Black and White or Color

Some days need a vital rush of color while on other days black and white fits fine.

The full color of this image, created in Adobe Photoshop Elements on the Bamboo Fun Tablet, is on my Tumblewords Blog along with several wanderlust haiku.

A touch of sun today adds its own mellow yellow. Maybe that makes the difference.

♥♥♥

Winter Waterland

Merry Christmas to All 

and

to All a Fine New Year!

♥♥♥

Reflections

pixel mystery

winter rainbows come to light

echo summer life

I seem to be hooked on the mysterious ways of light and the 'write' side of DVD disks.

The reflection comes from a nearby plant which is shadowed into the disk rainbow by a low-flung sun leaking through a southern window.

There seems to be a difference in color between CD and DVD reflections and I haven't determined what causes it. The few CD's I've played with create tones of greens, blues and oranges rather than violets and purples of DVD's.

I'm interested in what you think.

This photo from a point-and-shoot Minolta was resized in Irfanview and framed in FrameFun, both of which are free programs.

~♥~♥~♥~

Haiku and Saguaro

spirits on a stick

circle a lone saguaro

dance the moons away

Maybe it's because cacti aren't found here that I'm drawn to them. This particular piece was one of the first that I drew and painted using the Bamboo Fun Tablet in conjuntion with Adobe Photoshop Elements which was part of the package.

Many of the watercolors, as well as pen-and-ink pieces, that I've doodled have held the cacti as subjects - perhaps because their colors and shapes are vividly foreign to the evergreen tones and pine shapes which I'm accustomed to seeing.

This particular image was created by laying down colors and using the smudge tool to move them around until I was satisfied or bored enough to move on. A few 'pencil' lines completed the session.

I think this gray day would be a perfect time to undertake another digital image and see what shakes loose!

♥♥♥

Quick Flower on Bamboo Tablet

I watercolored the little flower on the left several years ago as an experiment in looseness. Trying to paint an image in a few seconds was challenging and I did dozens in different colors and shapes.

Thinking about the wonderful feel of watercolors, I wondered if it was possible to do the same thing on the Bamboo Fun Tablet and so...the next step was to try. Admittedly, it took me more than a few minutes to paint the flower on the right but maybe I'll learn to speed it up.

Do you think it's possible to learn how to 'watercolor' digitally?

~~~♥~~~♥~~~

Spokane Radio KZZU Baby Idol Contest

Please vote for me!
Sofia, contestant #190, in the top 20 of Spokane Radio Kzzu 92.9 Baby Idol Contest, would appreciate your daily vote April 27 through May 1! The link for voting is: http://929zzu.com/pages/4268136.php? Thank you!

Spring Sky

Painting takes on the shape of space. Chaos or calm, prosperous or penurious. The color of mood. Powerful reds, reflective yellows, serene greens and breathing blues.

Clothing chosen in the morning are the colors most often used through the day. Is body cover inspired by mood or convenience. And which of these will appear on the palette or monitor.

Are autumn paintings connected to a silent buried yearning and the wild spring shades a bursting forth from hibernation. Which is the influence, which is the outcome.

Do you know?

The image above is a watercolor style created on Bamboo Fun with Adobe Photoshop Elements 5, resized in Irfanview and framed with Frame Fun.

~~~♥~~~♥~~~

An April Sketch

This casual sketch was made on the Bamboo Fun Tablet with Adobe Photoshop Elements, resized in Irfanview and framed in FrameFun.

I still don't have the hang of free hand drawing but neither have I given up... Actually, I'm not much of a drawing person. I just feel my way along with a pencil, brush or stylus without much direction and with a certain detachment and commitment!

