JEAN MARY

Window Magic

2012-01-29T13:58:00.001-05:00

I often take walks at our local community college campus. (Carteret Community College, Morehead City, NC). Many times I've seen interesting reflections in the windows of the large buildings. Probably the most unusual were in the windows of the Martec building. The images I see depend on where I'm standing when I take my photographs.

From this angle, you can see what the reflected building - Wayne West - actually looks like.

Two more angles - this one, and the one below.

And here's a cropped and Photoshopped version:

I think it would be fun to paint something like this! Or maybe a mixed media collage....

Beach Shots

2012-01-25T15:47:00.000-05:00

The Quilt that Went to New Zealand

2012-01-22T10:31:00.002-05:00

This was one of my quilts that was for sale at the AAQI fundraiser in Houston this past fall. It happened that when it sold, someone took a photo of the buyer, labeled the picture "Pat from New Zealand," and posted it on their website. It was a thrill for me to see what had happened to one of my quilts!

Here's a better look at "Old Sailor." This quilt was inspired by a photograph I'd taken off the Portuguese coast. I had written about it here, if you want to see the photo.

I think I'd mentioned that I'd recently sent in three other mini-quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. This one is "Rice Moon" and is a mini-version of the original quilt, also called "Rice Moon." Honestly - try and come up with new names all the time!

This second one is "Two Toucans." Ditto for the name of the original, larger art quilt.

This third mini-quilt is called "Fairies" and the original art quilt was called "Dance of the Fairies." A shorter name for a smaller quilt.... The three quilts arrived at their destination, and are now waiting for their photos to be taken before they're listed for sale on the AAQI site. In case you wonder how I "shrunk" my quilts - I printed images of the original quilts onto fabric, using my inkjet printer. Then I made these smaller quilts - 8-1/2" x 11" - using the printed fabrics.

Lamp Posts

2012-01-09T08:29:00.001-05:00

This picture was taken at the Boardwalk at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. I Photoshopped the image to give it this eerie color.

This is the image before the "special treatment." Can you see what drew me to this shot in the first place?? Every lamp post was topped with its own gull!

Standard equipment?? One wonders....

AAQI Update

2012-01-08T10:17:00.001-05:00

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative holds a quilt auction from the 1st to the 10th of each month. This month two of my art quilts are in the auction. Red Sky At Night is a larger quilt, 20"x27" - most of the quilts are a maximum of 9"x12". My other quilt in the auction is Wild Daisies. A third quilt of mine, Lorn Lake, is in the AAQI's "Quilts for Sale" section and is listed for $75. Back to the auction - there are only a couple days left! As of this morning, Red Sky At Night was at $210 and Wild Daisies at $55. And I have three more mini-quilts ready to go in the mail tomorrow.

Skull

2011-12-27T10:30:00.001-05:00

Do you think this looks like a skull?? I do! Kind of a creepy one, too. I took this shot at the beach.

Stepping back from where I took the first shot, this one shows the puddle that served as the eye, the other indentations in the sand, and the ocean in the background. Looks a lot less scary here!

Christmas Eve at the Beach

2011-12-25T11:35:00.000-05:00

A bit chilly, but an absolutely beautiful day!

I knew neither dog nor man, but they walked past at just the right time.

I didn't know the fisherman either, but I totally fell in love with his chair....

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-24T08:47:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays from Jean, Ed, and Casey!

Gulls At Sunset

2011-12-15T09:45:00.000-05:00

Gulls, Sunset, and Gulls at Sunset were all taken on the same trip to the beach.

Sunset

2011-12-12T19:11:00.000-05:00

Gulls

2011-12-11T11:42:00.000-05:00

Black & White Photoshopped Images

2011-12-06T10:13:00.002-05:00

I was walking on campus (Carteret Community College) the other day. The campus sits right on Bogue Sound, so I can take lots of "water" pictures without going to the beach.

Playing with the photos in Photoshop gave me some interesting results.

I zoomed in to capture some of the power boats passing by.

The filters I used were "Threshold" and "Stamp," though I can't tell you which were which....

Before

After

There's a good aquaculture department at the college, and they do a lot of experiments along the shore.

The warning looks even more commanding in black and white!

The Dress That Kept On Giving

2011-12-03T09:02:00.001-05:00

Potpourri, 2003, 49x27 inches

Back in 2002, for less than $10, I picked up a formal dress at a thrift shop. This particular dress had a large floral fabric in the sizeable skirt, and a smocked top in coordinating colors. The dress might have best been described as gaudy. One of the quilts that made use of this dress was Potpourri. The floral fabrics in this quilt came from the skirt of the dress. The dark border fabric in Potpourri was a velvet upholstery fabric that felt good to the touch.

Potpourri, detail

When I quilted the piece, I free-hand machine-stitched flowers and leaves on the solid pink and green areas of the quilt.

Johnny's Garden, 2002, 29x23 inches

Johnny's Garden also made use of the fabric from the dress, and all the flowers in this quilt came from the skirt. In 2002, I raffled off this quilt to raise money for Toys for Tots. This quilt hadn't really had a name, and when a fellow named Johhny won it, the quilt became Johnny's Garden.

Cherry Blossom Time, 2002, 23x32 inches

Cherry Blossom Time also benefited from this dress. The trees and bushes in this quilt came from the smocked top of the dress, and have an interesting raised texture. The blue and green background was made from strips of fabric sewn together in a large log cabin pattern set on the diagonal. The Asian figures were fussy-cut from another fabric. I passed this quilt on to a friend who owns The Quilted Butterfly, a fabric shop. In return, she gave me a credit for buying fabric in her shop. :o)

And now back to Potpourri! It was a sizeable quilt, 49x27 inches, and, though I put a lot of time and effort into it, I never cared much for the finished result. I think it was the lack of composition, or focal point, and that there was no good place for the eye to rest when looking at the quilt. Years ago, I gave several of my quilts to my nephews, including this one. When the nephew who owned it got married, the quilt fell into disfavor, and made its way back to me this past summer. Potpourri came close to getting tossed, but I was still taken with all the quilting I'd done on it and couldn't quite let it go.

Potpourri 1, 2011, 9x12 inches

At the time, I was just getting into the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, and got the idea of cutting up Potpourri and making it into small 9x12 inch quilts to donate to AAQI.

Potpourri 2, 2011, 9x12 inches

I ended up getting three small quilts out of the original Potpourri.

Potpourri 3, 2011, 9x12 inches

The three new Potpourri's went to Houston in October for the AAQI's big annual fundraiser, and they all sold, each earning $36.70. All in all, I think I've done a fine job of putting that original $10 dress to good use!

Pelicans

2011-12-01T16:23:00.000-05:00

I was at the beach the other day, watching the pelicans.

I was sitting on a small dune, and would try to get shots of the pelicans as they flew by. This is the result of probably taking about 50 pictures of the birds. I'd miss the shot, or give up and put my camera back in my pocket.

Of course, then a whole slew of pelicans would fly by and I'd miss what - in my imagination, anyway - were some great shots. Personally, I think they were waiting till the camera was out of sight.... In any case, it was a beautiful day, and wonderful to be outdoors.

This little girl was standing still for a moment, but she and her three sisters had been having a blast frolicking on the beach.

A Young Rose

2011-10-14T10:23:00.000-04:00

I was playing with one of my favorite books, Digital Expressions, by Susan Tuttle, and put together this picture. This is my paternal grandmother, Rosilia, at the age of thirteen. If you look in the background, you'll see Rose (as she was called) when she was probably in her sixties. My interpretation of this image is of my grandmother remembering herself as a young girl. Here are the two photos I worked with in Photoshop:

They really knew how to take portraits back then! This would have been around 1900.

