Painting on a Picture

I just have to say I have one of the greatest friends EVER. Approximately 6 times a year this amazing woman not only has a party but a pARTy. Not only does she take the time to clean her house and pick up some nibbles to entertain us but she also organizes an art project for us to work on. I know this takes a tremendous amount of effort as I’ve thought through hosting one myself. She’s got to come up with a project, make samples, purchase and often prepare the materials and then patiently wait for us to catch on to whatever it is she’s showing us. This month it was painting with acrylics on a digital photo. We each supplied our own digital photos that she laser printed out for us. Then following her lead we created amazing pieces. Here are the two piece I did. On the left is the photo I used, the right is what I did with it, description beneath each piece.

This lovely penstemon sits in my native prairie garden like it’s been there forever when in fact I planted it last spring. Image mounted on wood block. Negative space painted out with green, flower petals left untouched. Strip of aspen added to side as an accent piece.

Image of an out building at my CSA farm. Image also mounted to a wood block. This time I painted over the teal and coral colors to make them pop. I liked how using the same color for the flowers, window boxes and door tied it all together.

I was a little nervous about working with acrylics as it was yet another new experience for me. But it was easier than I expected. See Jen’s fab tutorial to do one of your own or to check out what the others in the group did.

100th Post Giveaway

Miss me? I decided a 100th post deserved some reflection. You know, things like do I want to continue blogging and am I achieving the goals I set out to. In the end the answer is yes and so much more. What I need to do is find a better balance between reading other blogs and keeping up on my own posts. Not to mention flickr. I’m a flickr addict and need to control that a bit more. I’ve been rather surprised at the number of friendships that have resulted from joining this online community. I absolutely love it but I need to keep a grip or I’ll loose site of my original intent of creative motivation.

So, in honor of my 100th post and decision to keep moving forward - a giveaway! It’s not my best work and not my worst but I had fun making it. Ever since I saw Kathy’s post on Art Projects for Kids I was dying to try my hand at this. I love projects that combine digital photos with other media. Who cares if the original project was meant for kids? I want to try several more of these but I’ve decided to give this one away. It’s a digital pic of a float plane getting ready to take off from Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota. I’ve altered/enhanced/added on top of and surrounding the pic with watercolor painting. I’m quite a novice when it comes to watercolor and in fact this is my first real go with watercolor pencils and sticks. So if you’re interested, leave a comment on this post by end of day Tuesday, the 24th of June and I will randomly select a winner. Your comment can be as simple as “pick me!” but what I’d really like to know is what do you want to see more of on this site? Projects, tutorials, kid stuff, recipes… you name it. Alternately, you could let me know what posts I’ve done that you like the most. I’m very intrigued. Let me know.

Still Life

Here she goes again…

Yep, I’ve joined another photo group. But this time I’m worried I’m not up for the challenge. It’s a still life week long challenge started by Martha. Critiquing is encourage, which is great but scares me a little. Also a good still life usually isn’t stumbled upon. Especially in my lego ridden, over crowded little home. As I walked around today looking for a suitable shot I realized I wasn’t at all happy with the state of my house. There wasn’t even a good clear area to create a still life. Every surface is covered in clutter and I had no desire to photograph clutter or the plethora of toys that make up much of the clutter. The macro challenge was easy because I was just focusing on the one element of a close up shot. The food group is a little harder because I have a limited subject and trust me when I say you don’t always want to see what I eat. But still life involves multiple techniques, larger areas and infinite subject matter. All making for a design traffic jam in my head.

We’ll see how it goes. I promise they won’t all be of food using my macro. This one just clicked for me. Check out the other participants photos here. There are some amazing shots.

The Food Group

Chickpea Sewing Studio has started a little foodie photo challenge that I’ve decided to participate in as an effort to get to know my new camera. We’ve really stepped it up a notch with this new camera as not only does it have a macro setting, but also super-macro and super-macro with LED. Not to mention a whole kit ‘n caboodle of other features. I thought this photo share seemed like a fun way to learn about all those new facets and improve my general photo skills as well. So without further adieu, here’s my first submission, the cranberry orange bread my son and I made for breakfast this morning from a box mix. It was quite tasty.

I probably won’t post here everyday as I can’t imagine you’d be that interested in what I eat, but you can always check out my flickr set or the photo pool for all of the participants.

Collage for the Old and the Young

I created a travel project for Seth involving sandpaper with yarn and set it out to see if he would have any interest. After feeling the sandpaper and twirling the yarn he asked for paper & scissors, which I gave him. After cutting up a few pieces he asked for crayons and green glue (his term for a glue stick). And after a couple more minutes he had whipped up this lovely collage of his own design with his own chosen materials. He even got some tape and chose what wall to put it on. I was thrilled. I was also reminded that I really needed to work on getting his art supplies where he can reach them whenever inspirations strikes. Mind you, I also have to consider how far Eleanor can reach now, which makes this a bit more complex.

