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This little guy (relative to other mantises he’s pretty small) took a ride with me on my windshield, then made himself comfortable in the front seat. My kids were super excited about the big bug so I put him in the bug catcher we have.

After deciding he’d enough captivity my husband opened up the cylinder, not coincidentally right next to a huge, nasty mosquito. You can figure out the rest…

I received an unexpected gift today.  A package from a family member who has been dealing with great tragedy.  Yet she’d taken the time to send me something out of the blue.  On the back of the package she had written that she had found the enclosed item in her father’s effects and thought that I might like it.  I opened the package to discover a magazine celebrating African American history.  The words quoted on the cover struck me, and made me want to share (and pair) with an image I took of a dusty toy.  Old words but still quite fitting in these times.  Have a good day, folks.

 

I photograph a lot of leaves.  Today I have decided I will one day write an essay about these things.  I may reference the sensuous as an ode to Georgia O’Keeffe.

Or I may give a nod to Walt Whitman who described a leaf (or at least a leaf of grass) as the journey work of stars.

I can write of spidery patterns and blood-filled veins.

Of jagged ridges and rolling hills.

Of silhouettes in blue and green.

Of people protected and hidden half-seen.

Of autumn’s first leaves submerged and later frozen …

… and then go on to describe the new growth that emerges each spring.

And what sparked this thought of writing about leaves? A note from my brother who wrote, until he paused in his day and sat outside with his 2-year old son, he never really noticed the simple beauty of leaves blowing in the breeze.

For many people, including myself, it seems that this has been an especially chaotic year.  And so it is a great honor to have one of my images appear in the pages of Alive Now in the July/August 2012 issue focused on rest.  It is a small, lovely publication that I highly recommend.  And get this, the editor paired my image next to the words of Maya Angelou.  How cool is that? 😉  Have a good day, folks.

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This is part two of my journey to explore the pine barrens.  This time I went to see the ruins of an old paper mill of the once thriving community.

As I was leaving I found a bonus cactus!

Next was the preserved town of Batsto. It was a scorching day but I nonetheless enjoyed the relaxing walk through this historic town.

I found this weird bug – any idea why this thing is?!

Last but not least, a quick stop by an old cemetary

Thank goodness for sunshine! Last time I attempted shadow explorations (Nature Photography Challenge), I was greeted by a week of cloudy days! As I was eating my breakfast this morning, I watched clouds begin to form and shadows slowly disappear. So, I quickly finished my breakfast and ran outside to collect my shadows before they disappeared for the day! Using a pencil, I traced a variety of shadows to create an interesting composition. Here is my tracing:

After I had finished outlining my composition, I then began exploring the shadow shapes that I had collected using watercolor washes, glazing techniques, and sgraffito! I also decided to play with my border (which I usually leave white, using painter’s tape to block it off). If you’d like to try a similar technique, I began by painting the entire paper. Once dry, I used tape to block off the sides of my composition…

Happy Sunday! Pfew! It’s a scorcher out there! I shouldn’t complain though–the firefighters that have been working so hard to put out the fires in Colorado and Wyoming have it much, much hotter than I do!

Aside from the heat, it was (and still is) a gorgeous, sunny day–perfect for a little photography adventure!

For today’s challenge, I focused on the textures around me. While I found several interesting textures in the dirt, grass, and leaves, I was definitely drawn to bark textures. Here are a few photographs from my venture that inspired my watercolor explorations:

Based on these photographs of bark textures, I then explored the watercolor techniques from Day One and Day Two of the challenge. Here is my resulting mini-work:

For tomorrow’s challenge, focus on SHADOWS. This time, take your paper outside with you, collecting shadows on your paper to create an interesting composition. Depending on the…

I’m a sucker for special effects, so today’s challenge proved to be a fun and exciting one! Using regular table salt, the tip of a mechanical pencil (no lead), and a plastic square that I scrounged up from my odds and ends drawer, I painted the following picture:

All of the dotted areas (mostly on the left side) are the result of the table salt. The trees, branches, and grass were created using the sgraffito techniques, and paper towel was used for reverse printmaking on the ground. Not only was it a lot of fun to explore these special effects, but it also gave me a lot of great ideas for ways that each can be used for my nature explorations! (I could definitely see the “magic” factor of the salt (or rubbing alcohol) going over well with my students!)

For tomorrow’s challenge, explore a natural texture that you find…

Happy Friday night! Thank goodness the first day of this challenge was a quick one–as I spent the majority of my day apartment hunting! Nevertheless, the small amount of time spent exploring watercolor painting was worthwhile.

Here is the result of today’s explorations:

I had a wonderful time exploring different texture possibilities and types of washes using small thumbnail-sized boxes for my experimenting.

For tomorrow’s challenge, explore some special effects that can be achieved using items such as paper towels, salt, and the scratching effects that can be achieved through the sgrafitto technique.

Enjoy tomorrows explorations! Have fun with the process! Tomorrow will be the last day of paint technique explorations before we head out to explore the natural world through watercolor!

‘Til tomorrow…happy explorations!

I was lucky enough to travel to the seashore this weekend.  Like all of the other little kids, I found myself filling my pockets with seashells.  Today as the sun shone brightly throughout the house, I took photos of the shells in a series of different poses, so to speak.  As with the sunflowers mentioned earlier, I leaned toward the abstract.  Still working with the images, but here are few.  We’ll see what the rest of the summer holds in store.

Lately I have been struggling with photography.  If you’ve read through more than a few of my posts you’ll see I’m kind of everywhere.  Nature, urbex, architecture, portraiture… it’s because much like nurses will work in different specialties to find their passion I have had to do the same thing to figure out where I want to spend my energies.  There are thousands of mediocre photographers and I just don’t *do* mediocre.  Uninspired attitude begets uninspired photographs and I just don’t want to publish mediocre work.

My biggest problem has been wanting more from photographs.  Yes, that’s a cool abandoned prison, that’s a pretty flower, that’s a nice landscape but I’m feeling la-di-dah about it.  A unique angle, a well-lit subject, a neat camera effect is desirable but I want more of me in my work and I’m not talking self portraits.

Today I came across the work of Kristy…