I love the brooch my grandmother is wearing in this picture. I couldn't resist giving the young Rosilia a rose to hold in her hand.

Which image do you like best? With or without the rose?

September's Chart

2011-10-04T10:50:00.000-04:00

I talked about The Chart in this post in early September. I'd say the month of September was quite a success - I filled in 35 of the 40 squares with my projects. My October chart is hung on the design wall. These charts really do give a boost to my motivation! I love filling in the squares....

Palm Beach is Up for Auction!

2011-10-02T13:30:00.000-04:00

A couple months ago, I started making small art quilts and donating them to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. Each month the AAQI auctions off 26 of the donated quilts. This month (October 1-10) one of my quilts (Palm Beach) was chosen to be part of the auction! Here's the link if you'd like to look at the quilts availabe for auction this month, and click on Palm Beach if you'd like to see my quilt's auction page.

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative™ (www.AlzQuilts.org) is a national, grassroots charity whose mission is to raise awareness and fund research. The AAQI auctions and sells donated quilts, and sponsors a nationally touring exhibit of quilts about Alzheimer's. The AAQI has raised more than $591,000 since January 2006.

Anchored in the Past - 03

2011-09-28T08:35:00.003-04:00

This photo shows us leaving my grandparents' home in Moosup,
Connecticut. My grandmother and my uncle, who was driving
us to the airport, are in the picture with me, my Mom, and my
sister, Lynn, whose head shows just behind me. (This is also the
photograph from which I "extracted" myself to put me on the
ship next to Ed. See last post)

I started my traveling life at an early age. Around the time Ed was visiting the Ile de France in New York, I was, at the age of four, preparing for my first Atlantic crossing! What that means is - I was probably picking out my favorite stuffed toys to take with me when we moved to England. My Dad made his career in the U.S. Air Force, and in 1951 he was transferred from Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts to an American base in England. His squadron was sent ahead, with spouses and children following later, traveling by military plane.

Once in England, our family lived off-base in a nearby town. I attended kindergarten and first grade at a local Catholic school. Our school uniforms included a necktie, which I learned to tie on my own - one of those inconsequential skills that you pick up and then never have reason to use again. A young boy and I traveled to school together on a bright-red, double-decker bus.

Heading off to school, first grade (September 1953)

After 2-1/2 years in England, we learned that my grandfather was very ill, and we were flown home to the States. While my Dad returned to England to complete his tour of duty, Mom, Lynn and I again settled into my grandparents' home in Moosup. Lynn and I went to the Catholic school in town. After England, Dad was reassigned to Westover AFB. He lived there during the week, commuting home to Moosup on weekends.
Two more photos from our time in England:

Enjoying the water

Dressed for Christmas

Anchored in the Past - 02

2011-09-23T09:05:00.001-04:00

Ed on the deck of the Ile de France, January 1952

One day I was looking through old photo albums from Ed's family, and was taken aback to find a photo of a young Ed standing on what looked like the deck of a ship. He was alone in one photo and standing with his mother in a second picture. What really blew my mind was the caption for the photos that said that they were celebrating Ed's 7th birthday (January 1952) and that they were standing on the deck of the Ile de France. This was the actual ship pictured on the postcard that had so terrified me in my youth. How could this be? Ed had never told me he'd been on the Ile de France, and I could only assume that he'd forgotten.

When Ed got home, I showed him the pictures. You don't know Ed, but it's pretty accurate to say that not much fazes him. He responded with something like, "So?" He then explained that, back in the 1950's, steamships were making regular runs between New York City and Europe, and people could go aboard and visit a ship while it was in port. I asked him if he'd forgotten that the ship he had visited was the Ile de France. No, he hadn't forgotten. Then how was it, knowing that this ship was one of my childhood terrors, he had never mentioned that he'd been aboard the Ile de France? Ed replied that he really didn't see any connection between the two things....

A large lifeboat is visible behind Grace and Ed

When Ed was growing up on Long Island, his family would occasionally drive into the city to see which ships were in port. Schedules for these transatlantic travelers were listed in the local newspaper. Sometimes his family would go to Jones Beach, on the south shore of Long Island, and watch the parade of steamships as they left the port of New York City to head for Europe. I found it hard to believe that while I was growing up in Connecticut with my fear of ships, Ed was not that many miles south of me, living in a place where these ships were considered a normal part of everyday life.

Okay, so I had a little fun in Photoshop. Ed still gets that same look on his face!

Anchored in the Past - 01

2011-09-22T10:44:00.001-04:00

A Google image search for "Ile de France, ship, postcard"
yielded the picture I remember from my childhood.

One of my earliest memories is of the nightmare that haunted my childhood. In the dream I would be out in the middle of the ocean on a very dark night. There would be the towering black bow of an overwhelmingly huge ship bearing down on me, white waves frothing around the hull. I would wake up screaming and my mother would come in to comfort me.

I know the dream was in my earliest years because when I was seven years old, my maternal grandmother went on a pilgrimage to Europe and traveled by ocean liner. When she returned, she gave me all the postcards that she had collected on her trip. Among them was a black and white postcard of one of the ocean liners she had traveled on. The picture was an aerial view of the Ile de France set against the ocean. I don't remember much that filled me with more terror than that picture. Being a child, I didn't realize that I could have thrown away the postcard and no one would have noticed. Instead, I kept it hidden so that I wouldn't come on it by accident.

Being terrified of pictures of ships turned out to be a life-long problem. One semester in college, I worked shelving books in the university library. The floor where I worked included the magazine section, and I would go around to the study tables to collect all the books and magazines before I shelved them. I was normally cautious, but this one day I picked up a magazine that was laying face down on a table. I turned it over to read the title. The cover picture was a photograph of a large ship, and before I had a chance to think of what I was doing, I had thrown the magazine across the room.

I realized that this was a strange phobia and for many years kept it a secret. I never told my family or friends, or even the fellow I dated for three years in college. I felt that people would find this so hard to believe that they would show me pictures of ships just to see my reaction. Then, while working at my first job after college, I met Ed, my future husband, and on our second date I told him my story of the nightmare and the pictures of ships.

I now wonder why, after twenty-one years of silence, I told my secret to a man I hardly knew. Or why I married this man who would eventually not only get the idea of living on a sailboat, but would be one of those relatively rare people capable of handling all the physical, emotional, and financial obstacles that keep most armchair sailors on land. Someone who would actually take me sailing across oceans - and to the time and place where my nightmare would become reality. Years later, looking back with hindsight, I would joke that I should have married an accountant in Kansas. Still, at the time, a physicist in Michigan had seemed safe enough.

Anchored in the Past

2011-09-21T16:36:00.001-04:00

This is an art card (2.5"x3.5") that I purchased online.
"Ship At Night" ACEO by jerise@jerise.com - Nov. 2010

Leap of Faith - on Canvas

2011-09-19T16:10:00.000-04:00

I've been working on pieces mounted on canvas and Leap of Faith is one of them. I described how I designed the original image in my post: Saturday's Source: Leap of Faith. This time, I printed out the image on fabric and then made a mini-quilt with it. I did the quilting on my new sewing machine, a Pfaff.

This is Princess. No, that's not the model - it's what I named her. I still have my old sewing machine that I've had since 1978, and it's a Viking. So the two machines are known as the Viking and the Princess.

