Last Minute Photos--The Eclipse

Ralph and I waited until almost the very last second to take photos of the partial solar eclipse 5/20/12.  After the eclipse had already started I insisted we jump in the car and seek an open horizon so I could take photos.  We jumped in the car and drove toward the sun until we found a spot.

I had a polarized filter from my ancient manual film camera that I held up in front of the lens on my camera.  The clouds helped by toning things down a little. 





And it's gone.  I really am  the Queen of the Last Minute.


If you want to see a really good picture that was taken only a few miles from this one check out this photo on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Facebook page here.


And for gorgeous landscape pictures check out the contest winners on Flickr. 

Spring Photo Journal 2012

Spring seemed to come early this year.  Of course, we could have a year like last year, where it snowed in March.





The flowers are blooming.

rain lily

The bees are buzzing.

bee on rosemary

The cats are courting.

Is Jazz in?

The fish are feeding.

Fish begging.

There are garage sales galore.





PS: Jazz is fixed but the boy cats don't seem to get it.

Nature Shots-Bees and Butterfly

This has not been the best year for insects and butterflies.  The drought has been vicious and the heat too high.  Now that it's cooled off a little I'm seeing more activity. 


 

Here's a beautiful Swallowtail butterfly feeding on the butterfly bush. It was hard to get a shot because this butterfly moved continuously and the wind was blowing quite stiffly, making the flowers bob around.  His/her wings are being curved around the flower by the wind in this shot.  





The butterfly reminds me of a stained glass window from this angle. 






There were honey bees and these big fellas all over the bush too.


  



I think these are Eastern Carpenter Bees.  Fortunately none of them objected to having their picture taken.  I've heard that some people use a telephoto and a tripod to take photos like this but I do handheld up close and personal.  If the bees object I run like a girl. These bees are supposed to be fairly mellow.  There were honey bees too, but I didn't get any good shots.

Bead Table Wednesday--Torch Enameling and a Giveaway

Yesterday and today I've been playing a little with torch enameling.  I haven't gotten much done but I'm having fun.  


Here's what I've been working on: 




Sorry it's such a poor picture.  The steel keys had rust on them and I used the buffer to get that off.  The key on the left has been cleaned but not enameled.  I used two methods to enamel.  I heated the second and third key from the left until red hot and dipped them in the enamel a couple of times, following directions in Barbara Lewis's excellent new book. I did the Robin's egg blue one first.  I was pleased with the enameling, although I didn't get it as high up on the key as I would have like.  I had some problems with the red one.   It threw off sparks or little burning embers when I was heating it.  This caused the enamel to pit.  I have no idea what caused this but hubby theorized it was bits of carbon flaming up.  I haven't cleaned the oxidation from the flame from any of the keys.  I rather like the oxidation on the three right hand keys so I may not remove it on those. 


The three keys on the right were done by sifting enamel onto one side and torching from below on a tripod.  I'm pleased with the way they turned out. 


Next I textured some copper washers.  I've just begun to enamel them.  The half enameled one was done by the dip method and the small one was done by sifting.  The small one is textured on the back side and the larger one that I dipped is textured on both sides of the top.  The bottom hole filled up with enamel so I'm going to have to rethink that. 


I'm so pleased with how the keys came out that I'm going to have a little giveaway.  I'm giving away your choice of one of the keys on the right:  cobalt, mauve, or bitter green.  (The mauve looks lavender to me and the bitter green is a yellow green but those are the enamel names.) I'll also be including enameled copper washers and some other items which will be determined after I go through my stash and find coordinating goodies. 


To enter leave a comment on this post.  Post on Facebook or follow the blog for extra chances.  Just leave me a comment letting me know (if you already follow leave a comment) and be sure I can contact you through your comment or include your email address. I'll cut the comments off at noon on Monday and select a winner sometime later in the day.  Good luck!

Bead Table Wednesday--Tools and Beads

First up, I've got these awesome beads that just arrived today from Heather Powers:





I love these little birds and eggs! Heather also has a new book out--that's it on the front of the card.  I was hoping to get a look at it but the bookstore didn't have it yet. 


While organizing in the studio I found a set of number stamps that had rusted right in the storage box.  Yikes!  After a lot of elbow grease with a brass brush on one of them  I decided it was time to break out the new buffer/grinders.  




