favourite photoart of the year

For the last PhotoArt Friday of this year Bonnie invited us to look back over our work and pick a favourite to share.

Looking back my favourites all have a painterly feel and most use the artistic filters within PSE.  The last 2 that I posted are amongst my favourite for the year but I decided to focus on earlier pieces and chose this one which also has probably my most commonly focussed subject – the sea.  I have a print of this piece and love the movement in it.

 

Looking forward to more photoart creation and sharing next year and many thanks to Bonnie for providing a forum to share every Friday on PixelDust PhotoArt

Reflections

of the visual type.

I was blown away by these sights when I walked by the harbour on Wednesday.  The water was so still and the light just right for clear reflections and the boats provide so many wonderful shapes.  [display board is from CoffeShop Blog].

As well as loving them as straight images I also decided to work the pixel magic on one to make it painterly.  I was so pleased with the result that I decided it needed a grand frame.  I’m going to print this one out for sure.  Also linking to PhotoArt Friday, in the ‘what I’ve been working on’ rather than the suggested theme category.

[I used the artistic filter paint daubs then added 3 of Bonnie’s textures – yesteryear in overlay; medieval magic in multiply; and scratched  canvas in soft light]

And if your were hoping that the title referred to reflections on a more metaphysical nature you might like to check out Lee’s recent post on her plans to use 31 questions to reflect on the year.

Hanging on

I’ve noticed a lot of roses still hanging on in the gardens around here, including mine.  I was surprised, though, to see marigolds producing flowers at this time of year. 

[box with arrow is from Ali Edwards]

Finally on the wall

Back in June and July I created 6 digiart pieces for Summer of Colour 2 and have finally decided how to display them.  for summer of colour 1 I printed my favourites onto mugs which I use all the time.  This year I created pieces to spell ‘create’ to add to the wall in my craftspace.

I had each piece printed as a 12 x 12 poster and they look fabulous.  This is what I see when I look to the left while sitting at my computer.  With a wet and grey day outside the window on my right I think I’m going to be looking left today!

360 degree

 

Over the weekend I

* enjoyed more fabulous autumnal colours -  I particularly liked the clear blue sky with the copper coloured beech leaves.

* watched on TV the All Blacks (NZ) beat Scotland at rugby.  Probably the only time that I happily sing along to both national anthems.  No real wrench over who to support because a win for New Zealand (current World Champions) was assumed by all and Scotland is used to ‘glorious defeat’.  Fabulous displays of fast open play.

*set up the Wii I borrowed from my nephew and made it work thanks to some tutorials on YouTube

 

And looking forward

* rain forecast to start the week – a promise of clear weather on Thursday

* using Just Dance on the Wii instead of my daily walk – question is do I close the blinds when I dance during the day or accept people walking past will be able to see me dance?

* evenings glued to the TV with two strangely compelling reality competitions running nightly at the moment – MasterChef Professional and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here

* trip to Glasgow on Tuesday to see my nephew and his group’s latest play

* more stuff sorting – it’s all improvement from here now piles have been sorted and just need putting away

abstract landscapes

When I saw Bonnie’s PhotoArt Friday prompt for this week was lines I immediately knew which photos I would use.  On my regular walks by the sea I am captivated by the stripes of sand, sea and sky which often form very abstract looking stripes in shades of grey / grunge.  It was these photos that I turned to – interpreting lines as stripes of colour.

In all of the photos I used Bonnies velum texture and played with the blending modes – the ones above and below are linear burn and the last is overlay.

 

I love each by itself but I also thought they would look really good as a collection.  So I rotated them all to emphasise the stripes rather than horizon and grouped them

I think this is one I’ll print up large.

Looking forward to what others do with the idea of lines.

Currently

Outside my window glorious sunshine and fabulous low angled light that I love in landscape photos.  And I like having such a tall shadow

In my kitchen busy with the oven yesterday with roast chicken and plum crumble and now have lentil soup in process for lunch

I’m wearing boots, gloves and coat every time I go outside – the consequence of sunshine is no cloud and so colder nights

I’m hoping to sort through several piles of stuff and move some to a charity shop (feels like preparing my cave for winter hibernation!)

I’m pleased that I walked for at least 40 minutes each day last week and plan to keep it up

I’m noticing Christmas displays in so many shops and thinking they are motivated by a desire for sales at the end of a poor year for sales.  I was amazed at the way so many shops switched over from Halloween to Christmas on 1st of November – I think 2 months is too much for full on Christmas in the shops.    

I’m remembering that a year ago I in New York and walked in Battery Park – made the photos of the flooding more real knowing what it normally looks like.