I was trying out one of Princess's fancy stitches around the edge of the quilt. Once the quilting was done, I used glue to mount the mini-quilt onto an 8"x10" canvas.

I painted the edges of the canvas with black acrylic paint. After the quilt was mounted, I coated it with Mod Podge (like white glue) to give it a protective finish.

A Question of Memory

2011-09-18T13:28:00.000-04:00

Me, St. Maarten

I can't remember.
Remember what?

Did I forget something?

How can I know if I forgot something?

Will anyone notice?
Does it matter anyway?

I can look it up!
What was it I wanted to look up?

It's a question of memory.
But what was the question?

Puzzled Pets

2011-09-15T15:39:00.000-04:00

I'm pleased to introduce you to my Puzzled Parrot! I had put together a jigsaw puzzle featuring tropical birds, and particularly liked this parrot. I also had an 8"x10" canvas that I'd painted with acrylic paints. The image was flowers, and though I'd worked on it several times, I wasn't totally happy with the painting. So I got the idea to take the parrot from the jigsaw puzzle and mount it on my painted canvas.

This is what the whole canvas looks like. This project was enough fun that I headed for the Salvation Army thrift store to look for more jigsaw puzzles. And that's where I found Jake....

Isn't he a beautiful dog? After I did the jigsaw puzzle, I painted on a 12"x16" canvas, and mounted Jake. The next picture shows it from an angle so that you can see the canvas better, and how much of it is covered with the puzzle pieces.

A third small jigsaw puzzle contained a couple of horses. Since I've been asked to do some art with horses, I decided to use these horses on an 8"x10" canvas. I used two pieces of fabric for the background. I also glued on a couple stray puzzle pieces to provide more balance on the canvas.

This is the straight-on view.

An angled view that shows the puzzle pieces.

And, lastly, a closeup.
I'll be keeping an eye out for more interesting jigsaw puzzles!

Beaufort, North Carolina

2011-09-09T15:40:00.001-04:00

Seagrass is a gift shop on Front Street in Beaufort. A selection of my notecards are for sale in this shop. The owner was interested in local photos, and I provided plenty from Atlantic Beach and Morehead City, but had only one from Beaufort. Since that's the location of the shop, the owner asked me if I would do some notecards with Beaufort scenes.

I spent a morning in Beaufort before Hurricane Irene came through, and took about 200 photos. These are ten of my favorites. This first one is kind of obvious - Clawson's Restaurant!

The Crystal Coast Lady - a local tour boat. I played with the photos in Photoshop.

Another shot of shops on Front Street.

The General Store - marvelous stop for ice cream!

Colorful kayaks. That's the Crystal Coast Lady in the background.

One of the power boats moored at the town dock. There weren't very many boats in the marina, what with Irene being on her way.

Some permanent residents at the town dock.

A wind vane at the top of a building called the Carteret Academy.

And, lastly, some yard decor that caught my eye.

Introducing The Chart

2011-09-04T14:59:00.002-04:00

When I retired 2-1/2 years ago, I expected to spend the majority of my time doing artwork. Actually, I had anticipated being absorbed for hours every day painting. It didn't happen. The problem, as I see it now, was that there were so many types of art I was interested in doing, so many supplies I owned, so many books with hundreds of ideas in them, that I was simply on overload every time I tried to decide what I was going to work on. Though I never did get into the painting, I did start doing more art, and it mostly centered on photography and Photoshop, and developing work for my two Etsy shops.
This past July I heard about the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI), and that got me back into fiber art. To participate in the AAQI, a person makes small art quilts to donate. The AAQI sells or raffles off these mini-quilts (the largest they can be is 9"x12") and raises money for help fund Alzheimer's research. The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative has raised more than $576,000 for Alzheimer's research since January 2006! Since I was into making art quilts for several years, this was a good fit for me. So far, I've done eight of these small quilts.
Despite being involved in different art projects, I still felt "scattered" in what I was doing. Then mid-July I woke up one morning with an idea for The Chart on my mind. The idea was to list the different things I was interested in doing, and do at least five of them each month. I would print out pictures of the final products, and glue the pictures to The Chart. I was also trying to jumpstart my blogging (yet again...) and chose BLOG for one of the entries, anticipating doing 25 blog posts/month, and putting 5 hash marks in each of the five squares on that line. July, I had 18 hash marks for blog posts. August I had four. What this said to me (yet again...) is that I really don't like to putting out the effort involved in blogging. I considered eliminating BLOG from my chart. Then new inspiration struck, and I realized I could do five blog posts per month - and put a picture from each post in the square on The Chart. I knew, for sure, that I could manage five blog posts in a month, especially if it meant I could glue more pictures on my chart.

One line on The Chart says "QUILT" and these are picture of the mini-quilts that I've made for AAQI. Another interest of mine is loaning money through KIVA to help small business folks around the globe. KIVA got its line on The Chart, and I plan to do five new loans each month, and add a picture of each of the new loan recipients. (Kiva's slogan is "Empower people around the world with a $25 loan.")
One line on The Chart is ACEO. These are the small art cards I make, and to get on the chart, the ACEO must be completed and listed online in my Etsy shop, House of Cards. Then there's the line that says CARD, and that refers to the notecards I make, and that get listed in my other Etsy shop, Paper Press.
That leaves CLAY, which is making projects with polymer clay - something I love, but seldom get around to doing. CANVAS - that's painting or clay or fiber art, or really anything that then gets mounted on a canvas. There was one canvas in July and three in August, and, actually, it was being able to post pictures on The Chart that helped motivate me into doing them! (You know - it was like gold stars when you were a kid.) Three of the four canvases are 8"x10" and the fourth is somewhat bigger.
One more category - BOOK. This is the book I'm writing/intending to write, about our years of living on a sailboat. In July I managed "Introduction." I actually have a lot more written, and have scanned lots of slides, but it can only make it onto The Chart if it is a completed chapter. At first it was going to be the title of the chapter, but now - if/when I complete other chapters - I'll post an image from the chapter, rather than the chapter title. This means that all the squares could potentially be filled with pictures.
Now, I can only wonder how September will go....

Stay tuned.

Beware of the Boat

2011-08-08T08:57:00.000-04:00

How sharking! Don't want to mess with this boat! A couple things of interest: The "lighthouse" on the left is a painted tree trunk. It's made to look like our local lighthouse, Cape Lookout. In the top right of the picture is a bird house I wrote about in a much earlier post called, If I Were Free. You can even see the back end of this yellow boat in one of the pictures. This interesting lot is located in Morehead City, North Carolina, on the banks of Bogue Sound.

My Favorite Pier

2011-08-05T07:43:00.000-04:00

My favorite pier, on a fairly-dramatic morning. Looks like someone's out to do some fishing.
Atlantic Beach, North Carolina

Mountain Village

2011-08-04T08:26:00.000-04:00

A mountain village in Portugal. (1984)

Sunset

2011-08-03T07:15:00.000-04:00

Somewhere along the Portuguese coast - taken from the deck of Tropic Moon.

Photo du Jour - Footprints in the Sand

2011-07-30T11:03:00.000-04:00

And a feather. :o)

Photo du Jour - Arches

2011-07-29T07:55:00.000-04:00

This image is from one of my recently scanned slides from our boat travels. It was taken at a monastery in Lisbon, Portugal (1984). Photoshop filters account for the wild colors. I did some major cropping too. I've used this image, named "Arches," for both an ACEO and a notecard in my Etsy shops. Below is the original slide.

