from Distressed Textures via Design Cuts.

Available at the following galleries which all deliver to the US, Australia and the UK as well other countries around the world:
Redbubble
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America [14 fulfillment centers in 5 countries]
Saatchi Art

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Bembridge Lifeboat Station #Art #New

Click to buy Bembridge Lifeboat Station framed print (Fine Art America) © Sarah Vernon

As some of you know, our summer holidays as children were spent in Bembridge on the Isle of Wight where I now live. The other week I trundled round on my mobility scooter visiting my favourite haunts. This shot of Bembridge Lifeboat Station through the trees is just where the steps lead down to the beach and to the exact spot we invariably used for swimming.

It is true the original photograph is rather appealing and some of you on Facebook have already seen it as my header but true to form, I had to play.

I used two textures from Design Cuts — a yellow-based and a green-based one. I ran the photograph through Topaz Impression three or four times to produce different effects. I chose to layer ‘Cezanne 1’ and ’Cavedweller’ (as you do) and blended them with the textures to produce a digital painting. I hope it pleases you as much as it did me in its creation.

Click to buy Bembridge Lifeboat Station tote bag (Fine Art America) © Sarah Vernon

Part of a paper read to the Ladies of Shanklin Evening Institute, October 1951.

“It is quite possible that some among you are quite ignorant of everything connected with Lifeboat work […] I have no intention of going back into remote history, or to the founding of the Institution in 1824.  Moreover, I expect you will think that I have gone back quite far enough if I commence with the time of your grandfathers, and I select that particular time because it was then that the proud reputation of the Lifeboat Institution was built up, on the great hearts and stout muscles of the grand old men who served as crews for the small pulling and sailing lifeboats stationed round our coasts.  But to really understand the heroism of these grand old fellows, and to give them full credit for their marvellous rescues, and for their self-sacrificing efforts, one must be possessed of…” Bembridge Lifeboat

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

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Harbour Parasols #Art #New

You have no idea just how peachy it has been to create a piece of art with my new vision after spending so many months re-blogging earlier pieces and promoting those which have sold. My heart and soul are leaping with joy. Just as well in view of the unconscionable state prevailing in the UK after a general election. I am reminded of my favourite quote from erstwhile US President Jimmy Carter (and there are many to choose from) which says it all when one thinks of Prime Minister Theresa May’s parentage: the daughter of a vicar no less. “If you don’t want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying you want a country based on Christian values because you don’t.’

Harbour Parasols Framed Prints © Sarah Vernon [Redbubble]

The original is a photochrom from the Library of Congress of the entrance to the harbour at St. Malo in France taken between 1890 and 1900. I duplicated the image, ran the jpg through the Topaz Impressions Abstraction II filter, which I added as a third layer before topping with one of my yellow textures. I made use of a variety of Photoshop blends such as Darken, Lighter Colour and Screen.

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

Take care and keep laughing!

“The Lookout” Framed Prints by Sarah Vernon | Redbubble

Sight update: I’m seeing the ophthalmologist at 9:30 am this morning!

Features / British Artists 30 March 2015 / The Group-Gallery of Art & Photography 13 March 2015 / Photoshop / Photograph by Fré Sonneveld at Unsplash / Textures from 2 Lil’ Owls /

DOVER BEACH — MATTHEW ARNOLD [1822-1888]

The sea is calm tonight. / The tide is full, the moon lies fair / Upon the straits; on the French coast the light / Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, / Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. / Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! / Only, from the long line of spray / Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, / Listen! you hear the grating roar / Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, / At their return, up the high strand, / Begin, and cease, and then again begin, / With tremulous cadence slow, and bring / The eternal note of sadness in. / Sophocles long ago / Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought / Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow / Of human misery; we / Find also in the sound a thought, / Hearing it by this distant northern sea. / The Sea of Faith / Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore / Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. / But now I only hear / Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, / Retreating, to the breath / Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear / And naked shingles of the world. / Ah, love, let us be true / To one another! for the world, which seems / To lie before us like a land of dreams, / So various, so beautiful, so new, / Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; / And we are here as on a darkling plain / Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, / Where ignorant armies clash by night. • Also buy this artwork on wall prints, apparel, kids clothes, and more.

Source: “The Lookout” Framed Prints by Sarah Vernon | Redbubble

Take care and keep laughing!

“By The Sea” Calendars by Sarah Vernon | Redbubble

A selection of my art with a sea theme – Sarah Vernon

Source: “By The Sea” Calendars by Sarah Vernon | Redbubble

Beached Dinghy Framed Print by Sarah Vernon #Gifts #Christmas

Beached Dinghy Framed Print by Sarah Vernon. All framed prints are professionally printed, framed, assembled, and shipped within 3 – 4 business days and delivered ready-to-hang on your wall. Choose from multiple print sizes and hundreds of frame and mat options.

Source: Beached Dinghy Framed Print by Sarah Vernon

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | A Stroll Along the Seafront #Art

A Stroll Along the Seafront © Sarah Vernon at Crated

This is a delightful vintage photograph from Wikimedia of the seafront at Southwold (not ‘Southwell’, as the site erroneously calls it) on the Suffolk coast, blended with several textures created out of my photographs. I adore the grainy, textured look. I feel it has a touch of John Atkinson Grimshaw about it…and another artist whose name escapes me. Are you reminded of any other artists? Not, I hasten to add, that I’m putting myself on that level! To enhance the whole, I did quite a deal of work on the tone, sharpness, brightness and contrast and so forth.

A Stroll Along the Seafront Throw Pillow by FirstNightDesign

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 | The Lookout #Art #Repost

FROM THE ARCHIVE 14th March 2014

Photograph by Fré Sonneveld from Unsplash. Textures 2 Lil’ Owls.

Dover Beach — Matthew Arnold [1822-1888]

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the Fr…

Source: First Night Design | The Lookout | First Night Design

First Night Design | The Life I’ve Imagined

A Cote de la Mer © Sarah Vernon @ Crated

If you read my blog regularly, you can probably guess my thoughts this Bank Holiday!

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“It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.” ― Henry James

“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas Crete anymore.” ― L. Frank Baum

“In the long run, the pessimist may be proved right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip.” — Daniel L. Reardon

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
(Little Gidding) ―  T.S. Eliot

“Sometimes losing everything is the only way to begin.”  (The Firebrand Legacy)
― T.K. Kiser

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

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | A Côté de la Mer or a Jolly Time was had by All!

FROM THE ARCHIVE March 2015.
This is an adaptation of an old photochrom postcard circa 1895 from Wikimedia showing the beach at Ostend, Belgium. I have used textures from 2 Lil’ Owls to age it further, along with a French document, also from 2 Lil’ Owls, to add ‘a little something extra’…

Source: First Night Design | A Côté de la Mer or a Jolly Time was had by All!