Blooming Pink Peonies!

…and one opening up…with a couple of critters crawling…

Blooming Peonies…

My white peonies are blooming.  They always start blooming before the pink ones do.  I don’t know why..does anyone out there know why?  I love to go out and cut both colors and bring into the house.  They have a wonderful smell.

Before opening….

…yeah, I know they look pink, but trust me…they will open up white with just a tinge of pink blush.  The pink ones are really PINK when they open.

“My” Picasso…

I finally figured out how to make the center image smaller in this photoshopped image.  It actually wasn’t as hard as I thought.  I had to do some reading on the reflection tool    (If all else fails, read the directions.)

FYI this was done using the Distort filter, Liquify function, and the reflection tool. I think it is much better now.

And BTW, a friend called me while I was in Paducah and said she loves this image and wanted a copy of it, so I guess you could say I have “sold” my first copy of this image.  (Even though I’m not charging her for it–she didn’t necessarily want it in cloth.)

Odds And Ends…

There are times in my life (and I’m sure in yours too) when there are too many little detailed things to have to take care of…I think it must be called…Life. Tax time is one of them. For some reason, I can never be early. I have to be getting them out right around The Day. I even took them in a bit earlier, but I guess my cpa was pretty busy this year so it took her awhile. I finally got them out on the 14th. I also have to pay sales tax this month and have been waiting for checks to arrive so I can pay that. One of my election judge friends last week begged me to take a Photoshop class with her because there was a bit of a drive and she didn’t want to go alone. The price was definitely right ($20), so I signed up. We went Tuesday night and I learned SO much. I’m glad I went. We will do the second night tonight. Now, I only have Photoshop Elements 5 on my computer, but I found many of the same functions we learned about in my software and I am very pleased about that. Some of them are in different places, but I was able to locate them and do the same things we did in class. Let’s see if I can show you a photo I played with. My neighbors planted a bunch of sunflowers next to our yard a couple of years ago. I photographed them green as well as when they turned.

I take a lot of pictures. I have always been a bit of a nature nut, seeking out the woods and the river whenever I wanted to be alone and think. And I have always taken pictures of things in nature. This hobby now comes in very handy with my art also. I love to take a photograph and use it as a jumping off place to start a new art piece. I don’t do realism, but I like to abstract whatever is in the photo. I think Photoshop will be another tool I can use in making my art…all for a $20 bill and a few hours well spent with a friend. (Well I did pay for the software too, but that was minimal.)

Creativity…Inspired!

Aha!  I just found another way to inspire creativity.  If you can’t get to an art exhibit for real…go visit Ragged Cloth Cafe.  I haven’t taken the time to get over there for awhile.  Wow.  I was just there and now I’m pumped and writing down notes and ideas.  There are some wonderful new posts over there. I saw something on tv yesterday and was thinking about photographing it, but photos of the television screen do not normally come out well, so I have committed it to memory and would like to create it.

Oh yeah, another thing I did this morning is take a few pictures of some textures and items I found interesting.  Here’s one for your viewing pleasure and inspiration. (pssst…The flowers are fake, but pretty nonetheless.)

And Then There Was This….

…driving through a small town on Route 1 on Friday, this caught my eye…don’t know what it will turn into yet, but I thought it was pretty interesting…