TO BLOOM

In December I planted assorted bulbs and succulents to bring a touch of summer warmth and light into the darkest months of the year. 

Indoor bulbs planted in "treasure to trash" containers.

Although I do not have a gardner's magic touch, everything did grow, in fact so tall and gangly (in some instances, over two feet!!!)  that many long stems and leaves, before they could bloom, fell flat on their "faces." 

Pretty obvious I didn't really know what I was doing. 

But some did me "proud." 

And THEY lined up to have their portrait taken.

Joining Kim Klassen's Tuesday Textures.

Texture: Abstract 

"Life comes in clusters, clusters of solitude, then a cluster when there is hardly time to breathe."

        May Sarton

From Earth and Sea

From Earth and  Sea

  Raw Elements

 The Beauty of Nature

Grace for our Souls.

Eyes Wide Open

Today while to much of the World seems to be in Chaos, may we find moments to Walk Slowly with our Spirits Open to all of the Positive and Good.

Thank you for taking a few moments to visit with me.  Sharon

LR:  KK Light Airy/ 4make matte   PS: KK Anne/soft light 60%    Thank you Kim for the wonderful presets, they are a joy to work with.  The original photos are intense with brilliant color, a few tweaks and it is like seeing an ocean through  a different filter.

Garden Sculptures

What an amazing, exhilarating, fun-loving three weeks we have had with our adult kids and 11 grand-kiddies.

Sun Up--Sun  Down we amazed ourselves with all

that there is to do, learn and explore whether paired off or in one huge moving mass of energy.

It has been fun to review the photos we have all taken with our various cameras.  

I decided to choose something calm....a beautiful, inviting botanical garden in Asheville, NC. 

I was impressed with the workmanship and uniqueness of the sculptures created from many substrates.

Sculpture enhances a garden when well placed and chosen.

It is a bit like the perfect pair of shoes or handbag to go with your best outfit.  It simply adds to the entire over all appearance and environment. 

These are my three favorite sculptures, for their placement and uniqueness. They enhance the visual experience.

I was very happy with my  SOOC camera shots but decided to add a delicate texture to each.

Kim is offering a free Lightroom course demonstrating the use of the Library for organizing photos. 

You need only to sign up.  I did. It was great!  Thank you Kim for your generosity. 

May You Feel Peace

In southern India, my traveling companions and I stumbled upon an intriguing dilapidated building just bursting 

with goodies: statues of all description, rustic-antique furniture, paintings, this and that, everything tempting beyond reason.

Two of us could not resist some very crumbling, aged statues of 

Indian Deities.

We waffled back and forth, "no we can't get them home"..."well, we will never see these again."

"what should we do?"  The winner:

I purchased four, my companion...can't recall but she definitely packed some home.

These statues have a  rather interesting history. America in the 40's and 50's enticed women to purchase certain products and with the purchase was given a premium or gift. An example would be today's collectible green glass.  Well who knew, in India there was something similar. We learned that these marvelous, old statues were also a "gift with purchase." This bit of information from our sales woman was all it took to "entice" us to buy.

Besides displaying our Indian statues in our home, I wanted to set up a few photo shoots. The following is one.

There is quite a difference isn't there?

Here are a few steps that I took to move the original photo to textured completion.

I took dozens of photos with the statues, oranges, hornet's nest and dried leaves.  

Never, never once did I notice the label left on the orange!!!!!  So that was the first step to

remove the label.

The top half of the background was brushed with an "oil brush" designed by Melissa Gallo to paint the background in several shades of ochre so that it was unified.

The same technique was used to paint shadows on the white cloth.

Next I played with words and warping....this was a test of patience!

Time to apply textures. I used two of Kim Klassen's textures 

# 0801 and 2801. Each was adjusted differently: soft light and screen.

Adding the last texture, which has a grunge appearance, I removed the dark grunge color from the statues and high lighted the oranges.

I now feel Peace to have completed this project and wish the same for you in those things you choose to do. And may you always remove labels.......

