Checking in, Checking out

Hi!  I'm just stopping by for a quick hello, and to welcome the new followers here and on facebook.  On Sunday I dropped off my entries to the Showcase of the Arts.  I got to visit quickly with my friend artist-friend Gloria.  She mentioned how hard it is to get much art accomplished in the summer.  Another artist chimed in and said, "summers are for photographing, and winters are for doing art".  What great advice.  Both Gloria and I were whining about how unproductive we are feeling, even though we are always working.  After hearing that liberating wisdom, I headed out to Jackfish Lake with my family to camp for a couple days.  It was a last minute decision, and an excellent one at that.  I took no paints, no sewing, no sketchbook, and NO CAMERA.  I did that on purpose.

I almost couldn't handle it.  There were so many incredible scenes and amazing colors.  The land was canary yellow and electric-celery green far out into the distance where the sun shone through the spaces between the clouds.  The skies were purple and champagne at dusk, turning to fuscia and violet and tangerine just after sundown.  The lake and hills in the distance were deep silvery blue.  I took some crappy cell phone pics on the highway before the batteries died, so I have none of the lake. Here is a picture that turned out pretty well without editing.  I love the lines and the shapes and the bright colors.

Want to see what I do with crappy cell phone pics?  Take this one for example.

Not the best, but totally usable.  We were driving fast.  There were bugs splattered all over the windshield.  I was being bounced every time we hit a pothole, so horizons were not always horizontal! lol  Still, there was something about the bright yellow before the dark horizon that I really loved, so I snapped this anyway.  After some playing with the contrast, saturation, and cropping, I end up with a very tempting idea for my art.

Check out this next one.  It's also from the first photo.  I had look twice to match up where it came from after editing them all!  You never know what you can find when you crop things out and look closer...

I can totally use this.  And remember this drawing?  I was 7 and I lived right across the road from it.

Well look at the old acreage now.  I took this as we drove past it.  It looks so different with the new structures!  I know these make people grumpy because so many of us are nostalgic for the originals.  But do you think we will forget and learn to love these too??

The new landscape, like it or not.

~Monika