Lovin' Tuesday

Enthusiasm is the fire that makes you soar.  And today,  I have had greater enthusiasm for textures, color palettes and photo manipulation.  

I thoroughly enjoyed the photos I chose to work with.

A bit of background.  A huge bundle of drying zinnias were picked a few weeks ago.  Allowed to slightly dry and wilt, they created all new colors, mellowed from their normal vibrant hues.

They were a perfect mix for an antique statue I brought from India. It too, was worn with time and changing of seasons...paint peeling and flaking, once vibrant colors now graced with age.

Kim Klassen's Antique Overlay was perfect to create a color palette honoring the natural aging of the statue and blossoms for Leaves in Bloom.

Sarah Gardner has a wonderful collection of French inspired designs.  I used Papers 22.

Gaussian Blur, Multiply add to the soft look, like the touch of an Elder's  gentle hand.

Heart Thought: Live in the consciousness of NOW. This is no ordinary Tuesday, is it?

Linking with:

Kim Klassen Texture Tuesdays

Kent Weakley

Leaves n Bloom Studio

Sarah Gardner

Pinterest for Children"

It was a paper, scissors and glue kind of afternoon.

Left to their own imaginations, the Funny Bunnies, chatted, giggled, "clipped and glued" their way through stacks of catalogs.

When I looked intently at what they were so busy with, I realized:

Pinterest for Children

Slowly and methodically they had chosen magazine pictures that appealed to them, cut them out and glued in an "order" that only they could interpret.

I was pretty impressed!

All those catalogs that crowd the mailbox make for super  art projects.

Processed in Collage (Mac) and Seventies 35mm film .

Today I will do a cross over posting to my art blog....since it is paper arts and photography!!!

Tuesday's Forecast: Rain and iPhoneography

The Funny Bunnies and I were having a sleep over.  We were barely awakening when early dawn lightening and rain crashed down.  It rained rained rained, sometimes a soft pitter-patter followed by pelting firehoses of water. 

We glumly starred out the windows while nibbling on breakfast....

Rain rain go away, Funny Bunnies want to play.

Since the rain didn't cooperate, we found old rain boots, too-small  rain jackets, and one umbrella.

Now we could shriek....

Rain rain please stay we're coming out to play!!!

Romp, Dance, Twirl, Lick the Drops, Soppy wet hair curling on pink cheeks, Boots filling with sheeting rain, Umbrella whipping into a flying saucer!!

ProCreate with Brushes  (sorry can't find link)

Pro Create, Rainy Dazy, Snapseed

ProCreate, Artista Oil , Snapseed

Pictures taken with i Phone. Processed on apps. See links.

 Linking to: Color Me Weekly.   

Dream-it,  Cotton Candy, Warming Filter, Gaussian Blur

Linking to Texture Tuesdays.

My favorite photo of our Rainy Day Weekend.

Linking to Kent Weakley,   Sweet Shot Tuesday

Finding the pink umbrella really set the color mood for today's sharings.  

Heart Thought:  I can never feel "blue" when I am seeing "pink."

Tuesday Link In's

 Tuesdays come around fast.

Today's link ups are going to take a different direction.

I am getting more and more involved with my i Phone and all the bazillion of apps out there, enticing me like a day at the beach.

I thought I would play around with a few apps and see if I could create a color palette without PHOTOSHOP!!!

See what you think.  The apps I used are listed just in case you are intrigued enough to try for yourself.

Learning by experimenting, is the name of the game when exploring the world of  apps.  No fancy tutorials.  I used Color Scheme to create the palette in above photo. But you might notice I couldn't get rid of the two icons at the bottom.

I rescued this annoying problem by applying  Glaze.

A rather fun app, even with icons still edging their way in.

Another application of Glaze and the icons are almost gone.

I have gone back to Color Scheme a couple of times and haven't eliminated the problem.

On to another approach with a new photo and a fairly sophisticated drawing app, Pro Create.  Here I used "brushes" to create the color swatches.  

Kim's Textures was also a lot of fun. Her theme was Looking Down. I wanted to spice up my photo a bit by focusing on the water, pebbles and foam.

This is the original photograph of a granddaughter and her friend, soaking their cute toes in a park stream.  

I really like the colors in the foam, pebbles and clear water.

Textures used:  Beach Sand (multiply), Celery (color dodge)

Celery repeat (darken.)

