Updating after a very long and busy while

My friend Adrienne, form Wales, came over for a visit.
They apparently do not have Asian markets in Wales.
I thought she might get a kick out of Fubons. :) I noticed things that I might not have noticed if I was just doing my usual shopping and not showing it all off to a visitor. ;)



A welcome kitty of course.




This lovely shrine was set up near the front of a store.




Great color, texture, line and form in this screen.
Made me think of some of the assignments for my photography classes.




Wonderful patterns.




Such creative packaging.




I suspect I will be using some of these images for collage work...




Everyone was so friendly.




Adrienne said this was one of her favorite teas. Loved the display.




Lots of dragon motifs.




I had to stop for a bubble tea. MMmmmmmmm- Bubble Tea!!
Adrienne was not impressed. LOL




Looks like he must have had a great laugh.




Parrot Fish




Luscious!




Food colors in Asian stores can be a bit disturbing for some of us. ;)




All of the labels are sooo bright. The whole store is a riot of color.




The produce section is fantastic.




Color- yep- lots and lots of color. Supersaturated, sometimes garish, always joyous color assaults your senses at every turn.




Sometimes it is hard to decide if the colors or the textures are most appealing.




Seriously textured




I found myself wishing I had some molding compound...




This will make a nice layer for adding textures in Photoshop. :)




More texture...




More texture... and interesting colors too.




Really loved the textures in this screen. I took a lot of photos of this...

Out and About (with camera)

One of Portland's nicknames is Bridgetown.







We had to stop by the hospital to pick up a prescription.
This fellow was circling overhead. Not a good sign... ;)



Then we headed for:



Lovely rural community with no free parking. I don't think they want visitors.
We did stop by the Bybee-Howell house.





Late afternoon. I liked the way the sun was shining through the branches.



Still some nice flowers blooming- although they were looking a bit tired.



Berry season is very close to over.



I have been wanting to get photos of this old building along Highway 30 for a long time. I only got a couple of shots before the security guard came over and told us that we couldn't take photos there "because of 911". Yeah, right. grrrrrr



Jax had an explanation for this house: Fishmen.



We decided to drive on out to Scappoose rather than try to get back through Portland during rush hour.
We found a surprisingly good restaurant!

I think this is starting to come along. :)



I tried looking at this with just the tone and lines in Photoshop to see if I could figure out a way to go with it.



I played around with the layout for a bit and came up with this idea.



I think I came pretty close in real life, adding a continuation of the line work to tie things together and echoing shapes to get a better balance.



This gives you an idea of the scale of the piece.





I love the Glossy Crackle Accents over the Fantasy Film.




Using the dimensional glue with the Fashion Flakes gives a great texture to the lines.

WIP

So many details I love on this piece.




I hadn't used foils in while. I Love the way this turned out.




The texturing came out even better than I had hoped.
the Fantasy Film is jewel-like. I LOVE it.



But, ye gohdz, the piece as a whole is atrocious.
I should scrape it all down and start over.

But I LIKE so much of it...

I will probably keep piling stuff on.
Let's hope it gets better and not worse...

Beer

I take a lot of photos of beer.

What to do with them???

Kaleidebeer!



Woohoo!

Bumble Bee

Bumble Bee



The flower stamens look like drop of mercury...

Kaleidoscopes with Photoshop

I have been playing with the instruction from Vicki Holdwick for making simple kaleidoscope images using Photoshop. Fun and addictive. :)

Studio Visitors

I got some visitors outside my studio window recently.




Love the big ears on this little guy.

Gourd Mask

I've been attending a gourd art retreat at the Midnight Art Ranch.

One of the classes from Bonnie Gibson was on masks.

I LOVE masks. I've been involved with theatrical role playing groups and have done some costuming for Fantasy/Sci-Fi convention activities- mainly for hall costumes. I've had a lot of fun with masks.

I suspect some of the serious gourd art people at this retreat had to try not to look askance at my mask. ;) I think they see gourd masks as a traditional type of art.

I just saw the gourd as an interesting new surface to do the type of fantasy mask I prefer to work on.

I LOVE my mask. It isn't finished. It will need a lot of beading - and possibly some wire wrapping and....hmmm...with any luck I will be able to restrain myself after that point.....

I was very happy with the Fantasy Film and Radiant Rain and Memory Mist sprays on this. And the micaceous iron oxide worked great. :)

Gourds are a fun surface to play with.

Another visit to Zorg

Click here to see other versions.

Ink sketch manipulated in Photoshop.

Visit the planet Zorg

Check out the post on the Zorgian website

Smoke Watching

I've been playing around with some photographs of smoke.
Getting good photographs of smoke was a bit of a challenge. I need to give this another try using a tripod.

I did have a lot of fun manipulating these images in Photoshop though...

Looking at photos of smoke is much like watching clouds. You start to see all sorts of odd images emerging.
Click on the links after each pic to see some of the variations.



I think I see a mystical rabbit in this.
I have more variations on this image up as a slide show.



This one ended up with some interesting textures.



More variations.




I like this alien dancer. ;)

Playing with smoke. Less dangerous than playing with fire. :)