Photos du Jour - Model Gull

2011-07-28T16:52:00.001-04:00

I was walking at the beach one day and saw this laughing gull. (That's the gull's name - he wasn't actually laughing! They do make a really loud cawing noise.)

He walked towards me as I took pictures.

Maybe he was hoping I had bread with me!

Unfortunately, I didn't have anything to feed him to pay for his modeling services.

A smallish gull with a black head, the Laughing Gull is abundant along the southern Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Infrequently found away from the ocean, it takes advantage of human habitat modifications, foraging in parking lots and dumps, and breeding on dredge spoil islands. (Info from the internet.)

Photo du Jour - Maple Leaves

2011-07-27T16:55:00.000-04:00

A maple tree in our backyard posed for this picture.

Photo du Jour - Reflected Pier

2011-07-26T18:51:00.000-04:00

This is a photo I took of a window on campus. The world, including pier and sailboat, were being beautifully reflected in the window.
Center for Marine Science and Technology
Carteret Community College
Morehead City, North Carolina

Photo du Jour - Harbor Road

2011-07-25T11:19:00.000-04:00

From a slide I'd taken at Horta, in the Azores Islands.

Photo du Jour - Dog Days of Summer

2011-07-23T08:47:00.000-04:00

Dog Days of Summer
Taken at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.
I was at the beach for a walk and this dog, plus a matching one, and their owner, were also enjoying the early morning before the day's heat kicked in.
Anyone know what kind of dog this would be?

Photo du Jour - Fixer Upper

2011-07-22T07:21:00.000-04:00

Think this place needs a little work!
Morehead City, North Carolina

Photo du Jour - Neon Gull

2011-07-21T07:34:00.000-04:00

Remember the Reserved Parking photo from a few days ago? Cropped to get just the gull and sign, and used the Photoshop filter called Glowing Edges. Silly, but fun!

Photo du Jour - Tagus River

2011-07-20T09:02:00.001-04:00

The original slide for this digital image was taken in Lisbon, Portugal. I did some serious cropping and manipulating with it in Photoshop. It's difficult to get a decent image out of a lot of our old slides, so I turn some of them "artsy" rather than trying to use the original picture. It's hard to believe that we used to wait weeks, sometimes months, before we'd even see the pictures we'd taken! (I do love my digital camera. Yes, I know I've mentioned that before.) Here's a link to the ACEO I've listed in my Etsy shop.

This is my scan of the original slide. Basically, I used the middle section of the slide for my digital image. The Tagus River has its origins in Spain. It flows west through Spain and Portugal, eventually reaching Lisbon where the river flows into the Atlantic Ocean.

Photo du Jour - Clearing Customs

2011-07-19T07:20:00.001-04:00

Since I mentioned Tropic Moon yesterday, I thought I'd post a picture of her today. In this photo, we're clearing Customs in Gibraltar (1984). That's the fog-shrouded Rock of Gibraltar in the background. Ed is raising the courtesy flag (British, in this case) and the yellow quarantine flag. The yellow flag has to stay up until the boat has cleared Customs. Yes, this was our home for 14 years, and, yes, we did sail across the Atlantic - twice - in this small boat. I know, I can't believe it either....

Photo du Jour - Old Sailor

2011-07-18T09:44:00.001-04:00

Old Sailor
My husband and I lived on a sailboat for many years (not this boat!!). I've started editing the newsletters I wrote during that time, and also playing with our many slides in Photoshop. This image was taken off the Portuguese coast, probably in 1984. My "plan" is to put a book together. I'll also be using some of these images in my Etsy shops in the form of notecards and ACEO's. (Links to shops are on the right side of my blog.) Lots more to come!

Photo du Jour - Laughing Gull

2011-07-17T08:34:00.001-04:00

Laughing Gull
Atlantic Beach, North Carolina

Photo du Jour - Reserved Parking

2011-07-16T10:36:00.001-04:00

Reserved Parking
Taken at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.

Drama Queen

2011-06-09T13:33:00.000-04:00

On a visit to the beach the other day, the sky was being quite the drama queen.

*****

Happy Days!

Sunday's Seagull

2011-06-05T12:43:00.000-04:00

Original photo.

Photoshop: auto levels

Photoshop: equalize

Spring Flowers

2011-05-30T11:49:00.000-04:00

Day Lily

Hydrangea

Jonquils

Magnolia

Roses

Near the Beach

2011-05-27T08:17:00.000-04:00

In Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.

You can just see the ocean way in the background.

I loved this palm tree!

Have a swinging good time!

Snail, Hand and Circles

2011-05-17T19:24:00.000-04:00

Today's zentangle offerings. A pokey snail.

Getting your nails done....

Round, and round, and round.

Crested Doodle Birds

2011-05-15T10:41:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple more zentangles from my sketch book. I kind of just let the designs happen. I guess that's part of the "zen" part of zentangles. Anyway, I hadn't intended to do a bird, let alone a Crested Doodle Bird! (Yes, I made that up.) But, here he is, in all his glory.

This seems to be another Crested Doodle Bird, this one a female sitting on her egg. (Are birds ever considered to be "pregnant"?) I named this one Pregnant Pause, and colored the bird and the egg to make them stand out from the rest of the zentangle. That's one big egg....

New Zentangles

2011-05-14T08:27:00.000-04:00

I bought a sketchbook a few weeks ago, and have been doing pages and pages of zentangles. Love them! My first ones were all black and white, but more of them have color now. The stars and stripes motifs led me to name this one America.

I named this one "Tree of Life." I did a lot of coloring as a child. It's fun to be doing it again!

V, W, X, Y, and Z

2011-05-10T09:09:00.000-04:00

V is for Voice. The picture is of a painting I did, using one of Cezanne's paintings as my model.

W is for World. I took the photograph of the ferris wheel at Niagra Falls last October. We went up in the ferris wheel, and it was pretty incredible to see the illuminated Falls at night from that height.

X is for Xebec. X was a real challenge since there aren't that many X words that I'd even heard of! I picked this one because it was a sailing ship, and I found the image online.

Y is for Yearn. The upper left photo is from the early 70's. Ed and I were on a hiking trip in the Appalachian Mountains in New Hampshire. I was in the process of reading from the guide book. The lower left picture was taken on a canoe trip in Michigan - again, early 70's. The last photo is one I took recently (in the bathroom mirror). That's Casey, my cockatiel, posing on my shoulder. What I sometimes yearn for is the sense of adventure I lost many years ago.

Z is for Zebra. I took this photo this spring during a visit to the North Carolina Zoological Park. When it came time to zentangle the letter Z, I decided to do it in zebra stripes.

R, S, T, U

2011-05-09T09:01:00.000-04:00

R is for Relax. That's my Dad in the picture. He was pretty good at relaxing. This image is one I put together using a photo I took at the local Fort Macon, combined with a shot of Dad from World War II. I described this - and our mutual love of pickled onions - in a blog post from a couple years ago.

S is for Smile. Dad (Jean Edward Marchesseault) got himself on the R page, and this is my Mom (Beatrice Leona Bellavance Marchesseault) on the S page. I didn't bother with a quote because I felt her smile said it all.

T is for Tribe. My mother was one of nine children and my dad was one of eleven. My mom's oldest sister married my dad's oldest brother, and this is a picture from Loretta and Lionel's wedding. In this next picture, I circled my mom and dad, who were then teenagers, and sitting together on the railing.

My two grandfathers and two grandmothers are in the front with the wedding couple. All the little girls were my aunts, and lots of other aunts and uncles are in the background of the picture.

