A Little Bit of....Around the House

The other morning we were invaded. No, not by aliens but honey bees. They were swarming where one of our dormers meets the rest of the roof. I was concerned they were trying to come in the house or get in the attic. But...they gathered for awhile then left. This has happened before but they were around our bay window.

My Dad used to have hives and a swarm did come into our house so I wasn't being completely paranoid. They, too, soon left. I am not afraid of them or, better yet, not allergic so I don't panic. I just find their behavior curious sometimes. They are utterly fascinating. Watching them work can be as soothing as watching fish in an aquarium. And, oh, that honey!! YUM!

A view from my husband's window in the nerd room. A young Mockingbird. He was getting a drink from the lid of the milk can.

The other day my husband came running into the house and told me he had found an alligator by the pool. Now, that is not as odd as it sounds. We do have them. They are occasionally found in stock tanks and even in some swimming pools. They are not native this far north, however. They are someone's pet, purchased when they were young and small then released when they started to grow. So, there was the teeniest, tiniest chance that he actually did see one. Especially with the weather we had been having. Really, it did rain small fish once. Strange things DO happen. So on the off chance that this was one of them, I grabbed my camera and went to check it out. This I know. I have absolutely no idea what kind of lizard this is, never saw this one before, but I absolutely do know that it is not an alligator.

So, why not?

This is a pretty straightforward, but fairly boring, image of some succulents. I took it because I liked the graphic lines. Could I leave it alone?

Well, no.

Does it look real? Of course not, but who cares?
This impressionistic version accentuates the lines that attracted me to the image in the first place.

I Love Walking in the Morning

We usually start out when it is still dark and watch the sun come up about half way through our walk.
But, when it is especially cold, we often start out a little later. This particular morning the sun was just coming up as we stepped outside. I have taken a version of this tree in the sunrise many, many times. I do not ever get tired of doing it. There was a little fog hanging around which served to enhance the colors of the rising sun.

I really like the shape of this tree with all of its flowing, leafless branches.
Just perfect for me to play.

I think this would make a great starting point for a composite image. Mmmm...or maybe...just like it is with just a few enhancements.
I wonder what gold leaf would look like on some of the colorless sections of the tree trunk and branches?

Charming Fellow

They've been around a lot lately. At least this one wasn't peeking in the window or sitting in the bird feeder.

Ladybugs and Thistle

I colored these with alcohol inks. Still working out my techniques.

The background was digitally created and light enough to add additional elements if I choose.

Lunchtime

Here is another attempt at using the Spectrum Noir markers.

I tried something different with the background on this one. I digitally created a colored background. I also took a little "artistic license" with the colors that I chose to use.

I've found only one thing so far that I don't particularly like about markers. I am incapable of drawing as fine a line as I would like. Maybe that will improve with time.

EDITED: I tried adding detail with a water-based ink pen. They work great under and over the alcohol markers without smearing as long as they are dry. My problem with the pen lines is that they are consistent in width from the base to the tip. You can't add pressure to deviate the line. For me, this is a must to create flowing, more natural looking lines. Next up...my trusty brush.

I Succumbed

I have resisted purchasing a set of alcohol markers for years. Goodness knows I have enough painting products to last me forever. Are they the brands being sold today for the current paper trends? Not all of them. Are they the same products? Most, yes, and I've done a great many of the "new" techniques in the past just on different surfaces. So...honestly, I didn't really NEED the markers. Not even to keep up...so to speak. That fact has helped me resist them. Until now.

When a friend posted a link to a site that had them on sale, I succumbed. Coincidentally, I had been looking at them again that very morning. I purchased the whole set of Spectrum Noir Markers.

I made a few digital stamps from some of my own drawings while I waited for my markers to arrive. I've managed to complete two of them.
Learning to work with a new painting medium is fun and exciting. For me, though, it is also a slow process. I like to play as I learn and usually end up veering off in umpteen different directions.

Here are scans of the two completed projects.

I did this first one just to see how the markers work and to get the feel of them.

