Day 30_Temporary

Sadly, this is the last day of the Artful Adventures Stroll Challenge. It has been a fun, yet temporary, journey.

There are many options for the word Temporary in my hood.
There is road work going on with temporary road closures, lane changes, barriers, signs warning of said road work and on and on.
It is spring and there are birds nesting which will empty when their fledglings learn to fly.
Wildflowers blooming that will seed and disappear until next year.

Yesterday, there was fog, today it is gone.
Thus, I chose the ubiquitous subject...weather...because it can change faster than any of the above.
Spring in Texas is more often than not a harbinger of violent weather. It usually comes in fast and hard then it's gone.

I wasn't sure this tree was going to make it. That is rain diffusing the view and wind that is blowing the tree off its vertical center.

When the rain and wind cleared away it left behind this:

If it rains enough and fast enough and hard enough, the water runs down the hill, under the bridge in our drive and temporarily overflows the wash that goes across the front of our property.

But, it softens the ground and attracts birds of many kinds because of these:

Today, the sun is shining, the air cool and the water gone along with the Yellow Crowned Night Herons. The surviving crawdads have gone back into their holes.

Day 29_Geometric

Maybe this is cheating for today's theme, but I use this technique often to help choose color schemes that I am certain will match my images. How can it not? The colored squares make up the image.

Digital images are made up of pixels; small, square, one color.
When viewed normally, the pixels create a cohesive, whole image; you do not see a bunch of geometric squares.

However, you can take any digital image, including scans of images, and enlarge it in photo editing software until you can see the individual colored squares.

I enlarged this image to 3200% and chose just a small selection of pixels to demonstrate the geometric shape...square.

Day 28_View

Wow! There are so many views from which I could choose.

This is the pasture across the street that we see every morning on our walk.

These are some of own chickens in their yard.

I am beginning to see how I can break these apart and create something.

Day 27_Growth

Defined by a dictionary:
Seed: the small, hard part of a plant from which a new plant grows.
Growth: a stage in the process of growing.

I was cooking supper one evening and cut open a beautiful orange pepper. The seeds in this one were particulary large and interesting. Nothing like I had seen before. I grabbed my phone and took a picture.

Had the growth process of this pepper not been ended by harvesting, the seeds would produce a new plant that would grow and produce more lovely orange peppers.

BTW, the dish with the pepper in it was delish!

Day 25_Light

Observing light, or more specifically, observing how different lighting conditions can impact an object, is one of my very favorite things to do.

I love backlighting. It can often turn the most mundane objects into something beautiful.

I also sometimes like to process my images in such a way as to exaggerate the existing light.

Day 24_Boundary

This is the boundary between the yard we maintain and our wildlife habitat or wildlife park as my Granddaughters call it. The entrance is just down from this sign.

Day 22 - Old

I found these and so much more wonderfully old stuff down the road a piece from the town that is closest to us. Of course, the town itself is nearly 10 miles away, but we do consider it part of our hood as we have to travel there to get most everything. On this excursion around my hood, I found old farm equipment, tractors, a graveyard and an old convenience/feed store, the LPMX...the Lonesome Prairie Mercantile Exchange. It was one of the few things that was already here when we moved here, but I absolutely love these.

Day 21_Loud

We arrived early and was able to sit right at the very front along the fence. The burners are extremely loud.
I loved all the color and patterns on the many ballons that were there.

These were taken within a short traveling distance to our hood, but we had one fly right over our house once. I think it was having trouble because it came over very low and landed in the pasture across the street. It sounded like I would imagine a fire breathing dragon would sound. Scared the bejeebies out of us. We didn't know what it was at first nor did we know which way to run!

Day 20-Progress

I wasn't sure if I would make this one. No ideas and a holiday weekend.
Then, lo and behold, I was bagging the corn on the cob to go in the sous vide bath and what did I see?
PROGRESS!
It even says Progress under the green lights although you can't see it too well in the small picture.

Day 19 - Tiny

This is a baby Texas Toad. That is a 1" diameter, curled up water hose that it is sitting on.
The image was taken with a macro lens. I love the gold and black pattern around its eye and the texture of its skin. There is no way you can see all this detail with the naked eye.