U is for Union. This is a photo of Ed and me on our wedding day (August 14, 1970). A good "union," if I do say so myself!

Next post - the rest of the alphabet!!

M, N, O, P, Q

2011-05-08T06:42:00.000-04:00

I have gotten seriously bored with posting about my zentangle alphabet, and decided to speed things up. Afterall, the pages are not only done, but the book has been assembled, and shown to a few friends. M is for Magic. The photo was taken on Nantucket Island.

N is for Night. The image is a picture of my art quilt, Night Sail.

O is for Ocean, and the photo is one taken at the local beach. You can click on the image if you want to read the quote.

P is for Peace. The flowers are a digital image worked up from one of my photographs.

Q is for Quiet. The photo was taken at our local community college.

The next four letters (R, S, T, and U) will feature family photos - funny how they fell together in one part of the alphabet. I also liked how Peace and Quiet ended up next to each other too.

L is for Logic

2011-05-07T19:26:00.000-04:00

This is an example of my digital art. It started with a photo of a reflection in very large windows.

This is the Martec Building located on the campus of Carteret Community College (Morehead City, NC). Another building (Wayne West) was beautifully reflected in the windows of Martec.

The letter L, as a zentangle. The quote I used: Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence. (Joseph Wood Krutch) I also had a fortune cookie fortune I glued to the page that said: Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit. I truly don't have anything against logic, but you'd never know it from this page.

Here's the page spread. I used stamps for the "adventure" words, and added three feather stickers.

K is for Karma

2011-05-05T10:56:00.001-04:00

I looked online at lots of information related to karma, but what I kept coming back to was a song by Boy George and the Culture Club called Karma Chameleon. To me, this was a song as famous as Beatles songs, but apparently, after mentioning it to a couple people, I realized that it wasn't quite up there on everyone else's playlist. (One of my favorite songs, ever, and yes, I'm willing to admit it.) Here's a link to a video of Culture Club performing Karma Chameleon. For the picture above, I found this chameleon online, and gave him a knitted cap to wear. You can't really tell, but using my Photoshop skills, I also gave him a bit of a smile. He had been looking rather grim.

Here's my zentangled K. I did most, if not all (can't remember...) of these zentangled letters in black and white, but this one got a heart of color, to pick up the colors in the song. Here are the lyrics I used on my page:
Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon,
you come and go, you come and go.
Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams,
red gold and green, red gold and green.

This stamp was on a package I received from New Zealand. I scanned it and added it to my page, again, because of the colors.

And here's the page spread.

J is for Jaunt

2011-04-28T13:45:00.000-04:00

There's a train station in Wilson, NC, about 2 1/2 hours from us, that I visit on occasion with my sister. Lynn has a friend who comes down once a year from Arlington, VA, by Amtrak train. There's a beautiful 10' x 16' mural on a wall in the train depot, and that's where I took this photograph. This is just a small part of the mural, and if you'd like to see the whole mural, check it out here. There are two pictures near the bottom of the article.

The zentangle for my letter J.

I didn't find a quote I liked with the word "jaunt" so I decided to use a definition instead. "Jaunt: to ramble here and there; to stroll; to make an excursion." Can you go for a jaunt on a train? Sure, why not! And the mother and son took a jaunt to the railroad tracks to watch the train go by.

Here's my page spread. The butterfly is a sticker and "journey" and the arrows are from my stamp collection. I thought the bicycle fit in well too. It's another member of the Webdings font, as I described in this earlier post. Typing the small "b" on the keyboard gives you this bicycle. How cool is that? Not this big, of course - I enlarged it in Photoshop. Happy jaunting!

I is for Image

2011-04-27T20:32:00.000-04:00

My maiden name was Marchesseault. The "Marchesseault Bros." listed on the awning in the picture included my paternal grandfather, Edmund, and my great uncle, Arthur. That's Arthur standing in the middle of the steps. The store was located in Moosup, Connecticut, and this photo was probably taken in the early 1900's.

This is a later version of their business, built in 1925. It's the building I remember from my childhood in the fifties. The left half of the store was groceries and the right half was dry goods, like fabrics and threads. As a young man, my father delivered groceries for the store. During my childhood years, Grandpa ran the grocery side, Uncle Lionel was the butcher, Aunt Rachel (spinster aunt) ran the dry goods side, and great Uncle Arthur was the bookkeeper for the business. Next door to this building was the store owned by my other grandfather. (Did I mention that this was a small town?)

The letter I, done as a zentangle.

The quote I used: Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. (Ayn Rand)

Here's the page spread. I used stamps, stickers and markers to decorate the upper left part of the page.

H is for House

2011-04-22T09:55:00.001-04:00

This is a picture of my first home, in Moosup, Connecticut, where we lived with my grandparents. That's the actual house, but I've set it into a painting of a winter scene. I used Photoshop to perform this magic. I offer this as one of my notecards in my Paper Press Etsy shop, and in one of my ACEO's, in my other Etsy shop.

The letter H, zentangled.

The quote I used: A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body. (Benjamin Franklin)

I had wanted to use "home" instead of "house" for my H word, but one of my original parameters was to only use 5-letter words. That got me thinking about other H words that represent home, and I made a list, each word being one letter longer than the previous word. Yes, I'm OCD, but it's one of my favorite personality traits! Here's the list:
hut
hive
haven
harbor
hideout
highrise
homestead
habitation
So, to include this list on my H page, I "drew" another house in Photoshop, and placed my word list on the roof of the house.

My final page spread. H is also for Happy. :o)

G is for Grace

2011-04-20T19:49:00.000-04:00

This photograph was taken at The Old Burying Ground in Beaufort, North Carolina. I found the following interesting information on their website:
The Old Burying Ground has dozens of graves with interesting stories. One grave, according to legend, contains an English sailor who was buried upright so that he could eternally salute his king. Another grave marker bears this inscription:

The form that fills this silent grave,
once tossed on ocean's rolling wave,
but in a port securely fast
he's dropped his anchor here at last.

I liked that bit about "dropping your anchor."

This is another view of the statue to show what it looked like before I Photoshopped it.

My Zentangle of the letter G.

The quote I used: Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live. (Jacqueline Winspear)

And, lastly, the page spread.

Amazing Azaleas

2011-04-18T15:16:00.000-04:00

The azaleas in our yard were eager to pose for pictures, so I obliged.

Their loveliness blew me away!

In typical fashion (for me), I got carried away. Between the azaleas, bouganvillia, and dogwood, in our yard and the neighbors, I took about 150 pictures before I came back in the house.

Many were quickly deleted, but I still had trouble picking my favorites from those that were left.

Hope you enjoy them!

F is for Faith

2011-04-17T16:13:00.001-04:00

This is a picture of a weeping willow I took during a morning walk on our neighboring golf course.

My zentangle of the letter F.

The quote I used: Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof. (Kahlil Gibran)

Here's the page spread. The image in the upper left is a family of ducks. It was from a page in a magazine that I had clipped.

Bee Still, My Heart

2011-04-15T10:46:00.001-04:00

I was taking pictures of some of the azaleas in our yard yesterday. There are lots of bees hanging around the white azaleas by our front door. These bees seem a wee bit formidable, diving bombing around the flowers and the front door. Even though I've been stung by bees in the past, I look on them with fondness rather than fear.

My mom was named Beatrice, and was always called Bea. When I see the bees, I think of my mom, and send her a greeting.

I was pleased that this bee seemed willing to hang around for my pictures. Not that he wasn't busy doing his pollen thing.