I did this one to see if I could blend the colors to get some mottled texture without distinct edges.

I must say, even though I have a lot to learn, I rather like working with them.

Couldn't Make Up My MInd

I experimented with some homemade alcohol inks and this is what I came up with.

I scanned the image to use as the background for a card I was making. I added the flowers and other textures then cropped part of the image because I couldn't get the whole image sized to my satisfaction.

I wanted to add a flower in the upper left to offset the ones in the lower right. I designed an impressionistic sorta flower in Make-the-Cut Software and cut it out with my Black Cat Cougar die cutting machine. The nested duplicate and objects to path functions in MTC made it so easy to do. The flower is cut from Grafix Gold Metallic Foil Board and brown kraft paper. I glued gold glitter to some of the Foil Board layers which gave me three different textures.

Since I have a problem, excluding the rare exception, with symmetry, I gave some of the petals a haircut with my scissors. The flower was made larger than I wanted for the finished product. I intended to cut it down a lot, but decided I liked the size of it.

Needless to say, it didn't fit my card. So.....I made another flower. It has a passing resemblance to the flowers I added to the card before I messed with them. But, it was too warm for my rather cool card. So what does one do? I took the card into Photoshop and warmed it up.
This is what I ended up with. A very simple card.

What did I do with the original flower? I made a small square box using a file I purchased from SVGCuts. I cut the box from the Gold Foil Board. I made a bow and used the flower for the center. While I liked the center of the original flower, I found a gold button and glued it on top of the original center.

It Finally Progressed to This

Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images. This type of photo manipulation helps greatly in the understanding of color, light, and movement. Every element has to combine into a cohesive whole. Sometimes I can make it work...others not so much.

I started out with this photo of a Giant Swallowtail. There were a number of them that kept coming back to our Purple Cone flowers and I took many photos over a period of days. This was not the most technically successful photo I took but I like it and wanted to see what I could do with it. It took several versions for me to get over my hangup of messing with a traditional photo. I'm glad I did.

I chose to use this version to make a popup card.

The world is full of magical things....beautiful things...interesting things.....

No explanation needed:

We have a hawk nesting in a cotton wood tree in our wildlife area. It is too far up in the tree for me to get pictures. They come out occasionally but are wary and difficult to photograph. Normally, they don't stay like this one did when people are around. I don't know if this is Mom, Dad or a young'un.
When I first started shooting, it was totally turned with its back to me. It still knew I was there and let me know it.
As I got closer, it turned completely around then started talking to me. I think it was saying, "OK, lady. That's close enough."

Fort Worth owns a Nature Center and Refuge. It is a hidden wilderness comprised of 3600 acres of forests, prairies, and wetlands reminiscent of how much of the Fort Worth/Dallas Metroplex once looked. It is not too far away so we became members and go every now and then to hike, watch the wildlife and have a picnic. And, of course, take photos.

I think this one was trying to sneak by unseen. I know the feeling.

Elizabeth Patton Crockett
The wife of David (Davey) Crockett.
Elizabeth was granted land in Texas for the bravery shown by Davy Crockett at the Alamo.
She died January 31, 1860. She is buried in Action, Tx. Her grave was declared a Texas State Park in 1911. The park is the fenced zone around her grave. .0006 acres and is the smallest State Park in Texas.

The Old Masonic Hall just outside the grave yard.

And then there's these. I just love'em!

Finally! I gathered some wild flowers and stuck them in a coffee mug. Photographed them and just played.

Flowers...

Who doesn't love 'em?

The end of our pergola where we have the grill faces west. It gets very hot during major grilling season and the sun shines in your eyes any afternoon and evening. We tried hanging some outdoor bamboo shades, but they didn't last as long as we hoped. So, we covered that end with some fine mesh wire and planted some trumpet vines. They've completely covered the wire which helps with the heat and definitely blocks the sun from your eyes. When they bloom, they are gorgeous. It looks like a solid wall of flowers. They are not that easy for me to photograph, though. I haven't been able to get an image of the full wall of color that suits me nor of the individual flowers that I am really, really pleased with. I keep trying.

