A Special Moment Captured & Treasured

Still Life and I have never really met. I had hoped we might get better acquainted this week for Photo Art Friday, but it seems LIFE had another plan in mind.

With the way of things, sometimes, the best plan is to follow the bouncing ball. Going where I seem led. Allowing Life to unpack itself.

Like my young friend pictured  BElow, and here, and here, too, I find moments magical. I suppose, in a way, that is what a "still life" is. A magical essence.

I couldn't really digitally fiddle with these much, though I did edit them, way back when I took them, Christmas Eve 2009, and it's kind of nice to know that what little I knew to DO with them THEN was Enough. Really. 

What I have learned is that sometimes SOOC is simply divine. Thus, the only fiddling I managed was cropping, tweaking ever so slightly, adding text, and then putting them all together in a collage in Picasa. 

I am looking forward to seeing what others have done. I've already seen a couple who combined Texture Tuesday and Photo Art Friday and oh how deliciously deLIGHTfull that was!!!

I hope you'll enlarge this to see it, but even if you don't I think this wee collection conveys that even though magical, Life is Still Life!!! 

Time for a Little Christmas...

I thought and I thought til my thinker was nearly sore and definitely sleepy. I had several ideas, tried out some things, even started some things I am quite likely to continue, and then like a blinding flash, I had an idea. And Now I have spent nearly an hour trying to digitally fiddle with it. I canNOT seem to improve upon the SOOC photograph. [I just learned this; means Straight Out Of Camera] It's a nice problem I have here. 

Seems this week is Hansi Week here on BE Currie. I am using this photograph for APR#35, and I used another for Texture Tuesday The Dream eDition. I am wondering if I can find another to use for Photo Art Friday as the suggestion is a piece that is "a digitally manipulated still life" [as opposed to simply a still life photograph]. We'll just have to see.

Anyway, Now that I found this I am, to my deLIGHT, feeling a little more in the Spirit of the Season. This photo was truly a gift of serendipity, caught in a flurry of photographs I took Christmas Eve Morning when I stopped by for a little something something Christmas-something with my friends!! It was my sweetest slice of Christmas 2009, catching little Mr. Man in such a JOYous blink of rapture!!

Christmas, for me, is a quiet time. No plans. No TO-DO at all. Yet here's the thing I realised from this prompt and invitation to wonder. It is, truly, a time in my heart. A place I can go in a blink, a place where memories dance and weave themselves together. I have had quite a large number of Christmases over 59 years, and this week they've all been whispering their sweetest memories to me.

Thanks so much, Jenn, for this prompt. I wasn't sure it was "for me" and then I decided to let that thought out the door. Your invitation has given me a pleasant pause, a sweet smile, and happy heart...

Dreaming Time ~ Texture Tuesday 13 November 2012

There was a wonderful day at the beach mid-January... 

This little fellow let me and my camera in on his dreaming. 

Although he had yet to find his words...

I heard many wild and wondrous things dancing on the wind. 

Here's what I did, I think...

First I found this photo back in January 2010.

I wanted to try out PhotoFunia. 

After that, into Picasa it came.

A few little tweaks later into PSE8.

First layer Multiply 80%

Next kk_Providence times 2

1. Multiply 75%

2. Overlay 44%

Added the text Soft Light 74%

It was fun this mid-November late afternoon, revisiting my friend, who has since found his words. 

He's grown a LOT from this time. 

And I'm sure he's still dreaming...

Go Out Into the World and DO Good Until...

I try NOT to BE too literal, but somedays my birdbrain takes me on magic carpet rides where colouring outside the lines is wondrously essential.

This week I was making a photo collage for my dad's 87th birthday. I suppose I want him to like it, mayBE a little too much. 

I also want to dazzle him. I'd done a photo collage of his dog after I visited him in June of 2011. That really deLIGHTed him.

After a lot of trying this and that and getting cross-eyed in PSE8, I came back to the comfort zone of Picasa. I'd taken pictures of pictures of him DOing this reading thing he does after school. I made a photo collage with them, but...

Somehow it wasn't quite what I was going for. I finally printed it out on white cardstock and while it was okay, I soon found myself cutting and going to the "digital fiddling" that involves 2 hands, glue sticks, and a paper cutter.

Ultimately I "made" this into a collage and then felt like it needed something, a quote mayBE?! [I needed to keep my writing to a minimum... don't ask, apparently he doesn't like to read a lot of words ;~D]

I went looking for a quote about Making A Difference. BEcause, this is the essence of my dad. I found this:

“Go out into the world and do good until there is too much good in the world.”Larry H. Miller - Businessman, Philanthropist

So I made it into a word art thing in Word and cut and pasted it round and through the collage. I was pretty happy. And off I sent it to him yesterday...

