Youthful Exuberance

My niece Kaitlin and her husband Victor went to the Navy Ball last evening in Oceanside, where Victor is currently stationed with the Navy.  Kait shared a few photo's with me this morning, a fun photo of her and Victor making fish faces and a professional photo that was taken at the ball.

I did apologize to kait that I can't leave a perfectly beautiful photograph alone . . . if it's digital, I'm going to play with it!

The professional photo was taken with the American flag on one side and the Navy flag (?) on the other, but I decided they should have a star spangled banner for a star spangled evening . . . and of course, I put their portrait through several art filters . . . not that I could add anything to such a handsome couple!

Kaitlin and Victor/October 2011

I couldn't even leave the "fish-face" photo alone and had to play with that too! Kait and Victor are such a sweet couple who have fun being together and enjoy one another so much!  I love youthful exuberance!

Who?

Thought for the day:  As handy as apple corers can be, they don't work on crooked apples!  (how's that for philosophical?)

Love fruit . . .

In my quest for photos of pumpkins, I seemed to have stockpiled quite a few photos of various fruits so now I can play and create a few fruit renderings, using lots and lots of textures!  This is what I accomplished this evening . . . . pomegranates, my most favorite, since childhood, and messiest of fruits . . . although ripe, juicy mangoes can be pretty messy too!

Pomegranate Still Life

When I was on my quest for fruit photos, it was for apples for the "raven sculptures", but last weekend, playing around with my store of fruit photos, I created a still life of pears . . . so truly, below was my first attempt of a still life.

Pear Still Life

I have a great photo of a pumpkin and pumpkin meat with seeds, I'll see what I can accomplish with that later!

Tonight I spent part of the evening with my sister and her little 9 month old granddaughter;  Sierra was born at 27 weeks, and I give thanks that she is a healthy, whole and beautiful little girl and that she is such an integral part of my sister's life.

Thought for the day:  There is always, always, something to be thankful for!

Enhancements . . .

I'm back playing with textures, and I continue to be amazed how significantly they can change a photo, collage, whatever you put over or under various layers, changing the blending mode and reducing or strengthening the opacity.

Boot Heel (Textures by Nancy Donaldson)

The photo was taken in the boot heel of New Mexico, and is a view through a hole in an old rusty water tank. The photograph on it's own is good, but the enhancements that you can make with textures is phenomenal. (original photo below)

Thought for the day: wish my make-up was as phenomenal as textures!

Four Sisters

I enjoyed creating JC's photo rendering so much, decided to give it a second go . . . didn't quite work out the way I'd thought it would, but with time, concentration and practice, I may yet create a masterpiece!

Four Sisters (8-10, Ann Arbor)

I didn't think to smooth out our features prior to working on the photo, and the manipulation seems to accentuate what was barely there in the photo . . . but it is my three my best friends and if for no other reason, deserved posting.

Thought for the day:  its time to move on, for now, working with a different rendering style and leave the portrait masterpiece for another day!

Back at the Ranch

Still fixating about the calves that didn't turn out as anticipated, so decided to try one of Joel's grandkids. 

JC is now "7 going on 8", and this photo was taken when he was "5 going on 6", at the family branding where he rode with his granddad, dad, uncles, cousins and friends.  That meant riding up to the north pasture (very, very early) to round up the steers and calves, and bringing them down to the pens for branding.

JC Carson

JC is a fantastic horseman, and I am so impressed with him and his riding.  This spring I was watching JC ride across the south pasture, and he "rides like the wind"; he is so "one" with his horse, has no fear, and is a sight to admire and behold. 

JC is learning the art of "cutting" (cutting calves out of the herd), which you can see in his pose.  One hand holds the horn of the saddle, while the other hand holds the reins; a posture you take to  preempt a calf (you have to be ready to move really quickly) from returning to the herd. His big plans this summer are to compete in cutting events next year.  The New Mexico Cutting Horse Association does not sponsor children's events, so JC will compete with teenagers and adults from several western states.

The digital experiment is my "attempt" at a Delacroix inspired portrait.  Doesn't quite match up to the master, but I did like the results, or maybe because it was a horrible photograph of JC, and because I enjoy him so much, I wanted a "Canon moment".

Thought for the day; I want to ride like JC when I grow up!

Collage Art?

I joined a group called CollageCats after seeing that a couple of members from a digital group I belong to were members.  It wasn't until after I joined the group, that I realized that it isn't really a digital group, but rather for paperart, painting, you know, the stuff you can touch!

After a few days thinking about it, having once dabbled in paperarts, and loving collage, I decided to push my digital art in a different direction and try my hand at "collage style" digiart!  Pretty two dimensional, not bad, but most importantly, I enjoyed doing it!

Fearless

Today, while cleaning out what I call my "digidownloads" file, I came across some vintage illustrations that have been on my computer for a few years; inspiration hit and then I really did have some fun!

Chiquita Bonita

OH, almost forgot, also found another illustration that I felt belonged in an autumn themed piece.

Ethereal Autumn

My thoughts today (and for the past few weeks) has been about how old my dog is getting!  She once had a little black face and body with white markings on her feet and chest; now her face is white, her body is greying, she has a hard time with her hips, can barely see or hear, and her allergies are so bad that she's drugged out on antihistamines all the time.  She was 14 years old in September.

I give thanks that today was a beautiful day, not exciting, but definitely a good day; Sunday, a day of rest.  

Definitley Autumn and not Winter

About 10 days ago they predicted the temperature at night would be in the low 30's, so I spent a day bringing in the plants that I winter in the house, dug out an asparagus plant that I'd promised a friend, and unhooked my hoses; ran out with my Xoom and took some final photographs of the garden.  While the temperatures were cold, we never got below 32 degrees.  A few plants look a little beat up, but nothing died, except for the few that may have died because it'd been 2 weeks since I'd watered!

All those beautiful plants that gave me such pleasure during the summer; I just couldn't stand it, so spent most of the day watering and deadheading (even mowed and watered the lawn) so that they could spend the last few weeks of autumn enjoying the sun and cooler temperatures and die not because of lack of care, but because of nature.

Being the queen of distraction, during the first round of the patio with the hose, I noticed the sun shinning through the leaves of the apricot tree on one cluster of yellow leaves, definitely a Canon moment!

Apricot Leaves

I also photographed a leaf that had landed on my succulents (and a few others, just haven't played with them yet).

Hens & Chickens

It could be called multitasking, I kinda think of it as being easily distracted, but while the sprinklers were running and before the deadheading (with the alarm set so I wouldn't forget that I was watering) I played with textures and clipping masks and kind of like the results.

I find that I ramble, but I want to quickly get back to the photo's with taken with the Xoom.  I chose the Motorola tablet over the iPad for my own weird reasons, but I'm pleased with the Xoom.  I was disappointed that Android does not seem to have the graphic addons that Apple does; but I kept checking, and had been thinking that I'd buy the iPhone when it is time to renew my mobile contract. THEN all of a sudden I found that Android now has a mobile photoshop app and Motorola will be introducing their new Droid next week, which is as seamless as the iPhone. 

Anyway, having been envying everyone who is into  iPhone/iPad photography, I was pleased with the photo's that I took with the Xoom, and the photoshop app that I was able to apply tho them.

A Series/The Last Vestiges of Summer