I managed one of him buzzing by the green leaves, but only one of his wings show up in the picture.

Bee Gone.... And so am I.

E is for Earth

2011-04-14T09:17:00.000-04:00

A few months ago we went hiking at the Croatan National Forest, and this is one of the photos I took that day. Actually, if you go to the link and look at the banner on the top of their page, at the right you'll see the fence in my photograph.

The letter E, tangled.

The quote I used: "Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life." (Rachel Carson)

Here's the page spread. The butterflies, clouds and flowers in the upper left are stickers.

D is for Dream

2011-04-13T07:57:00.000-04:00

This is my husband, when he was 4 or 5 years old, running the electric train set his father had built for him. Don't you love the hat?

The letter D, tangled. If you enlarge the image, you'll see that I wrote my name into this zentangle. Wonder if that counts as signing my work??

The quote I used didn't talk about dreams, but did concern trains: "The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam to a carriage on wheels will make a great change in the situation of man." (Thomas Jefferson - 1802)

Here's the page spread. I made a fun discovery in Photoshop - a font called Webdings. You type a normal letter, and a symbol shows up instead. The design at the top left of the page spread is a collage of a couple Webding letters.

The train is a small "t" and the railroad tracks are a capital "R." I typed out the whole keyboard in this font so that I'd know what symbols were available.

Back in the mid-1970s, Ed got into model railroading with N-guage trains - really little guys. He had a setup in our basement. When we sold our home and most of our possessions, to live on a sailboat, the small trains and track went into storage. They've just made a reappearance in our lives, and Ed is building a model railroad in our garage. Ed's uncle recently had his 95th birthday, and I took pictures of Ed to send to Uncle George.

Note the engineer's cap. After I found the picture of Ed as a kid with that kind of cap, there was no way he was going to have another model railroad without the appropriate head gear!!

C is for Cloud

2011-04-12T09:52:00.001-04:00

I've been continuing to work on my zentangle alphabet book, and have several pages finished. This image is another one of my photos taken at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.

The letter C, tangled.

The quote I used: Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. (Rabindranath Tagore)

Here's the page spread. The woman and the word "Become" were cut out from a magazine and glued on. I am loving doing this!!

Still At the Zoo

2011-04-10T07:43:00.001-04:00

"Hey, you guys wanna play? Huh? Come on over! Huh??"

"Bet you can't twist your neck like this!"

"Sigh.... I'll never find that contact."

"Whoops! Sorry about that! Didn't see you down there...."

"What???"

At the Zoo

2011-04-09T13:58:00.000-04:00

On Monday we were at the North Carolina Zoological Park in Asheboro, NC. for the afternoon. Here are a few of the photos I took, complete with "animal comments." Above: "Doing laps is such a bore."

"Don't know why they had to put the bathroom so far out of the way."

"I'm imitating a lawn ornament."

"That's it! No more peanut butter - my trunk is stuck AGAIN."

"Zzzzzzzzzzz."

B is for Bliss

2011-04-08T08:28:00.000-04:00

What could be more blissful than the beach? Besides, B is also for Beach. :o) This is a photo I took at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.

My letter B, tangled.

The quote I used: Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. (Joseph Campbell)

Here's the page spread. I added a poster of the Ile de France (more bliss?), and an anchor, to help fill the empty space.

A is for Angel

2011-04-07T13:04:00.001-04:00

I have started working on a Zentangle Alphabet book. I may call it AlphaZen, or something like that. I set up some parameters for my book: 1) each letter would be done as a zentangle; 2) each word I used, like A is for "Angel," would be a word that I was drawn to, and it would be 5 letters long; 3) each page spread would include a quotation or definition that worked for that word; and, 4) I'd use my photographs or digital art for the images.

Here's my letter A that I did as a zentangle.

The quotation I chose: "When I was a child I thought I saw an angel. It had wings and kinda looked like my sister. I opened the door so some light could come into the room, and it sort of faded away. My mother said it was probably my Guardian Angel." (Denzel Washington)

The image at the top of the page has one of my photos of the ocean as the background. The young lady was my paternal grandmother, Rosilia Theroux Marchesseault.

I've worked on lots of old family photos, and this is the one I used for my angel image. My grandmother was 15 years old in this picture.

Lastly, this is what the first page spread looks like. I have a few more letters done. I'm up to F! I'll post as I go along.

Portrait of a Moose

2011-04-02T09:34:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to break out of my rigid ways of doing things, and wanting to do some art that didn't involve any planning. So two nights ago I got out some card stock, a black pen, and I doodled on the card stock. When I'd finished doodling and took a look at it, I saw a moose's head. I added the big eyeball, got out my collection of markers, and had a ball coloring it. Doing zentangles lately seems to have freed me up enough that I was able to do this. I'm quite pleased with it. I named my moose Morris, and wrote a few words in his honor. :o)

Mister Morris Moose,
after primping and preening,
posed for his portrait.

So yesterday I was at a used bookstore (The Book Shop) and found a book called Wild Lands for Wildlife: America's National Refuges. When I saw this picture of a moose I had to buy the book. Don't you think there's a fair resemblance to my Morris??

That's Ed - holding the book open for me.

Oh No!!

2011-04-01T16:39:00.000-04:00

Check out this book - not only is it about Zentangles, but they're playing with fabric. I have fabric.... I made art quilts for over 10 years, and even though I've greatly reduced my fabric stash, there's still several drawers of the stuff in my studio. I am NOT going to buy this book. I am NOT going to buy this book. (Okay, it's on my amazon wish list, but that doesn't mean I'm going to actually buy it.) The author, Suzanne McNeill, has a great blog about zentangles and some beautiful examples done in color.

Zentangle

2011-03-29T15:20:00.000-04:00

Here's my first zentangle. These are really a lot of fun! Just doodling - no way to do it wrong. Gotta love that! I'm starting an alphabet book with all the letters of the alphabet done as zentangles. More on that later. If you're interested in reading about zentangles, here's a link to the site that got it all started.

Quebec City

2011-03-28T12:49:00.002-04:00

Last fall we took a road trip and spent part of our time in Canada. This image was developed in Photoshop from a picture I took in Quebec City. Really loved that city - so picturesque and beautifully maintained! Everywhere we looked was another photo opportunity. Last month I entered three of my photos in our local Arts Council's annual show, including this one, as an 8"x10" print. Quebec City won an Excellence in Photography Award for me.

Above is the original before I played with it in Photoshop to give it the watercolor effect.

My other two entries in Art from the Heart were "In Flight" and "Beach Walk."

It was a show of surprises for me - besides the award for Quebec City, someone who visited the show bought Beach Walk. Had I expected either of these things to happen - they wouldn't have! Always best not to have expectations.... :o)

Gray Day

2011-03-27T09:49:00.000-04:00

Morehead City, North Carolina

*****

Beached

2011-03-26T09:09:00.000-04:00

Photo was taken near Bogue Sound, Morehead City, North Carolina.

Dichotomy

2011-03-25T09:12:00.000-04:00

Dichotomy - isn't that a great word?? I think of that word when I think about blogging. On the one hand, in theory, I want to be adding posts to my blog. On the other hand, I rarely actually do it. Hmm. So I have lots of digital images I've developed from my photos, and I can, at least, post them. Can't I? Like one a day? How hard can that be?

Forsythia

2011-03-12T11:14:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I was taking photos of our forsythia bush, and thinking, same old, same old. So I played with the images in Photoshop.

These are my favorites from the day.

*****

Have a happy, mellow yellow day!