As I got to thinking about this week's Photo Art Friday, Bonnie's suggestion is 
showcase an image that features distinct line(s)

and to that end, this is what I ended up DOing...

The "distinct line[s]" BEing Miller's quote. MayBE this was on Bonnie's radar, too, with the suggestion. I suspect so!!

Anyhoozle, this is what I've got. The package should also BE delivered to him Friday, so I'm kind of having a reverberating Photo Art Friday!!!

As for HOW I did this... Really, I just played. In Picasa, in Picnik, in PSE8, back in Word, even, and then scanning the word art to make it a jpg. Then, when I was done adding and fiddling with a couple of pdpa textures in PSE8, I went to Pixlr and had at it with anything that caught my eyes. It's been therapeutic, in many ways...

Thanks for your patience with this post. Guessing I had to "use my words" eventually!!!

Sunset @ the Wee Cottage ~ APR #34

It was especially nice that Jenn chose Sunset as the theme for this week's Artist's Play Room. MayBE BEcause the time changed, or perhaps BEcause I am feeling better about myself going to sleep AFTER the sun has set. All summer I felt silly going to sleep while it was still light out.

Anyway, it was perfect since it gave me a good reason to get messy in my matte medium and up to my elbows painting with paper. I even painted a bit with paint, but all that's moot Now. What is forever amazing to me is my love of layering and building and seeing whole layers disappear yet still have a presence.

A good deal of my fun was using a bunch of the milk carton papers I've been painting. I read about this in  Somerset Studio Volume 16 Issue 4 July/August 2012. I'm always looking for new things to upcycle and this milk carton paper is my latest find. Who knew?!

I also used up some leftover papers from my "juicy" mango APR awhile back, and generally just let loose and played. I even took some photos along the way, a different practise for me, and who knows, mayBE those photos will see another Life one day...

Anything Goes Texture Tuesday 6 November 2012

Part of the fun of making 366 Daze of Grace is that each and every day this year I have been digitally fiddling with one of my oh so many photographs of Gracie. In that process I have learned so much. 

I AM LEARNING so much. Many things, taken on with gusto in January quickly peter out by February, or May, or... BUT this is NOT the case with this. In fact, as I have learned, little by slowly, as well by taking many steps backward without seeing much forward motion at ALL, this practise has BEcome a record of wonder. And progress.

I see where I BEgan to wrap my head round this thing or that tweak or layers or adding in some text. There is so much more I Now want to know BEcause of what I am learning AS I GO.

I picked this photo from last week's 2 November BEcause it speaks to ME and is clearly a mile-marker. Is it the "best" or is it my "favourite" photo?! NO, or MayBE, or That Day It Was...

The very best that has come from this project of mine is still revealing itself. It has brought me here, to Texture Tuesday, and to other places, where I have "met" and learned from others all along the spectrum of the wonder that is digital photography and what I call "Digital Fiddling."

That's it. That's all. That's quite enough...

Dream New Dreams ~ Photo Art Friday 2 November 2012

I'm a dreamer. And I am also contented with Life As It Is. I used to live more for The Future and point myself at goals. And oftentimes over-focus on how far from them I was, how poorly I was performing at working toward them.

Lately that has completely changed. I am fully alive and engaged with Right Now. I have some goals, dreams, and sincere hopes, but they aren't going to make me one bit happier than I CAN BE Right Now, in this very moment. This is where I am, where my feet are, and what is.

So much of day-to-day Currie's Life is 180 degrees from what it used to BE. And even when I try really hard to harness my Yes-But-Really-I-Wish-I-Could-BE... I just don't make traction. I am content, enough, and grateful. And so it is...

I still dream but I am dreaming new dreams. I am dreaming that TODAY will give me opportunities to BE kind, to smile, to listen, and to love. Love what IS and love what is NOT. Simply BEing is extraordinarily generous.

For this Photo Art Friday, I went a little outside my Zone of Understanding How using Bonnie's wondrous "background" Cobblestone Road. I fiddled with it digitally in Picasa/Picnik BEcause that makes more sense to me, and I liked tweaking it there. Then I brought it and two other photos into PSE8 and did a little bit of NOT too much. I like the result very much.

Simple is good. Easy is sweet. Completing makes me happy. I hope you enJOY...