I had some minor surgery done and my doctor sent me flowers. Can you believe that?

The first image was taken on my breakfast table and was lit only by the light coming through the bay window.

The second image was taken in my bathroom window. The day was overcast and the window is frosted glass. I noticed that the trees outside were being heavily diffused by the glass and light and thought it would make a good background for the flowers. I had to use some fill flash to keep the flowers from being too dark.

For World Travelers

It was suggested to me that I should create a Texas postcard front with a world traveler sort of feel but focusing on Texas. The requirements were that the name of a city and an image symbolizing that city would be the predominate focal point and easily changed to represent another city.

I think this one meets those requirements but could easily be changed to also represent the state as a whole or just certain regions of the state. For example, instead of a city's name, it could just say Greetings from Texas and any "Texas" image could be used. The same could be done for the different regions of Texas...West Texas, the Hill Country, East Texas, the Red River Valley, etc...
Each are Texan but with unique, and usually recognizable, attributes.

This is a composite image for display purposes. The actual file is just the front of the card.

As a side note: The NTTA is opening the Chisholm Trail Parkway this Sunday. It is a 27.6-mile toll road that will extend from downtown Fort Worth south to Cleburne.

The actual Chisholm Trail was a trail used to drive cattle overland from ranches in Texas to Kansas railheads. The cattlemen rounded up longhorns by the millions in Texas and drove them north across the Indian Nations into Kansas.
It went through Fort Worth then right by where we live now as does the new Chisholm Trail Parkway.

I can't say that I am too happy to have a major road running less than a mile west of my home. It did however peak my curiosity about the Chisholm Trail and I have learned a lot about the area in which I live. It is also the inspiration for the card front.

Ancient History

I have been organizing my photos recently and ran across the photo of this vase. This is not a new piece. I actually made it in 2006.

My husband has always said that one of these days I am going to blow up my studio because of my experiments. This is a classic example of why he says that.

The bisque vase is glazed with a perfectly clear lead-free commercial glaze. When the color companies first started to remove/reduce the amount of lead in glazes, they hadn't perfected their formulas and they were very difficult to use. Lead in a glaze makes the glaze move, flow and smooth out in the firing. Lead-free glazes did not do any of those things so they had to be applied perfectly.

Without thinking, or with proper instruction, I gave the bisque vase to one of my employees to glaze. When I saw it, I knew I was going to have a mess on my hands unless I washed all the glaze off and started over. I decided to experiment instead.

I sprayed the entire vase with Gold Spray Paint that I had purchased at Hobby Lobby for another project on which I was working. I then applied another type of glaze on the top portion of the vase. This glaze wasn't lead-free at the time and was deliberately formulated to flow and run excessively. It was also white as opposed to clear.

I then sprayed the top portion only with Copper Spray Paint that I purchased at Hobby Lobby and put it in the kiln to fire.

I was very surprised and pleased with the results. I wasn't expecting the pewter looking, flowing lines...seaweed, maybe? You can clearly see where the spray paint caught more on the ridges of the unevenly applied lead-free glaze creating ocean-floor-like texture. It looked, to me, like an underwater scene with waves crashing on top. I had just finished painting an oil canvas with dolphins underwater for my son so this might have influenced my thinking.

I wanted to add some "things" underwater to this vase but it was already fired with a hard, non-porous coating of glaze.

At this point, the best, if not the only, option was to use a non-fired product for my design. I had applied DecoArt glass paint directly to fired glaze many times in the past with great success, but I wanted a little more tooth under my shapes, primarily for blending the paint.

I had an idea!! I drew outlines of what I wanted on the vase with a sharpie marker and filled them with etching cream to rough up the surface. Today, I would create the shapes in Make-the-Cut, cut out a stencil with my digital cutter and use my air eraser to etch the shapes. I think it would make getting the outside edges shaped properly much easier.