Texture Tuesdays with Kim Klassen

Texture Tuesdays: to DO

Tuesday comes around rather quickly,

or perhaps it is because working with textures

is a learning challenge for me

and I spent perhaps a wee bit too much time on it.

but it is so fun.

There are many websites that feature working with textures on Photoshop, but truly the

favorite of many I love is presented by

Kim Klassen, her heartfelt sharing is larger than her computer monitor!!!

She is always dangling the proverbial "carrot" in front of my face and I want to do it ALLLLL  !!!

So today the theme is to the verb: DO....now is that broad enough?

So here are my two interpretations of DO-ing, using

  ORIGINAL OIL PAINTINGS

I am always learning.....and these two images have opposite problems: one is too dark and one too light.
I think that working on pieces of art work makes it difficult to know just how to texture.


Generally a painting becomes complete, with no further need to work on it. 
Adding a texture changes the dimension immensely.  But as I keep saying:
it is loads of fun and I will continue to experiment.

Tuesday Textures: School Bells Ring

Kim Klassens theme this week is appropriate with school starting all across America and elsewhere.

On my photography blog

I used photos to put textures on. If you have a moment or two, take a look.

On this blog, however, I need to use an art material or painting.

So I really had to stretch the theme a bit.

But these are ALL THINGS I love...every time I have a few moments to create paintings and sketches is like a new School-Day.

Original oil painting, Kim's 123 Copy, pdga art.tex, saturation and luminosity.

Can't go to school without school supplies!

Photo of painting brushes, photo of Chinese New Year, Kim's Sepia Scratch and orange photo filter.

Photo of colored pencils, scan of The World Book, Kim's textures: reversett frame, sepia scratched. Color filter and luminosity.

Today I tried something different (for me that is) I super imposed my own photos on top of one another. I found it rather intriguing and fun. 


 If you are into books, I discovered this one at the Rubin Museum in New York City. It is fabulous. Check Amazon.

Until next time, have a super Tuesday!

Texture Tuesday: a Favorite Movie

Adding textures to photos is proving to be fun, creative and a wee bit time consuming. Please tell me I will speed up with practice!

This week's challenge was to choose a favorite MOVIE. 

This was easy to do with photos, but I wanted to take it a step further and use PAINTINGS that represent the country where the movie takes place.

These are my two original paintings:

This painting is a collage. It is hanging with several other paintings representing children of other cultures, in a library in Maryland.

 
A  Balinese Dancer.

These are the two textures I used to get the final results.


Kim Klassen's texture

Natures  Beauty

This texture I created photographing a set of Balinese wooden batik stamps.

Here are the textured photos.
What do you think?

To find out what movie I am illustrating, jump on over to my photography blog


I quite like the texture on these two paintings. Would make great cards or prints.  Feel free to print for your OWN use.

Texture Tuesday with Paintings

Good morning friends.

 For the longest time I have wanted to post photographs on Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday blog. Textures on photographs is a Photoshop exercise using layers and various textures and designs to alter the appearance of a photograph. 

Klassen's Texture Tuesday 

I have been rather intimidated by the process, mostly due to not having enough time to really get the techniques "into my noggin'." But with a new photography blog just started,

I have decided to get on the bandwagon and just see where it goes. Please  join in if you love photography and Photoshop manipulations. It can be super fun and very creative!

On this blog, however, I am going to do something DIFFERENT. I will add textures, text, etc. to a PAINTING not a photograph

My first experiment:

  the original painting.

I have used Kim's textures Cotton Candy, KK Scripted and Inspire overlay. 
I like the vintage appearance of this piece.

My second painting is actually for a charity event coming up this month. Calling All Angels benefits Avon Cancer Awareness.
More about that in a later blog.

Original

The painting has taken on a completely different quality
using textures.

I have lost in the "never-land" of my photo files the original to this small portrait. You see it with textures only.
 

This is pure experimentation with unknown results until I learn a few more aspects of adding textures. The combinations are endless.
To see my textures on actual photographs, pop over to
sharonfurnerphotographyandprose