Competition Theme: Vintage
Prizes were:
1st Place: $100 voucher to the Digital Store or Artymate with the Big Value Pack (your choice)
Runners Up: $50 voucher to the Digital Store or Artymate (your choice)
Watch the Live Judging (replay) here:
Rules:
- 1 Entry per person
- The main subject must be your own photograph, other elements may be stock
- Name your file before uploading: FIRSTNAME_LASTNAME
- Entries close 28th Feb, 2018
VIEW THE ENTRIES
Our guest judge for this theme is the very creative and talented, Kelly McDonald from Garden Babies and Fairy Art!
Kelly McDonald has always had a love of faeries and magic lore. Growing up she would scribble away at creating her own stories and dreamed of being a fairy when she grew up. She did grow up, and began training to be a kinder teacher. While doing this she had an active interest in art, and while creating some nice piece over the years, it never came naturally and creating what she saw in her head onto paper just never really happened.
Some of Kelly’s beautiful vintage style imagery to inspire you:
At 21 years she opened her own childcare center. As she had lost a very dear little soul in her early career as a nanny, pictures were mighty important. While running her center Kelly developed a liking for photography and began to learn the craft. Eventually she began to sketch the children from these pictures and sold them back to the parents at $20 a pop.
At 23 she walked in to a fairy shop and put her name down as a facepainter. Half an hour later she left with a job at being an actual fairy!
When the shop owners decided to close up, Kelly decided to mix her teaching and her fairy magic together. Faerie Crystall began performing at kindergartens, birthday parties and corporate events telling stories and making magic ( she trained herself to be a magician too to add more delight to little faces) throughout her 20,s 30,s through 2 pregnancies and cough cough… well into her 40’s.
It was in her 30’s that she discovered Anne Geddes. When her baby boy was born she began experimenting with photoshop, popping him in plants and flowers. This was saying something as she knew absolutely nothing about technology or computers. ( still doesnt know much) friends began to request pieces and before she knew it, she was in business.
Kelly and her little family then moved to Germany for her husbands work. Things were a little different and it wasnt so possible to run her little photography business, so Kelly began taking photo’s of stock, flowers, mushrooms, castles, and then getting friends to send her pictures. Garden Babies was born.
“It was difficult as i was getting all kinds of pictures sent to me, different quality, different megapixels, tones, everything, and I had to make an image up that looked real. It really taught me the basics of how to edit, all by trial and error. It has only been recently that i have taken a peek at a few tutorials on things, but i get bored watching, or i find them too convoluted, so i still prefer to learn by my own mistakes.”
Slowly her following grew, and she was being commissioned from people all over the world. 3 years later she returned to Melbourne, and was gifted a pregnancy at the ripe old age of 40.
“We had just bought a house and I had to go back to work, but now had my little Molly to take care of, and i couldn’t see the point in going to work looking after other peoples children while paying someone to look after mine. I thought about what i could do. I said to my hubby, I have this idea, I just don’t know if anyone will like it. They seemed to! So I went and did a diploma in photography to feel more qualified lol.”
Just entering her 4th year, Kelly and Garden Babies Fairy Art have awards for both her art, and her business being named Ausmumpreneur in service in her first year. Recently she has moved her business from her home into a little studio in Seaford.
“It is great having it all up at once and not having to reset between scenes.”
Kelly has visitors from all over the world, and specialises in faerie, whimsy and is very sought after for her unique vintage pieces.
Visit Kelly’s Website:
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