Meanwhile I’ve been working on my own collages since early December. I’ve posted on the one I made my sis earlier. I was able to finish that one because I had a deadline of a trip to see her. These other two are mine. Which means there was no motivation other than my desire to complete them. Although I really wanted them done, it’s the sort of thing I push off because the kids need caring for, the dishes need washing or any number of daily chores. “I’ll do it next weekend” was always at the tip of my tongue. Not only did life get in the way but I kept making silly mistakes. I forgot to attach hardware to the back before affixing the ephemera even though Jen had warned against this in her mini tutorial. Then I used inappropriate adhesives to put the drift wood on causing it to fall off a day later. Finally, when putting it up on the wall with 3m picture hook adhesives I neglected to take into account that the hook might be longer than the actual piece. Twice. Geeze! Could anything else go wrong? Well, after about 5 different attempts at putting it on the wall I finally realized I could use 3m’s command strips. To the close observer you’ll note that means I didn’t have to attach hardware to begin with as these little strips stick to both the wall and the art piece with no need for traditional picture hanging hardware. They’re like heavy duty removable Velcro. Yes, I realize I could have just pounded a nail in the wall but as I have old plaster walls this can be a dangerous proposition. So, even though I apparently could only take crappy pictures of these pieces I just had to post that it’s finally done!!!! They are complete AND up on my wall. Hip, hip hurray!!!

Here I give you my Duluth memory collages made from dirty 2×4 scraps, digital photos printed on plain recycled paper, gel mat medium, epoxy, beach sand, stones and drift wood. Phew, that was a rough one!

A World of Color

Hmmmmm……. I went macro again. Blue was harder than I expected. Maybe the world needs a little more blue? Of course, ask a potter and they’ll say glaze in blue if you want to guarantee a sale. Then why did I have such a problem finding blue items to photograph? As I look around I see a lot of blue, but it’s not stuff that I want to photograph. Maybe I need to do something about this.

Thank you to Curious Bird for a fun colorful week.

Red vs. Pink

When it comes to red, I had a lot more success at stepping back from the macro view. Yes, the pedal was with the macro setting but none of the rest.

Pink on the other hand… Not only do I tend to not be a big fan of pink but I had a rather hard time finding interesting pink things today, especially ones that didn’t involve a close up shot.

I took that pink sidewalk shot WHILE driving. Shame on me! The rest of these shots were taken on a couple of walks. I’m glad the rain has held off but it looks like there’s no avoiding it tomorrow. Good thing I have indoor museum plans with a certain someone!

The Big Picture

Orange Wednesday is upon us and I now realize I’ve been stuck in macro mode. After creating the above mosaic this morning I drove to work and saw color themes everywhere, particularly orange. Things that normally would have looked junky had appeal. The caution tape wrapped around a tree and blowing in the wind, the sidewalk barricade surrounded by cones, the repetition of street signs and banners. It was amazing and it made me see the world in a completely different way. I’ve really enjoyed the macro challenge and want to thank Orange Flower for organizing the event, but it’s time to move on. Maybe even take a few shots from a distance.

(This isn’t a good shot, but it was orange and made me think. If only I had extra time this morning to get out of the car and properly shoot this color coordinated semi.)

Photography Addiction

Well, it’s official. I have a photography addiction. Similar to Jennifer I’m really very sad to see Orange Flower’s 30 Day Macro Challenge come to an end. I haven’t been posting daily at this site, but you can see my photo set here or those of other challenge participants here. I think I might be heading into withdrawal even before it is officially over tomorrow. How sad is that? But I do believe it really has improved my photography skills.

So what do I do? I enter another little online photo project - Curious Bird’s Color Week. Well, I missed day one so I’m posting Green Monday here with Yellow Tuesday. It’s all really silly but I enjoy these things.

Notes on green photos (clockwise from top left) - morning frost on a small rhubarb leaf; the front hose I left out all winter, will it still work?; doesn’t everyone have a green soccer ball?; a branch of new leaves on our choke cherry tree in the front yard - I worked on this one for at least 5 minutes before I realized my macro feature wasn’t selected (apparently I haven’t learned as much as I like to think). We have no shortage of green in this household between the green obsessed preschooler and the foliage unfolding outside, so this one was easy.

Yellow on the other hand….. (again clockwise from top left) - Duplos; Mozart music cube (I love this thing); extension cords; rain boots that are too big for Eleanor but too small for Seth. I could not find a single thing that wasn’t made of plastic or rubber. Apparently it is an unnatural color in my house.

Altered photos

OK, I admit it. I can get completely carried away with techno geeky stuff. It’s all Martha’s fault that I just spent at least the last hour creating the amusing little things. Check out her lovely creation that got me going in the first place. But really, come on, how fun are these things?

See a couple more of my creations or try some of your own.