Not too long ago I paid my teenager to put this nifty bench from Sears together.  I found this plywood at Home Depot and had them cut it into two tops with a piece left over.  I used the one on the left with the fiber brush (also on the left) to clean the rust off the stamps.  I bought this little grinder just for that brush.  I used one like this in Richard Salley's toolmaking class at Adorn Me, and I loved it. One of the stamps got away from me and was spun across the room by the grinder, hit a plastic container and bounced almost all the way back.  Of course, I had eye protection on, but I started putting a cardboard box behind the grinder to catch things, and I paid better attention after that. 

Then I put some Boeshield T-9 on the stamps and also on the hammer head of my new Fretz Michael Good hammer.  Boeshield T-9 is a waterproof lubricant and rust and  corrosion protector.  You wipe it on then wipe it off.  It is petroleum based, but dries to a hard waxy finish.   I love it for tools. Here they are drying. 






A couple of days after setting up the grinder I set the second one up.  It has a cotton type buffing wheel and I used it to buff a pendant I'm working on.  The wheel's too small for a lot of things, but it is still handy and I may move this one into the studio later.  Right now they're in the garage.  I do have a full sized buffer from Sears, but I've got to sit down and read the instructions and get the parts put together before I can use it.  It's not as "plug and play" as these little ones are.  Both these grinders have flex shafts that attach to one side.  I don't plan on ever using them.  


And here's what I hope never gets in the garage or on the bead table:






The two on the left are full grown and the three smaller ones on the right belong to one of them.  I haven't seen the other one's babies, but she appears to be nursing.  The raccoons have been devoring the cat food at an alarming rate.  Feeding the cats only in the day doesn't help because the raccoons just come out in daylight.  Those mamas are really hungry.  After they quit feeding the young I won't see much of them until next breeding season.  I found some out-of-date peanut butter last night in the pantry and have been doling it out.  They like it so well they have been leaving the cat food alone. According to wikipedia it's probably better for them than cat food. 





This is either the bravest, or the least intelligent of the babies. He's was about five feet from me when I took this. He's not super frightened of me like the other two babies are. They see me and go up a tree.


We have a lot of ponds in our area but they must all be dried up because the raccoons empty all three of the water bowls every night.  One is quite large and sometimes they lay down in it. I guess raccoons need to bath sometimes. 


Check out the other bead tables on flickr.

Texture Tuesday

I know I've been doing Presentation Tuesday, but it's going to be moved to another day.  Every once in a while I want to do Texture Tuesday with Kim Klassen.  I don't know what I'm doing yet, but I figure I'll learn something.


Here's my finished photo:




I used two of Kim's textures, warmsun and yesteryear in Photoshop Elements.  I think I want to work some more on it and make the textures a little less subtle. I find that I've forgotten most of what I knew about layers in Elements so I need to read my book again. 


Here is the original:



I do have an upcoming Presentation Tuesday.  Not sure when I will post it--maybe next Tuesday if not before.

Friday iPhone Photo Fun #2 Cat Tales

I've been amusing myself editing photos with the iPhone.  There are lots of fun apps.  This week I used the Halftone app to give some pictures a comic book look.




Scrappy follows me to the pond when I feed the fish.  Everyday he's disappointed that the fish won't come out of the water.  He does like the fish food flavored pond water though.


I have a new book case.  It has a kind of 50's style, even though I think it's newer than that.  Probably I'll paint it someday.  Right now the cats are enamored with the new perch. 

Friday iPhone Photo Fun

I like using alliteration in titles, just in case you can't tell.



Recently I read an article in the Autumn issue of Somerset Digital Studio.  The article is "Designing Digitally with your iPhone" by Nettie Edwards.  I was amazed by her work and  inspired to try some collage style editing with my iPhone apps.

The above photo was created by merging two photos using the app Backgroundz. Then I cropped the photo using the Photoshop Express app. 



Next I used Pic Grunger to produce the above shot and these:





Here's a second series using the Pic Grunger app:







The flower pictures will make a background for further collage after some more work. I'm pretty happy with the thistle pictures just the way they are.  Probably I'll find other things to do with them when I get some more practice and more apps.  The framed thistle picture and the first flower picture are my favorites.