The amount of enjoyment available through the computer never fails to astound me.

~~~♥~~~♥~~~

Dark Mountains

This image began as a drawing on Bamboo Fun and went through more processes than I can remember. Generally, I choose lighter colors but something about the darkness of this piece fascinated me – it reminds me of volcanic flow under a watching sky. Is it far too dark?

A couple of programs I consistently use are Irfanview for resizing and occasional edits, FrameFun to create the finish, and Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 which came with the Bamboo Fun.

It's been almost a year since I've used water, color and paper to produce a painting. The computer permits a surprising amount of creative fun without the hassle of removing paint from the walls or cabinet top.

♥~~~♥~~~♥

A Friday Image

The image began as a drawing in watercolor style on a Bamboo Fun Tablet with Adobe Photoshop Elements 5. Because it didn't have enough color to make me happy, I opened it in Pixia (free software) and added darker red to a few of the pixels. Framefun (free software) helped with the final digital image.

I decided I liked it. But, as I told you earlier, I'm pretty easy when it comes to liking images. I can spend most of a winter day kaleidoscoping through fractals and abstract images while my mind travels off into other worlds.

I could be cooking.

Or dusting.

Or shoveling snow.

♥~~~♥~~~♥

An Artful Confession

As a child, my favorite coloring canvas was an embossed paper napkin. Crayolas, freshly sharpened, were the sticks with which I built my art appreciation. Looking back, I feel sorry for Mom. She must have felt a ton of frustration when she found the napkin drawer either full of colored papery stuff or empty.

Over the years I've been exposed to technique and professionals who live with color wheels, who grind pigments for their own use and who compose by strict golden mean standards.

I've been to the Louvre, MOMA, hundreds of galleries on the major side roads and, in fact, once took part in a co-op gallery where I actually sold my paintings and books.

Looking at this newest combination of Bamboo Fun sketching, Adobe Photo Elements and Pixia it's fairly obvious that I like what I like. Hues, shapes and something indefineable that charges my heart and eyes.

And, Mom, if you're looking down from that heavenly spot - are you pleased to see that I've graduated to no muss, no fuss computer screens and that the napkin drawer is undisturbed?

♥~~~♥~~~♥

Fractals

If you are interested in fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot is a good place to start.

Apophysis, Fractal Explorer and MandaExplorer are free software programs that create what you tell them to, or something like that. You'll find links to these and more once you get involved in the fractal world - it's an amazing journey.

A group on Yahoo posts periodically and, through it, this link appeared. The Orbit Trap is a fantastic blog - it'll make your head reel and please your eyes. I've only just begun to read and absorb...but I did notice that the sidebar has links to much of the available software!

Paul N. Lee has lots of information as well.

Good travels to you - and please keep me posted so I can follow you on the fractal trip.

The image is a piece of fractal post-processed in Digital Image and Irfanview.

♥♥♥

A is for Art

Art is for fun. I'm mostly self-taught and have learned that colors and shapes earn the A spot in my world. I've never been able to explain other's work nor can I explain my own. It is what it is, I think.

Fractals captured my attention several years ago and with the aid of Fractal Explorer, a free software, I've become enamored with the changing movement, color and shape provided by a mouse click. Instant kaleidoscopes.

Benoit Mandelbrot, a mathematician, wrote The Fractal Geometry of Nature . His study of fractals found in nature contributed to the chaos theory.

Prompt by ABC Wednesday, today A

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Sunday Haiku and Image

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sunlight bursts
sparks off winter white
fine glass art

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The image was initially created on the Bamboo Fun Tablet, then cropped, altered and converted to a brush. The tree and other oddments were drawn in with the Bamboo Fun Stylus and the color was altered. A crackle texture was added before the image was resized and buttoned in Irfanview.

♥♥

Snow and Apophysis

You may laugh, if you wish, but you have no idea how difficult this stuff is for me. :)

The image is a fractal created in Apophysis and layered in Adobe PhotoShop Elements 5 which came with my Bamboo Fun tablet.

The first problem I encountered was getting a kinda decent shot of my right hand with my left manning the camera. Gadzooks. Then came the actual part of learning enough about layers and magic erasers to make this happen.

If you wonder why, I have no answer other than that the snow keeps falling. There are more than six feet on the ground, the man who was going to come shovel the snow off the roof before it collapsed hasn't shown up and there's nothing like a new project to keep my mind off the stress that could build if I thought about the roof caving in on top of me and my 'stuff'.

If I last longer than winter, I may be better at these experiments. Oh, I know, that's not much of a promise, but it's the best I can do on this day...

♥♥

Using New Year's Eve

Tumblewords Blog is nearing three years old with over 500 posts and provides a semi-abstract memoir. It's a reminder of which images and words were submitted and published as well as documenting the changes in my writing style.

At the end of 2006, I pulled together an e-book of that blog, downloadable from my Lulu.com store. On New Year's Eve I completed the 2008 compilation and, when it became evident that 2007 had fallen through the cracks, there was impetus to keep me from sleeping before the midnight hour.

It was a time to look back and a time to imagine what might be possible in 2009 as well as a time to realize how much I enjoyed the previous trio of years blogging, both as a reader and as a blogger.


Wishing each of you a pleasurable, prosperous and peace-full 2009! ♥

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Image created in Bamboo Fun and Photoshop Elements.