Look up Look down for gold

It has been hovering around freezing here and lots of grey sky so pleased to capture some splashes of gold when looking up at the sunset and down at my daffodil pot

Yes I am eager for the end of winter – are there signs of spring where you are (or autumn in the Southern hemisphere)?

a spot of spring cheer

I picked up a pack of these lovely bright felt flowers in the craft shop this morning for £1

I’ve hung them by thread in my living room and office/craft room (you can see the edge of my chair)

I smile each time I wander past and see them

What are you doing to bring some spring cheer into your home?

Following my muse

For PhotoArt Friday this week I intended to follow Bonnie’s prompt of ‘connect’ but then I came across this sight on my walk

and had to follow the ideas that immediately sparked on ways to use the reflection of the abandoned bike.

For once the pixel magic ideas that I had while continuing my walk actually worked once I was back at my computer.  I’d taken several photos from different angles and combined them then added Bonnie’s starburst texture and I adore the results.  I saved three using different blending modes – which do you like the best?

 

colour burn blending mode

luminous blending mode

difference blending mode

looking forward to seeing the connections others have made this week.

Up and down at the beach

It’s been feeling like spring around here – I think the longer hours of daylight and the sun being higher in the sky are what is making the difference, rather than any real increase in temperature

I enjoyed a walk along the sand when the tide was out and captured my up and down, with a nice connection of the seagull footprints in the sand.

The blue sky is deceptive, I still had on a coat, hat and gloves.

Dundee–the story, the wow and the funny

As I mentioned last week, my nephew Dylan turned 21 so the family all descended upon Dundee, where he is a student.  I only took one set of photos of the family dinner – Dylan is in the white shirt with his brother and father on each side; my parents are at the end with my sister (Dylan’s mum) and opposite are his lovely girlfriend and her family. I’m in the empty seat by the gorgeous handbag.

The next morning I went for a walk and my normal water magnet meant I headed for the harbour and captured some great photos

and the most amazing seascape

Then into town to meet Colin, an old Uni friend who I hadn’t seen for over 25 years who lives near Dundee. It felt as if we last chatted 25 days ago rather than 25 years ago. But no photos of that event – life does actually happen even when there is no photo !!

On the way I captured my up and down shots and the statues of comic characters Minni the Minx and Desperate Dan

 

and finally a strange sight that I had to capture and I’m sure has a story attached

And that was my Dundee experience.

embracing what I usually avoid

After stretching into minimalism and abstract photoart, Bonnie has returned to more familiar ground for our PhotArt Friday challenge this week – we were asked to use one of her textures – Bamboo Dream.

Usually I shy away from textures that contain anything that looks like script so my first thought was to use just the bottom part of the texture. 

But I decided to continue to challenge myself and embrace the top part of the texture.

here using the difference blending mode and added a border.  I think this would make a lovely card

Then I decided to concentrate on the scriptesque part so I duplicated and flipped it to create a frame

the same photo, wider crop and the colour burn blending mode.

and here with linear light blending mode.

Looking forward to seeing the full range of ways that others use this texture.

Look up look down in Dundee

I was in Dundee at the weekend to celebrate my nephew’s 21st birthday (more photos later)

I enjoyed the street sculpture around the city centre and used them for my look up, look down this week. The feet in the down image are sculptures of three cartoon characters from the Dandy comic which is produced in Dundee.

Yes, I’ll do that

I’ve signed up for 3 shared activities / classes this week, although they start later in the year and not all at the same time.

30 days of lists in March seemed interesting and immensely doable.  Each day participants are sent an email with a topic to prompt us to write a list, such as  today’s playlist, recipes to try or guilty pleasures.  Participants use different mediums to record their lists, such as a minibook or smashbook or art journal. 

I thought about doing 4 x 6 cards for the Project Life protectors but then decided to do something totally different for me.  I’m going to incorporate the tangle / doodles that I’ve been playing with again to cover a 12 x 12 sheet.  I’ll include several lists on the one sheet and when it is finished start another.  Here is the start of my first page – the border goes all round the page.  The border tangle is hibred  and the one behind the title is diva dance



Then starting in April I’ll be participating in Cathy Zielske’s Clean and Simple, 3 month class at Big Picture.  She is my favourite scrapbook designer with her clean graphic style. I started scrapbooking after stumbling on her books in my local library. I’ve enjoyed every one of her classes hat I have taken. 

And then I signed up for Liberate Your Art 2013 after Rinda posted the link.  Each participant contributes 5 postcards of their art which Kat generously swaps around and sends out.  Now I have to decide which piece of pixel magic to use, and whether to make all the postcards the same or have several designs printed.

I know Miriam is signed up for the lists and Rinda is liberating her art. Will I be seeing anyone else there?

pixel magic goes abstract

Abstract collage was Bonnie’s challenge to us for PhotoArt Friday this week.  She provided one texture to use and invited us to add one or more image and another of her textures.  I appreciated having these rules as it cut down on choice possibilities.

I’m really pleased with this piece and will have it printed large. 

I know you can’t tell but the image is of black, red and white currants – one of my most used images in digital photoart pieces.  I used 3 copies, each enlarged and rotated over each other in ‘darken’ layer mode, to provide the overlapping circles.  Then I addedd the proscribed texture which gives the lines and then tried most of Bonnie’s textures over the whole image and didn’t like any.  So I added a texture over just one of the rectangles – the darker grey one

 

Then I decided to create another where it was easier to see the image from the photo.  After playing with several ideas and perusing some abstract art on the internet I stumbled upon this image, using a self portrait and created 3 versions

 

Rather disturbing (as opposed to pretty) but that seems to be one theme within abstract art. Here is how I did these

 

Thank you to everyone for your comments on my minimalist pieces, I do appreciate all those who take time to say something.  Now I’m off to see what other abstract art has been created to hang in Bonnie’s gallery.

Look up look down in the park

The practice of looking up and looking down with my camera feels routine and comfortable at the moment.  I am aware of looking up more often and thinking about interesting items to snap against the sky.

This week my pair were taken on a walk in the park on a rare sunny afternoon – enough sun for shadows even!

I’m enjoying seeing this meme pop up on other blogs – Alison, Amy, Elizabeth, Miriam and Rinda.  If I’ve missed anyone please leave me a comment and I’ll add the next time I do a blogroll.

I have created a blog button (in my left bar) if you are joining in and want to have the button.

January’s tally

At the end of each month I enjoy creating a numerical summary, inspired by Julie and all who participate in her month in numbers meme.

This month I chose a few odd items to record and kept a tally during the month, to supplement the items where I can create a count at the end. I hope to do this each month with different items.

a Minimalist challenge

a real challenge from Bonnie this week for PhotoArt Friday when she invited us to try minimalism.  Choosing a photo that might work was the first challenge but I found a few that seemed to meet the remit of being uncluttered and showing the essence of something.  I went with a bleak seascape (the only kind I see at the moment with the grey weather) and a string of geese flying overhead.

I cropped to remove distractions and then faced the challenge of how to process them. I felt that texture would move away from the unadorned nature of minimalism so I turned to photo filters and layering duplicates of the image.

I think they fit within the minimalist fence. 

I found this challenge hard, but then minimalism doesn’t call to me.  Thanks to Bonnie for encouraging me to try something other than my norm and interested to see what others do.