Here is one in my Granddaughter's hand.

Day 18_Contrast

The new is encroaching into the old. This is one of several barns on a farm that is catty-cornered across the main road from our house. The concrete pillars in the background support the automatic toll tag reader on the newly constructed toll road.

You can not see the toll road from our home, but we do see it on our morning walk.

This is only a small vignette of an absolutely beautiful horse farm. If you look closely, you can see the cars traveling the toll road.

I have mixed emotions about the road. Since we can't see it, I can pretend it is not there. But, it makes getting to often frequented places much faster. However, I fear all the beautiful pasture land that it runs through will soon be developed. Having never lived in a town or city except for one short period of time, I'm not sure if I am ready for all the headaches congestion can bring.

Day 17_Text

I don't know if this would be considered text, a sign or what, but this is a food truck. I do like the combination of the different fonts, sizes and colors of the text. Again not in my hood but in my town. There is a food truck park and it was such a pretty day we had to eat there.

This is a totally contrived image. I did take the photo of the magazine and of the magnifying glass....in my hood. Then I digitally created this image.

Day 16_Reflections

This is not in our immediate neighborhood. I took it on the way to town. We walk 3 miles every morning, weather permitting, and there just haven't been any reflections that tripped my trigger.

This one was definitely taken in our hood, in my game room. I spray painted one side of a piece of table glass with black matt spray paint. I broke the egg directly onto the unpainted side of the glass and the glass reflected the egg. The red color is from a red laser pointer. It is not, however, a recent one.

Day 15_Cracks

In this case it is a crack with a few scratches thrown in for good measure. Hubby wanted to know if I was taking this for warranty purposes. I didn't tell him it was supposed to be an art inspiration.

Day 14_Pattern

I believe I am beginning to see a pattern in my choice of images. I never noticed it before, but I am seeing a lot of rust (which I love) and shades of blue.

Day 13_Night

Lightning is not always detrimental to shooting photos. IF you are in a safe place!! This was taken from my front porch...waaaay back on my front porch with a telephoto lens. It is not the image that I had envisioned when thinking about a night image, but when all else fails...best laid plans...and all that.

The thing about photographing light...you don't aways get what you expect. I love the magenta and blue in the above photo and would use it as a color combination in my artwork. My eyes did not see that. I'm told it is because our eyes and brain work together to translate light into "Memory Colors". Memory Colors are colors that you have seen so often that your brain remembers them and automatically corrects what you see...like auto correct for your eyes rather than for your typed words.

My eyes did not see the colors of this image, either. My camera did and I am glad that it did.

I am learning to watch out for color auto correct just as I have to do for word auto correct.

Day 12_Trash

It has been raining but mostly lightning so it wasn't possible to get out and find some trash. It's not usually hard to do because people like to come to the country and dump things along side the road...furniture, mattresses, animals (that's how we got several of our wonderful pets), appliances, all kinds of things.
I used an older image for this one. I found it on the backroad going into town.

Day 11_Sign

A little incongruous don't 'ya think.
This was not taken in my immediate hood. Couldn't find a sign. Not one that interested me, anyway. It was taken at a public park.

Here is one that I created digitally from a rooster image that I drew then painted with alcohol inks. No such place exists that I am aware of.

Artful Adventure Day 10_Wildlife

We couldn't figure out why she was hanging so close to the house. Normally, they stay in the marshy, wooded area of our "wildlife" park. (Long Story)

Not exactly the best of photos because I couldn't get closer, but it does explain things. She had her kits in our camper shed.

My husband found this dude taking a bath under the water sprinkler. He came in and told me it was there so that I could get a photo. Such a co-operative subject considering I had to lay on the ground next to him to get at eye level. I do like all the colors in his skin. I seem to be on a gray and (whatever) color excursion at the moment, anyway.

Day 9_Plant Life

We have tons and tons of plant life that I could photograph, especially wildflowers which tend to be my favorite. But, it was so windy, I had to try and find something that was sheltered. Neither my husband nor I are gardeners. This iris plant was given to my husband by a friend of his. He planted it in the first place he could find, right in front of my studio. The location goes against all planting advice, but it is a survivor.