Photographing Trees

I am still trying to learn how to use the camera on my smart phone. It is pretty bad when a phone is smarter than its user. :)

Some of the pictures are coming out looking like impressionistic images instead of regular photographs. I guess that is because I do not know how to properly use the zoom feature and they were shot in low-light situations. Anyway, I decided that I would go with that thought and play around with the pictures in Photoshop and Painter to try to get an even more impressionistic feel from the images.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this image. I have a zillion more to play with!

Creative Every Day and Sketchbook Challenge

Creative Every Day is a site dedicated to encouraging us to be creative in some way every day. It doesn't have to be on a canvas to be considered creative. There are a multitude of ways for us to express our creativity: writing, cooking, drawing, fiber arts, etc. What is your favorite way to express yourself creatively?

The theme for the month of May is flowers. What are your favorite flowers? I love daffodils and pink roses and a host of others. I revisited the kindergarten years that I never had to begin with and played around with the Painter 11 program to come up with a little yellow flower of my own.







Also, for the Sketchbook Challenge, the theme for May is bowls. If I've posted this one already, please forgive the repeat of it. It was also done in Painter 11 with some further twiddling in Adobe CS4.

Chats on the Farmhouse Porch 42: #34

The questions:

What do your everyday dishes look like?

Our dishes are Corelle Vitrelle, but I do not know the pattern name. It has red and pink flowers and green leaves around the perimeter of the plates. It isn't family, but it works for us.

What shoes are you likely to throw on in a pinch right now? "Go to" shoes.

My sandals are my "go to" shoes. I don't even have to bend to put them on, just slide in my feet and go.

What's the last gift you were given?

The last gift that I remember being given was a $25 Amazon gift card.

The first face you saw this morning was-------------------.

The first face that I saw this morning was David's face, unless you count the faces in my dreams (weird though they are!).

What cup or mug are you most likely to grab for your tea or coffee? What's your "cuppa"cup?

David and I have matching glasses for our iced tea. They are heavy (to me), hold more than a pint, but less than a quart, and they have handles.

Wrapping Up the Week

One of the challenges that I've signed up for this year is called Creative Every Day. Creativity can be expressed in a multitude of ways. One of the ways I've chosen this week is to search for public domain images to play with in Photoshop. I found the following sign post at: Ireland First.

I flipped it around so that the arrows would be pointing in the direction that was logical for my current location, labeled the signs, added a few aging filters, and turned the grass and clovers green to come up with this:

One thing that I learned during this project was to save once you get a version that you like. Then, save it again just in case you didn't really save it before when you thought you did. I didn't and lost a way better version than this one.

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We were out earlier today and saw two of the cutest little blond girls, both probably around two years old. They reminded us of our oldest daughter when she was about the same age. The one had the bluest eyes and was wearing a black dress with big, white polka dots, super cute. Then, there went the finger to the nose. You know what was next...that finger went to her mouth. I guess she got tired of waiting for the happy meal.

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I found the following quote earlier today after seeing a Mark Twain quote on Pinterest and thought that I would share it here with you.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain

What dreams are you not living because it is safer to stay in the harbor than to risk a broken sail? Share them with me. I'd love to hear them!