Art by Sheryl Karas
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Desert Bunch Grass Abstract
I decided to reach back into the archives of photos I took in the Arizona high desert, probably 15-16 years ago. There wasn't a lot of vegetation where we lived besides Juniper trees and little bunches of grass that waved wildly in the wind. Layered over a colorful background, Nature's work creates an interesting abstract painting effect, but this is a photographic piece with a couple of digital effects. Prints are available on Fine Art America.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Raven Dreams of a Brighter Tomorrow
I know that I improvise using this bird on a rail a lot. I relate to this bird looking out into the horizon. I want to know what he or she thinks about or dreams of flying off to do. This is multi-layer digital collage combining several images in unusual ways.
Prints and prints on various surfaces are available on FineArt America.
Monday, March 24, 2025
Bird Abstract Botanical
This is the same series as the last two posts. I used the same images I used in the first two but layered them in different ways, and then put a bird on it just for fun.
Prints and prints on various surfaces are available on Fine Art America.
Abstract Botanical
Because I use so many images layered multiple times with different layering effects, the number of potential choices I could make at times seems infinite. Often it boils down to what mood I'm in. Do I want to see something almost realistic? Something more abstract expressionist like this one? Or something in between? This piece uses the same images as the last one I posted on this blog. But in this one I was attracted to the almost chaotic but quite deliberate effects that occur when the same images are used multiple times. Deliberate in terms of making specific choices based on hunches and wanting to shift what doesn't work for me, but also with the desire to be surprised and delighted. And that's when I call it "good."
This is all done digitally but prints and prints on various surfaces are available on Fine Art America.
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Blue and Orange Flower Abstraction
I probably did 20 versions of this idea tonight, some so surreal you wouldn't recognize them as starting with the same floral subject matter. I might work up a few of those as final pieces as well. It's multiple layer photography with multiple images and patterns combined, some images used multiple times with different layer effects in Photoshop. It got crazy in my laptop art studio tonight!
Prints and prints on a variety of surfaces are available on Fine Art America.
Monday, January 6, 2025
Tree Frogs and Lilies
I'm having fun combining some of my old photos with new elements. And for some reason I want everything bright and saturated these days. That's probably been mostly true forever but especially now. I broke out of my foreboding raven stage and decided to use all the colors in my crayon box!
Prints and prints on a variety of surfaces are available on Fine Art America.
Saturday, January 4, 2025
Wipe Out
I've had a half-finished painting of this guitar on my easel for two years and another half-finished one in a different style on my table. I hit a point when I couldn't finish them because I didn't like something that I couldn't figure out how to fix. And then I became frustrated because they just looked too boring to bother fixing! But I had worked so long on these that I wouldn't give myself permission to move on to something else before I finished one.
Well, THAT was a mistake! Talk about putting a spoke in the wheel of creativity! I finally decided to play with it in Photoshop and it's not boring anymore! And I'm done. I won't be painting it so my studio is finally free again. Whew!!!
I call this "Wipe Out" because that song got stuck in my head as I was working on it. In fact, I added an ocean wave because of that in the very area that didn't work for me before. I'm good with it now. Thanks for looking!
Prints and prints on various surfaces are available on Fine Art America. I pretty partial to how it looks on acrylic.
Saturday, December 28, 2024
California Landscape
This is a digital painting derived from layered photographs and a variety of layering effects. I'm pretty sure that the photographs I used were taken, for the most part, at Upper Park in Chico, California.
Prints and prints on canvas and other surfaces are available at Fine Art America.
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
Raven On My Back Fence
Another "Raven Interlude." I'm enjoying finding out what I can do with wallpaper samples and other decorative and hand-painted papers I recently scanned into my computer. This would probably be called a digital collage. It's made with multiple layers and multiple layering effects.
You can find prints and prints on multiple surfaces on Fine Art America.
Saturday, December 21, 2024
Raven at the Beach
The "Raven Interludes" continue. This series is allowing me to explore new ways to combine digital with painting-like effects. I recently scanned a large collection of handpainted paper, wallpaper, and other decorative papers of all sorts that I have been collecting for 20-30 years. I used to use them in cut-paper quilts but now I'd like to collage them into paintings, at least digitally. This is one of my first forays into this kind of work. It's fun for me to see the handpaints in the bird's feathers and in the fence rail. The background combines multiple photographs with digital painting effects.
Prints and prints on canvas and other materials are available on Fine Art America.