Learning New Things

I have been taking on-line watercolor and mixed media classes from Miriam Schulman at The Inspiration Place.

It has been great fun experimenting with both.

I completed her course: Garden Party right before the holidays last year. I mean right before, so I had to put everything aside until they were over.

I have also been doing some quilting and teaching my son how to sew. He is making both of his daughters a quilt.

I am just now getting pictures taken of my projects. There were 5 separate canvases with mixed media backgrounds and loosely painted flowers on top. I am still working on loosening up the painting.

Tulips

Daffodils

Peonies

Poppies

Sunflowers

The other one

This is a watercolor of my other granddaughter.

Watercolor

I've been doing a million different things lately. I haven't done much paper crafting but will be returning to that soon.

My KNK Force was delivered, but I haven't even opened the box. I am so hacked off at this company. They force you to take a piece of equipment that you purchased in good faith even though it is not completed as promised...all the while working on newer machines. OH, they said I didn't have to take the machine but they would not refund my money. Maybe that is why they called it the Force.

On to happier subjects. I have painted a casual portrait of one of my Granddaughters and am working on one of the other Granddaughter.

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!