The original thistle photo is here. I spent an hour or so one very windy day taking photos of thistles and the bees that were busy harvesting the pollen.  The wind was gusting very hard and whipping the flowers back and forth. Many of the plants were taller than I am. It was difficult to get shots. At times I held the stalk with one hand and the camera with the other. The bees were sometimes blown right off the thistles. I've been told that most people take close up and macro pictures of insects like bees with the camera on a tripod using a telephoto lens from a little distance.  Not me.  I get up close and run like a girl if the bees and wasps get upset.

Percolator and My First Giveaway!

I've been playing with my new Percolator iPhone app.  It's so much fun I wish I had a Percolator version for my laptop.  I percolated this from a photo I took of a water lily in the gold fish pond.



Here's a lizard.  I love the way the app makes mosaics. Check out the Percolator group on Flickr here.

Now for the giveaway!  I managed to buy two copies of the July-August-September Artful Blogging, so I'm giving one away.  If you missed getting one or are wanting to check out the magazine here's your chance.  This is one of my very favorite magazines!  It's chock full of gorgeous photography and beautiful blogs, along with tips on your own blogging.

Comment on this post.  I'll randomly select a winner next Monday, September 13, and ship this off to you. Stay tuned, I'll be giving away a book next week.

Update 09/12/10:  There's still time to post a comment.  I'll cut off comments tomorrow evening at 10 pm.

Summer Goodness

Here are a few photos from around the house and family this spring and summer.

Black swallowtails aren't nearly as shy as their tiger swallowtail cousins.



I did get some shots of a tiger swallowtail.

There were three family weddings this spring:

My niece Angela and Suhail married in New York.

My niece Sarah and Chris married in Cancun, Mexico.

And their mother Mary married Bobby in Texas after parachuting to the venue.



My nephew Daniel graduated from high school. Here my father helps him tie his tie.

I think Dad's wondering if someone who can't tie a tie is ready to graduate.




We had the nosebleed seats.



Here he is afterwards with my parents.



The grand finale to the graduation:



Back home the garden is doing better than ever.



The Virginia Creeper leaves have already turned.




That's all for today!

Susan Tuttle's Digital Layers Class

I've been taking mixed-media artist Susan Tuttle's new online class "Digital Layers."  I'm getting a late start on it, but I'm having a really good time.  I can't wait until the last lessons when we get more into collage. 

Last Sunday we went to a family wedding at Lake Lavon.  The bride and groom parachuted in (that's how they met) and it was a casual affair on the lakeshore. The Cowboy Church preacher married them.  I managed to take 397 photos while we were there.  Don't you love digital cameras? I will be working through them for a while. 

Not all the photos were of the wedding.  I also took some photos of my son having fun at the shoreline.  I took pictures of the waves, the "beach" and a tree for use as texture photos.  

Here's one of the photos I did for the week 1 project 1 of Digital Layers.  As always you can click on the photo and go to my Flickr photostream to view it, and others, in better resolution.  And you can check out the group photos for the class from a link on this photo's page.




The photo really looks better viewed in a larger size.  I used a photo of my son at the water's edge for background, and layered another photo of the waves surging over the shoreline, followed by a layer of glass texture from Texture King. Texture King has lots of really interesting free texture photos.  The originals are on the Flickr stream for comparison.
                          
I have Susan's newest book Digital Expressions:Creating Digital Art with Adobe Photoshop Elements.  After I finish the online class I'm working through the book.  The book looks great, and the projects cover some techniques that I've wanted to learn for a long time.  There's a disk included with the book but I haven't had time to look at it yet. 

Susan Tuttle's Visual Poetry

Susan Tuttle is teaching a third round of her wonderful on-line class, Visual Poetry.  I've long admired her work in various publications (her book Exhibition 36: Mixed Media Demonstrations + Explorations and many Somerset magazines).  I like the clear instructions and the fact that there is a printable PDF file with the instructions and also on-line video instructions. 

A big part of learning to use the techniques is experimenting with different photos to see which techniqes work with the individual photos. Some experiments work out better than others.  I'm having fun with it.

Here's one of my own photos before:




And after applying one of the vintage/retro techniques:



Susan has a new book coming out that I'm really looking forward to: