First Night Design | Parrot Fashion #Art

Parrot Fashion Framed Print © Sarah Vernon – Buy from Crated

I’ve been reading up about the different red-headed parrots, of which this is one, but I can’t begin to tell you which. The name on the original print from the Biodiversity Heritage Library that I have used, ‘platycercus’, seems to be a very general term, hence the confusion. I have combined it with several textures of my own.

Didn’t you always know that parrots were extremely intelligent? I give you this excerpt from Creation.com:

[…] researchers have shown what many parrot owners have known or suspected—that parrots can use individual words in appropriate situations. For example, studies by Brandeis University (USA) researcher Dr Irene Pepperberg on an African Grey parrot named “Alex” showed that these birds have an impressive intelligence—about the same as a five-year-old child. When Pepperberg’s research subjects spoke English, it was not mere “parrot fashion”. She said, “If I ask Alex … how many keys; he’ll tell me ‘two’. If I ask him what colour, he’ll say ‘green’ and if I ask him what shape, he’ll say ‘three-quarter’.” He was able to correctly identify 100 objects, do simple addition and identify seven colours, just as children do.

The article goes on to say that parrots can also behave like five-year-old children in deliberately choosing not to give the right answer even though they know it full well. Wouldn’t you just know it!

Parrot Fashion 4.25×5.5 Paper Invitation Card

Parrot Fashion Laptop Skin © Sarah Vernon – Buy from Redbubble

• The World Parrot Trust
  This Parrot Has The Most Hilariously Evil Laugh. Soon He Will Take Over The World.

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

Take care and keep laughing!

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First Night Design | A Cherub is as a Cherub Does! #Christmas

A Cherub, Detail of the Sistine Madonna – Raphael Greeting Cards

What could be more restorative when I’ve been feeling rather peevish this week than to learn that I’ve sold 50 greeting cards of this detail of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna! Well, it sure bucked my spirits up considerably.

And I’ve just created my first Christmas stocking with the same image.

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Hummingbird Tune

FROM THE ARCHIVE 23 July 2014

First Night Design

Hummingbird Tune @ First Night Design

Inspired by the exquisite paintings of Janet Weight Reed, whose running motif is the hummingbird, I have used the same background as in Seagull Sonata to showcase this rather splendid hummingbird (Mdf on Wikimedia Commons).

Related

• The Hummingbird Society

Take care and keep laughing!

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First Night Design | Seagull Sonata

FROM THE ARCHIVE 21 July 2014

First Night Design

Seagull Sonata © First Night Design

I created Seagull Sonata with a photograph from Wikimedia and applied several textures, including one by Kerstin Frank, to produce a digital watercolour.

Hark to the whimper of the seagull.
He weeps because he’s not an ea-gull.
Suppose you were, you silly seagull.
Could you explain it to your she-gull?

Ogden Nash

Take care and keep laughing!

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First Night Design | Angel Love #Christmas #Art

Angel Love © Sarah Vernon – Greeting Card Universe

I know, I know — the last thing you want to think about is Christmas, especially when we still have Halloween and Thanksgiving to come but what’s a girl to do when she hasn’t planned any other posts and she’s just sold a couple of these greeting cards? Don’t answer that!

Angel Love is a reworking of William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s Song of the Angels and has proved surprisingly popular over the years (surprising to me, anyway). The background texture is from a scanned wrapping paper bought at the turn of the century. The gold-stamped Christmas greeting is exactly that — hand-stamped from a time when my fingers allowed me to do hand-made cards, and scanned for the purposes of digital art.

Available at the following galleries:
Greeting Card Universe
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Wings over the World

The pleasure of creation is infinite and Wings over the World was immensely enjoyable to do.

Using Photoshop, I began with a coastal scene from Unsplash.com, a good site for free images.

I overlaid this with another Unsplash photograph by  Oliver Berghold  of seagulls, which I set to the ‘Hard Light’ blend mode.

I followed with a texture from 2 Lil’ Owls in ‘Multiply’ mode at 82%.

The next stage was selecting only the seagulls from that photograph and making these into a separate layer to go over the texture. This I put in ‘Multiply’ mode at 61%.

The final touch was a Kim Klassen texture in ‘Colour Burn’ mode.

The resulting image is below. I’m rather fond of it. I hope you are too.

Wings over the World © Sarah Vernon. Available on cards, posters and wrapped canvas.

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

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Redbubble Tote Bags Rock!

If you’re like me, you will feel that certain art looks a great deal better on products like tote bags if the image covers the whole area. Certain types of graphic design, — line drawings, quotes, and so forth — look great on any type, but if the area is limited, as it is at Zazzle, you will feel constantly dissatisfied with the effect. In this respect, Redbubble wins hands down, for my money!

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Hummingbird Tune

Hummingbird Tune @ First Night Design

Inspired by the exquisite paintings of Janet Weight Reed, whose running motif is the hummingbird, I have used the same background as in Seagull Sonata to showcase this rather splendid hummingbird (Mdf on Wikimedia Commons).

Related

• The Hummingbird Society

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Seagull Sonata

Seagull Sonata © First Night Design

I created Seagull Sonata with a photograph from Wikimedia and applied several textures, including one by Kerstin Frank, to produce a digital watercolour.

Hark to the whimper of the seagull.
He weeps because he’s not an ea-gull.
Suppose you were, you silly seagull.
Could you explain it to your she-gull?

Ogden Nash

Take care and keep laughing!