Friday Fotos - End of the Calla Lily and Sea Urchin Season

 Just as expected, the Calla Lily isn't faring well in the heat, but then neither am I. Hopefully, it

will return next year so that I can create more images of its sculptural magnificence. 

In the meantime, I will continues to play with the few images I was able to capture. 

 It's also the end of the Sea Urchin Cactus season. 

 The bee kept buzzing my hand while I was taking this photo; he wanted

the bloom all to himself.  All I wanted was one great

shot of the bee and I ended up with three. 

We both were blessed.

 Zoom lens photo of the Sea Urchins in the garden.

This image fascinates me. Roger and I often visited Hakone Japanese Garden in Saratoga, CA.

 Unhappily, I never got a decent photo of the Koi ponds or the bamboo gardens.

 I recently ran across an image of bark on a Eucalyptus tree that I blended with

a bamboo image; both images were taken at Hakone

And now I finally have a photo that feels like Hakone always felt to me, if that makes sense.
While watching this video of Hakone I was able to once enjoy the small garden
and remember areas that I had forgotten.
Gotta love armchair traveling. 

Wonderfulicious Wednesday

 Wonderfulicious is when something is deliciously wonderful like dried pods 

from a Mesquite tree 

and a root still intact.

 Wonderfulicious is tossing cloth onto the work table at 3am and waking up to 

the magical placement of the cloth.

The cloth on the right - tea dyed, hand embroidery, and paint 

that was finished at 3am; sleepless night. 

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist

 free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

John F. Kennedy

Expression Cloth

Digital Cloth - created in PSE, so far. Eventually it will be printed out. 

 Purple Onion imprint on rust and tea dyed fabric.

 (the camera picked up green instead of purple. hmm)

 Rust and tea dyed fabric ready for? Love the patterning

and lines created by folds. 

Image of weeds layered with an image of a decaying pot.

Might have taken this photo too far into manipulated-land.

Wonderfulicious Wednesday Digital Play

 Memorial Day weekend in Vegas provided photo opps galore. 

Photo of Faux Venice blended with an image of a decayed pot. 

When I moved into a newly built house everything was too perfect; seven years later the desert summer heat has aged some things to perfection. I've recorded the decaying process from a highly glazed pot

to one that is nearly unglazed. Yes, I do prefer decay.

I found some dried stalks from Palm Trees in the yard this morning that begged to be photographed. Hours later after exploring numerous ways to use the images I came across a technique that has already become a favorite. Loving PSE again! Dried stalks against dyed fabric. 

Rose photo from last year layered a couple of times with textures. 

Wonderfulicious Wednesday

 Printing on fabric is "interesting" especially when the ink cartridges love to be cleaned

 more often than I care to do.

But the images on fabric . . . well, they're just too divine! The softness of fabric, torn edges, loose threads combined with machine stitching is something I've missed doing. 

 This piece is without a purpose other than it gave me something to think about rather

 than the usual thoughts.

 The piece was started at least 4 years ago with photos taken in France

and Italy including one of 

Monet's Garden. the water lily below.

 The recent additions are photos taken in my garden, not quite as exquisite as Monet's

but the traveling was easy.

Two images of the Calla Lily stitched over an image of a painted wall taken at Hotel Villa Stanley

Florence, Italy. The photo of a rooftop was also shot at the Villa.

The background fabric is a discharged screen print.

Happy Mother's Day!

Mom continues to fade deeper into Alzheimer's; this piece exemplifies my emotions. 

A few years ago she said that "it's all fading away." She couldn't describe

what that felt like but I think it summed up what was happening.
The dove in the front is me watching mom fade away . . .

Sea Urchin cactus trio doing their early morning Sunflower Act. 

Sea Urchin cactus photo-bombing.

Inquisitive.

My favorite words: daughter, mom, and grandma.

Happy May! And Birthday to my 92 year old aunt!

This daily visitor to the bird feeder and water fountain refuses to be in a good spot for photographs! 

So, I extracted him from the background and gave him a new one. At first I thought the
 fabric was painted Lutradur, but now I'm thinking that it's Wonder Under.
 Reminder to self, label photos . . .

Another daily visitor to the yard is this Starling, at least I think it's a Starling.

There is something sinister looking about this bird with its yellow eyes.

 I know that this fabric piece is one from a black discharged screen print series

I was working on a few years.

