Photo Art Friday

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Miriam Rogers

For Photo Art Friday this week our challenge is to share any macro image (with whatever manipulations you choose) that pleases you.
I am still learning how to take macro images so I have played with the crop tool for this challenge 🙂

This is two copies of the same image with one turned 180deg to give me a blue background and the other cropped to put the flower head in the foreground. I used Bonnies texture, Abstract Elements Drops of Jupiter, altered the blending mode, added a frame & stamp, felt happy and called it done.

This is three images, the sea shore, a close crop of a pink rose and a close crop of some grasses. All at various blend modes until I felt happy. Three textures: Bonnies Heavenly, Purple Dust and Splash of Gold. It’s my favourite. Not forgetting a frame of course.

This is two images. The base one is of a plate of strawberries which I added a swirl effect to. I closely cropped one strawberry with leaves, and placed it on top, altered the blend modes, brushed away some texture from the leaves and put a vellum overlay on, added a frame, liked what I saw and called it done.

This is an image of a white tulip with one petal missing. I closely cropped the flower head and added 3 of Bonnies textures: Sweet Secret, Dream Wonder and Splash of Gold texture. I really liked the yellow stamens spilling over onto the yellow part of the gold texture.

I always liked the original photo of the Iris because it reminds me of a lovely afternoon spent with a girlfriend. I have given it a new lease of life by adding a Topaz Simplify action, a texture from Ruth West and a vellum overlay from Bonnie and yes, a frame.

What’s with the frames? Quick and Easy frames was something I learnt on Kim Klassen’s fabulous Beyond Layers Course.

I had a really lovely day off today, It was freezing cold outside so I stayed in and played.

I am linking to Photo Art Friday where there is some very beautiful digital art today.

I hope you have a wonderful Easter Weekend, that the weather is kind to you and all your eggs are chocolate. I on the other hand will enjoy my first glass of wine in seven weeks…Cheers.

Story Telling Sunday

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Miriam Rogers

It is the first Sunday in the month. That means it’s time to visit Sian at High in the Sky for a wonderful day of story telling. Story telling Sunday is wonderful in it’s self but I just love the way that reading a story can trigger a memory for the reader. That was me last month!

Amy‘s story in March reminded me of this.

Spring term 1992 Playschool

Ben was in trouble with Mrs. Malone, our playschool leader, again!
“What for this time?” I asked her.
“To encourage thinking about numbers we have some goldfish at playschool this week.” She told me.
“Today we have some pictures of empty goldfish bowls, each bowl has a number written above it. We asked the children to read the number and then draw that amount of goldfish in the bowl”. She showed me a template picture of a goldfish bowl. Bens had the number five printed over it.
Ben had only drawn four fish and apparently couldn’t be persuaded to draw any more.
He had drawn three skinny little fish and one fat little fish, coloured this way and that in orange of course. It was probably the only colour available to the children.
He had at least done that bit right for her.

“Why have you only drawn four fish Ben? Mrs Malone wanted you to draw five?”
Nowadays of course self-expression would receive a pat on the back but sadly we are in the early nineties…

“There are five fish mummy” chirped up my lad.
I looked harder… no, definitely only four.
“mummy can only see four darling” I said brightly.

“That one has a baby fish inside her tummy” He pointed to the fat one with the darker orangey bit in the middle (sounds like a little Jaffa cake!)
“That makes five fishes Mummy”

Can you imagine the smug smile I had on my face as I picked up my beautiful, funny, bright little chap and almost flounced out of play school?

There will be wonderful stories for you here today. Thank you Sian and Amy.

Texture Tuesday

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Miriam Rogers

Kim Klassen’s Texture Tuesday this week is the Pink edition.
Share a pink-filled image, processed with any of her textures. That’s it…that’s all.

This has Sweet Tart and If Only at various blend modes and one of Kim’s brushes which I choose following her thoughts on Day 20 of Beyond Layers….. It’s not about making perfect art. It’s simply about making art.

This texture is Sweet Treat

The texture on this is Cloudy Day.

This has one of Kim’s Magic Textures on, Scripted Edges.
I like how the pictures I choose have gone from light to dark, I have no idea how that happened today, but it did.

Photo Art Friday

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Miriam Rogers

For Photo Art Friday this week Bonnie asked us to link a photo that is, in some way autobiographical.
Or, a photo that simply pleases.

This does both.

As you can see it is a still life of a ‘bowl of fruit’
I made the the tiny bowl and the fruit out of icing. It was part of the decoration on a cake I made for my mother for her birthday in 1997. Her anniversary is in March and I found the box that contains some of the pieces I made only a few months ago. I had completely forgotten I had them.

So, it pleases me because it reminds me of my mother and it is autobiographical because I made the subject of my photo, lost it! found it! then took the photo of it and then played around in photoshop with it…and linked it here

Something to Share

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Miriam Rogers

We went to see the lambs last weekend, so tiny and so sweet. The children just loved feeding them and the little creatures (lambs, not kids,saw those too) seemed quite unconcerned about being plonked (literally!) in yet another set of arms or an even smaller lap! The mothers on the other hand were so very protective about their babies. I certainly would not have gone the other side of the gate! This mother in particular was definitely fierce and you had to be quick to get a look at her babies!