Don't you love those two toned nail colors?  The turquoise polish empathizes the foam.  Pretty cool!

Today's exercises are linked to:

Tuesday Textures

Color Me Weekly

Sweet Shot Tuesday  

(see side bars)

The Worth of a Photograph

If I added up the hours spent learning how to work my Big Mama camera.

If I added up the hours of learning to edit, crop, embellish.

If I added up the hours to work through the likes of i Photo, Photoshop and Lightroom.

If I added up the hours of reviewing and relearning.....

I have to ask myself WHY DO I TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS?

This answer I know:

To revisit.

To remember.

To record.

To improve.

To share.

When I paint a painting, there is something substantive, something  tangible to hang on a wall. 

When I take thousands of photos, a few are shared, but mostly they are relegated to discs and hard drives. 

So it still comes back to the same reasons.

To revisit, remember, record, share.

Each single shot provides immediate recall. 
I know where I was. I know how I felt. I can remember colors, smells,  human beings living their lives, the lay of the land, the color of the ocean.

I want to remember the day the granddaughters put makeup on their good natured moms.

I want to remember the chubby pink fingers of our newest grandchild.

I want to remember the hopscotch run of an enthusiastic three year old with scabs on his knees.

I want to remember the waves  swirling around sandcastles patiently built, immediately dissolved.
I want to remember the women, working the tea plantations in the mid day sun, backs bent with heaviness. 

I want to remember the bountiful tender mercies in my life.

When I  grow too old to take the photographs, I will have these reminders, memories, of what tiny events have made up my existence.

And so I continue learning the new, relearning the old, shouldering heavy camera equipment,

wishing people would wait for me a bit longer while I take another shot

being irritated with myself as I hesitated a fraction of a second too long before clicking the shutter button.

This is a part of my life path I  find JOY in.

Heart Thought: and what about YOU?  

Sharing with Rebecca Brooks and her wonderful contributors at Postcards from Paradise.

Fun Tuesdays

  There are so many fun places to post photos on Tuesdays.  Often I would choose one site a week...well almost a week.  Then I noticed on other blogs that they combined various sites,  giving credit at the end of their post.  Brilliant!!! The best of all worlds.

It is taking me a long time to wrap my brain around creating color palettes. Should it really be that difficult? There are so many possible ways to do it?  

So today, using  Kim Klassen's storybook template, I gave it my best shot of a charming home I walked by outside of Aix, Provence.

This photo I have used as inspiration for at least three paintings.  This is the latest one.

Another palette style using a Kim Klassen texture.  On second thought, I wish I had brought the texture all the way to cover the hearts.  Another time I will give that a try.

There is so much more to photography than taking photos....it is the first step on a brilliant path of learning and creating.

Linking today with:

                                      Kent Weakley

Art Joy

The heat and high humidity abated a bit yesterday. Good time to have two of the Funny Bunnies

come over to paint.

Last year we created a "Kid's Art Studio" in a portion of our garage. This space is super for making BIG MESSES. The only drawback is the weather....it can be too hot or too cold.....but some days are just right like today.

So out with the tubs of tempera paints with color matched brushes. (huge helps for little ones)
Rolls of butcher paper.  Old magazines and glue sticks.

It truly is a JOY to let the little ones totally explore with paint: paint ANYTHING they want in ANY manner; brushes, fingers, hands, q-tips, sticks and straws....and best of all,  have no TIME LIMIT.

They were pretty serious but silly Funny Bunnies and knew EXACTLY WHAT they WANTED to paint!!!!

What no pink and purple?  Love her chocolate covered strawberries.  She also discovered that adding the white to the dark blue made her favorite shade of blue!!!

After painting about ten dinosaurs complete with tiny black bats, this happy guy set out to cut, paste, collage, tying it all together with a thick black line.

Over 20 paintings were happily created.  And more would have been produced, but the rain was making for mighty heavy humidity, and it was time to go in and have chocolate mint scoops of ice cream, topped with more chocolate chips.  

We won't be telling mom about that little treat!!!!

To share the Joy with others, visit Meri at her blog.

Heart Thought:  if I am ever a bit low, painting with children just perks me right up.  Everything is sunny and glorious when they have the freedom to explore their creativity!!!  Don't we just love that kind of freedom when it comes our way?