Morning Light

2011-03-08T11:03:00.001-05:00

Windows shine brightly,
sunbeams lightly touch the day.
Art and grace abound.

Color is the muse
that dances in my mind's eye
when I yearn to paint.

My Name is Jena

2011-03-07T07:59:00.000-05:00

My name is Jena and I'm an inner child. I was named when the "mother ship" typed her name wrong, but, trust me, I'm more than just a typo! I'm an artist. An artist who doesn't get to do enough art!!

She doesn't listen to me! You know what I mean? I'm so sad when she doesn't listen to me. I want to do messy art. I'm a great artist, but she seldom lets me do my art. She always finds reasons or excuses for not doing messy art. Messy art is where you actually get your hands dirty, like with paint or glue or other fun stuff.

Why can't we just play? I'm sick of being on the computer! I want to make a MESS!! She keeps telling me we'll start soon, and then she lets me down again. She's so uptight, so afraid of doing something wrong. Well, if we do mess up, the world won't come to an end, and we could have some fun trying.

I like going to the beach or the aquarium, and going for lots of walks. I like it when we take lots of photos. There's a new book she bought and I'm REALLY excited about it! I like Liz and her book and I want to play like she does. Liz talks about writing poetry, and - big surprise to me - we've started writing some!

Okay, I know the mother ship is trying to get with the program. Soon I'll be painting again. I can be a real pain if she tries to ignore me, so eventually, I'll get my way.

Casey Twirls His Feather

2011-03-04T09:14:00.002-05:00

Our cockatiel, Casey, does a copious amount of molting. When he loses a major feather, he often plays with it afterwards. He holds it in his mouth, chews on it like a farmer with a stalk of straw, and twirls the feather. This feather is half gray and half white - a wing feather.

Here's Casey chewing on the feather.

Twirling off to the right.

And off to the left.

Applause? Why, thank you! Always enjoy performing.

Take a Gander!

2011-03-04T08:34:00.001-05:00

I was walking on our college campus and saw that lots of Canadian Geese were visiting.

I wasn't the only one enjoying the beautiful day by the water.

Have a seat, dear. Thanks! Don't mind if I do.

Some of the geese were on a small hill, so I tried a silhouette shot, taken into the sun.

After all the work of posing for pictures, it was deemed naptime. One fellow kept watch while the others slept.

Morning Shots

2011-02-25T09:23:00.000-05:00

***

New Look

2011-02-24T14:07:00.001-05:00

A new look to my blog. Can't say whether it will stay this way or not, but I think I eliminated any possibility to going back to what I had before!

Aerial Photo

2011-02-22T07:43:00.001-05:00

When my husband saw this picture, he said it looked like an aerial photograph of an inlet. Actually, I was standing on the ground and took a picture of a puddle that formed as the tide was coming in. Which do you see when you look at this image?

Aquarium Part II

2011-02-20T09:47:00.003-05:00

The aquarium has a super large tank with a replica of a shipwrecked German u-boat, and lots of fish and sharks. Divers go in the tank several times a day and interact with people outside the tank. Here, the diver puts his hand on the wall and people can put their hand on the outside - to show how thick the wall is. It's not glass - some kind of plastic, I think. I wasn't giving the speaker my full attention.

There were three divers in the tank, one with a special mike so that he could speak with the aquarium visitors, and the other divers could hear him too.

This is a catfish.

I was attracted to the bright yellow color of these fishy guys.

In a hurry to get wherever....

A hammerhead shark, cruising over a part of the u-boat replica.

I'm overly fond of frogs, and have several plushie frogs, so I couldn't pass up getting shots of these two handsome fellows.

And that was our day at the aquarium.

Aquarium

2011-02-18T14:05:00.003-05:00

Went visiting at the North Carolina Aquarium (at Pine Knoll Shores) a couple days ago. I loved my digital camera before, but now I love it even more - I found it has a setting for taking pictures at an aquarium! This first fintastic fellow is a lionfish.

Here are some of my results, after seriously messing with them in Photoshop.

How sharking!! A shock! :o)

Embraced by the Light.... The "light" is actually my camera's flash reflected in the glass. I moved the fish around a bit. The title is a play on a book of that title.

Jellyfish

Ditto. I want to return to the Aquarium soon and try more shots with the jellyfish. Loved the effects I was able to achieve.

Hey! Wait for me!!

More photos next time.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T07:35:00.000-05:00

I saw this at the beach the other day, spelled out in broken shells and beach stones. Seemed appropriate to the day!

Till the Cows Come Home

2011-02-03T14:47:00.002-05:00

This is a photograph I took in Quebec during our vacation last fall. I decided that I wanted to recreate this image in fabric.

I felt I was off to a good start with my first two fabrics - a couple of batiks I had in my stash. I had a 12"x18" piece of "stiff felt" called Easy Felt, that I'd found at Michael's, and used that for my foundation. One of the first parts of the picture that I tried to reproduce in fabric was the barn. I wasn't happy with it and decided that the scene needed a red barn.

I found a red barn on the Internet and used Photoshop to insert it into the picture. As you can see, I have issues with "perpsective." After a considerable amount of work, and some kibbitzing from my husband, I'd progressed to this image:

I was happier with this, but realized that this barn would be just as difficult to reproduce in fabric. The photo had also gotten cropped more, and part of the middle had been removed. I was liking it less and less, and finally decided, Who needs a barn anyway?
This is a common stage in my artwork when I - as usual - wonder why I ever try to do anything, nothing ever works out, waste of time, etc., etc. Once I got past some griping in my journal, I decided to just see what would develop if I started free-cutting pieces of fabric to add to my background.

So far so good, but I hit another stopping point because I wasn't sure if I liked it enough to permanently attach the fabrics to the background. I got out my camera, took this photo, and put it in Photoshop to play with it. I figured that if I left out the barn, then maybe I should add something else to the picture. I remembered some cows I'd photographed last year and pulled up two of those photos:

The cows live at a farm about a mile from our home.

Using Photoshop, I isolated the cows and added them to my picture.

Voila!! And this is where I am now. It doesn't look much like the original photo, especially since the blue now looks like sky instead of water. Please note - nothing is glued down yet, and the cows are still in their cyber barn, so the next time I post about this project, it could be a totally different picture. Anyway, I thought you might enjoy following my process.

Back Again??

2011-01-31T09:53:00.002-05:00

Recently someone sent a note asking what had happened to me, since I'd stopped blogging. She told me she missed my photos. Another friend also prods me from time to time to start blogging again. I do have lots of photos to share, and several projects I'm working on that I could write about. So I'm back to give it another shot! Feel free to bug me if I fade away again....

Yesterday I went for a walk at the beach and saw this dog keeping watch from the balcony of a beach house. He looked so serious about his duties!

I don't normally take photos of people, (a privacy thing), but I wanted to show some of the folks who were also out enjoying themselves.

The same image, cropped. Wonder if this was the child's first time at the beach?

A surfer, taken from quite a distance, which is why he looks a bit like an android.

A sister and brother. Her red jacket caught my eye.

This also caught my eye - a sweet message!

And, lastly, the requisite seagull picture. :o)

Wood Nymphs

2010-11-15T11:59:00.001-05:00

This past weekend we were out for a hike in the Croatan National Forest. I had heard tell that wood nymphs had been spotted in the area, so I had my camera ready.

I thought they would be more camera-shy, but it turned out to be pretty easy to get some shots of them.

The next fellow is called Bigfoot.

Not hard to see why.

This is a "portal" to the lower regions.

I caught a shot of this fellow emerging from the portal.

