Cee’s Oddball Photo: A Reflective Snail

Good morning from a warm, humid and really uncomfortable morning here in Hastings.  The summer is dragging on and on here.  We are nearly into March – it being leap day today but it is still too warm and uncomfortable to sleep properly at night.  But there are heavy clouds and so hopefully it will rain, and rain more than a few minutes.  We desperately need the moisture on the ground, not in the air.

Anyway a huge thank you to Cee for featuring my Art Deco post from last week.

Last Friday I was in heaven wandering around the garden centre.  So much to see, so much to shoot.  I came across this snail posing on the wall of the small lily pond. The reflections really caught my eye.

Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge: 2016 Week 9

https://irisgreenwald.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/cees-odd-ball-photo-challenge-2016-week-9/

https://piecesofstarlight.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/oddball-basketball-photos/

https://woollymuses.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/cees-odd-ball-challenge-16wk-9/

https://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/cob-photo-challenge-2016-week-9-bear-with-me/

Advertisement

Colour Your World: Melon

Color Your World – 120 Days of Crayola

Thanks for visiting.

Monochrome of the Day: Shapes and Shadows at the Skateboard Park 15

Thanks for visiting.

Monochrome of the Day: Shapes and Shadows at the Skateboard Park 14

Thanks for visiting.

Travel Theme: The Early Bird Catches the Sunrise

Good morning from a dark but still hot and humid Hastings.  I am up early as I have to go to the market in Otane.  This means catching the sunrise and the golden hour.  The most frustrating thing about driving down through the hills is the beautiful views I see and not being able to stop and take photos.

But yesterday, before I even managed to have my early morning cup of coffee:

I noticed a beautiful sunrise.  So this time, I did manage to comb my hair (the day before I had some serious bed hair) and dragged my dressing gown on, picked up the camera to go down the road to take these photos of the sunrise.

It was beautiful.

And lasted for ever.

It was definitely worth getting up early for, and putting off my coffee.

Sorry I haven’t been around to everyone’s blogs but have to go soon, and yesterday I had a lot to do. But I will get around to everyone  tomorrow.

This is for Ailsa’s challenge over at:

Travel theme: Early

Colour Your World: Mauvelous

Color Your World – 120 Days of Crayola

WPC: A State of Mind Among the Flowers

Good morning from a hot and humid Hastings day.  Yesterday it was still over 32 degrees at 6.30 PM – well into the 90’s for those in America.  Very uncomfortable.  Today, hopefully, will be cooler.  Maybe I can do some painting today.

Anyway in the morning I had my Social Snappers group.  So we went to the local garden centre.  We did ask for permission to go around and take photos.  Plus there was a cafe there when it got to hot for some of my group.

So I was like this butterfly among the flowers – where do I start, everywhere I looked there were blooms, statues and amazing light.

My idea of heaven.

Or it could well be another “Where’s Wally”.  I was lost among the rows of plants.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/state-of-mind/

Thanks for visiting.

Colour Your World: Maroon

Color Your World – 120 Days of Crayola

Thanks for visiting.

One Four Challenge: February 2016

This year Robyn from Captivate Me has changed this challenge somewhat – only 4 times a year and also every month on Flickr.  It is hard to find the time sometimes so just doing it 4 times a year on my blog is great.  So for this year I am doing all 4 edits on one post.  A little easier to follow my thought processes.  But it also means keeping tabs on what I actually do.  That is hard as I just go with how I like what I see.

I am in the process of beginning to organise my entry into a competition in June for our local fruitgrowers association.  Every year they ask for art works to celebrate their produce.  This year the brief is ‘Good Things Grow Here’.

I have an idea-

This is for one entry.  At the top is a branch (I already have it and it is drying out in my garage).  Then I am going to have photos hanging from it showing the progress from blossoms through to the fruits hanging on the trees and then finally a still life which is what I have shown.

But I will be painting on top of the photos just to add a bit of colour.  So that meant processing the images.  This time I did write my editing down. I need to do this for every image so it is a better idea to keep track of what I have done,

I knew that my final edit will lose a lot of detail so for my first edit I used the Nik HDR filter and then went to Colour Efex Pro 4 to add a glamour glow and sunlight filter to bring out the shine on the fruit and glass.

Then I added the Summer Days filter from Topaz for the second edit.

Then I went to Illustrator to add another inner glow filter and the conte crayon filter to make it monochrome.

And here is my final edit.  The scratched bronze filter from Topaz.

For the actual painting I will add the colour to the fruit and glass to make it stand out.

Check out this great challenge over at Robyn’s blog

https://robynsfineart.wordpress.com/category/one-four-challenge/

Monochrome of the Day: Shapes and Shadows at the Skateboard Park 13

Thanks for visiting.