When the yard was being landscaped 7 years ago we found some gorgeous rocks that

we were lucky enough to discover while searching through piles 

 at SW Boulder and Stone. In certain lighting, and when

the desert dust is washed off, the color of this one glows. Speaking

of glowing, the orange Oriole finally stayed put long enough

for me to get a fairly decent shot. Once again, the background was

less than stellar so he was extracted and

placed on this rock via PSE.

First Pink Cacti bloom of the season! This particular tall

stately cactus  hasn't bloomed before. I love the way it looks

like it's reaching for the sun. No tricks in

this photo.

Some things never change.

Deconstructed screen printing on the left, Stencil play on the right. After playing with the stencil I browsed through the stash and discovered a look-alike, well close enough. There seems to be a look that I like plus, my color choices seem to remain the same, for the most part.

Even this piece looks like a few deconstructed screen prints. 

The fabric for this piece was previously semi-dyed. 

Sometimes it's good to check the garden early in the morning.

 Sea Urchin after a morning shower.

Happy Easter - Sensational Sunday

Calla Lily

Playing with a new stencil from Artistcellar; loving the
artifact effect.

Wishing everyone a Sensational Sunday!

Studio play and Calla Lily Splendor

 Discharged and dyed fabric. 

Dyed, stamped, and painted. fabric.

 This is the first Calla Lily I've purchased since moving to the desert. I used to grow them up north along the coast. They did very well in the foggy cool climate so for the life of me I can't fathom why every Spring local nurseries sell them here. It's been 85-95 degrees for a few weeks and it's supposedly April. I don't  imagine that the plant will survive the summer like they do up north, but does that matter? Not when it's given me the opportunity to photograph it . . . 

Calla Lily Splendor

Friday Foto Essay

 I love creating moods so the new App I just discovered, Afterlight, is perfect. 

The sky today is stupendous! 

 Echinopsis, Sea-Urchin, in the garden. This bloom is already fading away but

the one to the right will greet me tomorrow. 

 The bloom in the photo above against Hibiscus.

Afternoon delight.

 Fragment, or maybe more of a tiny collage? the leaf is a metal pin.

MizzMolly,  the studio guardian. 

I cleaned up the blog today. New smaller banner and deleted some blogs that no longer seem to be

active. If you'd like your blog listed please let me know. 

Strip playing with a tiny amount of dyed fabric that very

nearly got tossed; there didn't seem to be enough

to do create anything. Surprise!

Wonderfulicious Wednesday, a day late

Dyed or painted? That's the burning question regarding this 

piece of fabric. I don't remember.

 Sea-Urchin cactus . . 

 Sea-urchin bloom.

Euphorbia tirucalli (also known as Aveloz, Firestick Plants, Indian Tree Spurge, Naked Lady, Pencil Tree, Sticks on Fire or Milk Bush) These are blazing for the first time and are

the backdrop

for the fountain in the backyard. 

The Dance

 Photographing paintings can be tricky and elaborate of which I'm not a fan of, or simplified and doable. 

I don't have the space to set up lights nor the patience to do that kind of photography. But when the painting I just finished refused to be photographed anywhere near what it looks like I nearly changed my mind. Bravo to the internet and free information. The above version was taken on Auto. 

I found a fabulous site on how to photograph just about any art.  But, I'm really all about easy these days so when I found a Skye Taylor youtube that was quick and provided a brilliant idea for making a white card, well, eureka!

I don't have a full size easel so a table-top one on top of a stool was something my dad would have done; use what you have. I do have a tripod and a digital camera. For a white card I was able to create something like Skye did in the youtube. I needed a refresher on how to program the camera to custom white balance. The photo below is pretty close to what the painting looks like. The info in the first link is more valuable than a book I purchased a few years ago; I'll refer to it if I ever need a more professional photo of my work In the meantime I'll keep using the easy system.

The Dance. Acrylic 20x24

April is Great!

Fabric play in the studio. I love Fragments. They don't pretend to be anything other than what they are which in this case is simply an unattached piece of layered cloth. 

Fragments stitched, cut, stitched, painted, dyed, cut, and stitched again. 

Feels like an entrance to  . . . ?

The white cactus blooms, it turns out, belong to a family of 128 Echinopsis. Sometimes they're called

Sea Urchin due to the size and shape; very fitting for the variety I have. They're also
known as Easter Lily Cactus.  This bloom was

photographed against a painting that I'll share later.