It's perhaps a little-known fact that wood nymphs are not great fans of horses....

And these signs are an example of how they like to play at confusing people who visit the forest. Though, in truth, they seldom bother, since there's so little challenge to the sport.

Spirit (8)

2010-11-14T08:46:00.002-05:00

TAPESTRY

Each day brings new life, new opportunities for creating - an immense tapestry that you "weave" thread by thread. You control the final product. What colors you use, how rich the thread, how elegant or how poor the final result, will be your choice because it is a matter of how you live every day of your life. You work with the richest silks, the finest cottons. The colors you choose cover the full spectrum , bright and shiny, or dark and dim with your moods. Every color, every tint, every shade of each hue. Weave with a light touch. Stitch with a carefree hand. Let the pattern emerge as it should - as it will. Hold your needle or bobbin or shuttle lightly and, if you wish, we will help to guide your creative hand, help you to weave your personal tapestry - the image, the visual representation, of the complex workings of the soul's creation.

AFTERLIFE

And when the time comes for your final passage from your earthly light, I will be waiting for you. Standing with your mother and your father, and others of your people, we will welcome you with open arms.

We travel amongst the stars in the cold and clear ether of eternity. We know each other at the most basic level. We share this journey together. We welcome your awareness and are truly very pleased for it. You are a good traveler. You recognize the voyage and relish the adventure. This is a most precious knowledge, something to be treasured, to be shared with others. The wonder of the journey and of the experience. The joy in the acceptance of and the participation in the eternal dance.

I bow to my partner. I reach out my arms to you. Come into their circle, and we shall dance together. With joy and love and wonder. Step lightly. Float. The stars sparkle in your eyes. The clouds cushion your feet. You look at me. You see only me. But in seeing me you see all that ever was or ever will be, because it is all me. I am the source, the fountainhead. I am the home to which you return - the home that you have never really left. Step-one-two-three. Faster, higher, lighter, brighter. Swing in a circle. Circles. Wheels. Rounds. Come, my dearest love. Come dance with me.

Joy is not mine to give. It is the nectar of your soul. Drink deeply. It is an unending source, a bottomless well, renewed as you take from it. We are together. We pass the baton back and forth till it becomes difficult to see whose hand is doing the conducting - and then we do see - we are doing this together. All of our hands are on the baton. You lead and I follow. I lead and you follow. We both lead together. The music swells, the dance is joined, and the joy of eternity is glimpsed by our shaded eyes. God bless.

Spirit (7)

2010-11-13T07:48:00.003-05:00

SOULS

There isn't a much better word for one's journey through life than the word "odyssey." This word is taken from an epic poem attributed to Homer, recounting the travels of Odysseus. The definition of odyssey is: "A long wandering usually marked by many changes of fortune." How very appropriate.

Few of us look upon our life as a journey, a flowing of movement and action through time. Rather, we see ourselves in static situations, living for lengthy periods in one residence, going to the same job, taking care of the children. A friend may ask, "What's new? What's happening?" and we reply, "Nothing. You know - the same old thing." You see, we have lost sight of the journey. We no longer see the path.

How to recognize our path through the foliage and undergrowth of our daily lives? It's like a woodsman looking for signs that mark the trail. A slash in the bark of a tree, a small pile of stones indicating a path, an arrow scratched into a rock to show direction.

What comparable signs do we find in our own lives? Some special word from a friend, a passage with significance discovered in a book, a phrase from a sermon heard in our place of worship.

And what purpose these seemingly random markings? For one thing, they serve as reminders of the existence of our spiritual selves, our souls. We can be ever so busy in our lives, consider ourselves "successful," chose among the finer things in life for our pleasures, but when we reach the end of our earthly span, what is left to us? How true that old chestnut, "You can't take it with you." But even that adage indicates the underlying nature of things - that you are indeed going somewhere (though you may have doubts about that in the here and now). Let us assume for the moment that there is a place or state for you to enter after death. You know that you won't be taking along your worldly goods.

(Whatever does one do without TV??) You know that your physical body will remain behind. So what does that leave us but for that mysterious quantity that we refer to as a "soul"? That part of us that is so easy to ignore amidst the busyness of our lives.

One important aspect of the soul is that, as something "living," it is capable of growth, of further development. May I be so forward as to interject the hypothesis that the further growth and development of our souls is an important purpose, perhaps the most important purpose, of our earthly existence?

No, I'm not suggesting that you spend hours on your knees in a church! It's more a matter of living your life with one ear partially tuned to the rhythyms of your soul. Faced with choices? Look inward for the proper answer. An opportunity arises for a creative learning experience? Take it. Creative activity feeds the soul. Using and developing our skills, whatever they may be, nourishes our spirits.

Why bother? Simple answer, really. When you pass through the portal called death, the only thing that goes with you, which is the thing that you are at the most fundamental level, is your soul. And if, along life's journey, you have occasionally fed (through creative activities), cleansed (with meditation or prayer), or otherwise cared for it, one might envision for you a bright, shiny, polished apple of a soul. A soul ignored and left to carry the debris of thoughtless actions and abuses might be seen as dark and dusty, mossy, cobwebby, maybe even a few barnacles thrown in for good measure. A choice, you see. Truly, each individual's ultimate choice.
(More to follow.)

Spirit (6)

2010-11-12T08:44:00.000-05:00

PRESENT TIME

Sea breeze, ocean waters, empty expanse of space. Eternal horizon, always stretching ahead, unending path, reaching. You are on a path, with no beginning and no end. Each part of the path, justification in itself. No need to look back or too far ahead. This particular place and time, this infinitely changing bit of sea, this space, this happening, is all that can ever matter.

One sometimes looks ahead and wishes for something that one sees in the future - an end to schooling, a promotion, the purchase of a new home, a change of lifestyle, an end to pain - whatever. But forming too strong an attachment to that future screens out the fascination of today, blocks out the opportunities that make themselves known daily in our lives. You're in a hurry for something? Well, it will come in its own time. If you try to rush through what is your "here and now," you will miss so much.

ROCK GARDEN

There's a kind of wonder when you look at the world. An awareness that there is so much more than that which is visible on the surface. Every flower, every bird, every blade of grass has a life of its own. There are instincts to follow, yet each creature proceeds in its own unique way. You may say that every bird of a particular species builds a certain kind of nest, and while this is so, there will never be two nests that are exactly alike. Every leaf is different from every other leaf, though they hang from the same tree. Each individual life, from the smallest insect, or the most common weed, to the animals of the forest, or man himself - each existence is totally unique from every other one that ever has been or could ever be.

Larger bodies formed from individual existences such as a garden full of flowers or a sky full of stars are in constant flux. Try to think of something unchanging - a rock garden, for example. On no two days can it be exactly the same. A weed has sprouted and, in being pulled, some small stones are shifted. A spider has spun a web and changed the character of a corner. A coating of dust or snow reflects light differently. And even if the rock garden could maintain its exact sameness for two days in a row, it would still be different because you yourself would have changed from one day to the next, and you would therefore be incapable of perceiving the rock garden in exactly the same way.

And if something as stable as a rock garden cannot maintain its sameness, just think then of the liquid sea. Heaving swells, white-capped waves, currents, tides, storms or calms, the lives and deaths of those "denizens of the deep." Ah, how easy to see the changing face of an ocean - how obvous you say, compared to the stillness of the rock garden True, but beyond the change, notice also the continuity of the sea, the sameness, the ability to continue to be its essential self despite the constant change.
(More to follow.)