I then painted the shapes with DecoArt glass paint.

A word of CAUTION here though. A glaze coating is a thin, vitreous substance that has been fused to the ceramic during firing. Its purpose, beyond being decorative, is to seal the item to make it water and bacteria proof as well as easy to clean. If you etch too deeply, you run the risk of weakening or breaking that seal. The chance of absorption and/or leaking of liquid or the trapping of bacteria can become a real issue with functional pieces. It is greater with earthenware or improperly fired stoneware and porcelain as they remain porous under the glaze.

Newfound Gap

We recently returned from our trip to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We stayed on the Tennessee side but went over the mountains through the Newfound Gap into North Carolina 3 times, all early in the morning. By far, the best time of the day!

The first trip over, it was sorta overcast and the fog and blue mist hung low below the mountain peaks. A typical and beautiful site. It was made more so because of the fall colors of the foliage. Fall just happens to be my favorite time of the year.

The second time, while still overcast, the fog and mist weren't as prevalent. As a result, I managed to get the sun as it rose over the mountain top and peeked through an opening in the clouds.

The last time we got there really, really early. Dark! A storm was brewing. It rained a couple of times on the way and while we waited for sunrise, but stopped in time for me to get this shot. Actually this is 3 separate exposures combined into 1 to capture the entire tonal range. Note to self: Buy some fingerless gloves.

We didn't go over again, but the last day we were there, it snowed in the upper elevations, including Newfound Gap.

Holy Guacamole, Batman!

The other day my hubby was sitting at his desk reading something on his Ipad and I was at my computer planning our trip to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. My husband's desk sits in front of a window because he likes to look outside. Mine faces a corner on the opposite side and, as a result, I can't see what he is doing.

Needless to say, both of our tasks were rather benign and certainly no cause for alarm so you can imagine my surprise when my husband jumped up like his pants were on fire. He had glanced outside to find two beady eyes staring in at him through the window. Scared the bejesus out of him and in turn he scared the bejesus out of me.

Guess what it was?

Behind, again

And, it is HIS fault, again. But this time it is all good. Hubby is doing some repair work and re-modeling in my craft/sewing room. That has put a temporary halt to my sewing and cutting. He is feeling and acting like himself again. I am beyond thrilled.

I still have access to my computer and am still taking the photo class.

We have had 3 challenges where the techniques to accomplish a final image have been pre-defined. We use our own photos but must use only those techniques.

Here are mine. I don't really remember exactly what techniques each challenge consisted of and I certainly don't remember what all I did to get there. I would read the challenge and find a photo that I thought would be a good fit and go from there. I didn't have a pre-determined idea. I would just sit and play until I fullfilled all the requirements and I had something that I determind was at least OK.

This one was one image, grunged up with textures, some strong lighting and vector graphics. And...other things????

This was two images combined to make a cohesive whole. And...other things???? I took the stagecoach shot as I was riding inside and it went around a curve. The "bandit" shot was taken at a different location. As you can see, I combined the two.

This was one image, textures, borders, lettering and marquee layer offsets, which, in my case, contained another photo. And...other things???? These images were created the old fashion way. They were taken with a SLR camera using transparency film. The large egg shot was taken on a piece of glass that I had spray painted one side with mat black paint. That became the back of the glass, in effect, creating a black mirror which reflected the egg. I broke the egg directly onto the glass. My main light was to the top and back. The red color is from a red laser pointer. The insert picture was taken the same way except I had a friend pretend to be cutting it. No red laser on it.

Finally, this one I did on my own. It is of the other granddaughter. It, too, was taken sometime ago and is a candid shot.

She's a Ham

This photo is a couple of years old. She was up in my wildlife blind and I was standing on the ground.

She heartily hams it up for the camera which is mostly always fun. I found it was hard to get good, natural posed shots so I opted to go the spontaneous route. Otherwise, both of the girls would put on this phony, fake smile.

I have always liked the expression on her face in this one so I decided to try to make the most of it.

Original:

This is what I did to it.