Spyderco Native 5 Photo Shoot...

Time for a change in subject matter! My partner recently received a new pocket knife for his 40th birthday and he asked me to take some photo's for him...so being me, I wanted to take a look at the colours, form, lines and function of the item in question...up close and personal...I believe all good design is beautiful and this knife is no exception, as it's both functional as well as being perfectly balanced (from a design pov)...The top pic is now his wallpaper, so I'm taking that as a positive sign :)

'sooty' texture - available soon!

Gratitude...

A short post about gratitude...again...a topic that does crop up frequently around here, the attitude of gratitude focuses the mind on the positive, on what we have that is good and wonderful, on the good in others and in life...by it's very nature it creates more abundance because we create and attract more of that which we focus our attention on...we can always choose to see the good or the bad, so why not focus on the good stuff?

'back in' texture

linking with texture tuesday

Tissue Paper For Petals...

linking with the creative exchange

This is one of several poppy photographs I took in late summer that I hadn't got to yet...the petals are like delicate tissue paper that's been dipped in paint...beautiful! See the tiny bug on the edge of the petal? What an amazing place to live! (Just on the edge of the red to the right of centre, where the other pink edged petal joins it).

Be Thankful For...

"Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul"

                                                                  - Henry Ward Beecher

I used two layers of fine art textures I'm making here...still tweaking!

linking with texture thursday, this or that thursday &  photo art friday

I give thanks and gratitude for all I'm learning, for having the opportunities to share my creativity with others and for having the ability to see the beauty in Nature every day. I'm so very fortunate! Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends...

Opening...

'empty page' texture 

linking with texture tuesday

This was an anemone bud that I saw opening during the summer, I thought it had a beautiful shape, like one of those wonderful art nouveau lamps...I added Kim's 'empty page' texture, a favourite of mine, plus a layer from a photo I took recently of crackled paint, to try an aged look...

New 'Plaster Postale' Free Texture!

So, I've been working on some new textures, as some of you will know...it's very exciting, learning lots of good new tecniques from Kim Klassen, my mentor...here's a new one I've made, called 'Plaster Postale'...I used two layers of the texture on this image, one set at 'soft light' and one on 'multiply' blend modes...

'Plaster Postale' texture

linking with 'this or that thursday', 'texture thursday' & 'show off your shot' & the creative exchange

'Plaster Postale'

To download this free texture, click here!

I hope you like it and find it useful! You can also download it from my free textures page, where there are a few other textures available for you to try! More to come soon...

I remember summertime...

"A life without love is like a year without summer"

                                                                - a swedish proverb

linking with wordless weds & photo art friday

Some sweet reminders of the past season's...these ones from May 2010 at Sissinghurst Castle Gardens, one of my favourite places...

Roses from the garden...

'phoebe' texture by Kim Klassen

linking with the creative exchange & texture tuesday

I've been able to cut roses from our garden each week up till now and these are a couple I put in the bedroom on the dresser, so I can see them each morning and evening...they brighten things up! I used Kim's new texture 'phoebe' and I love the way it's given that old plaster wall effect...I'm going to start making some more textures myself this week and am enjoying my texture making course with Kim, she really is such a great teacher and an inspiration!

Warm golden hues...

A few more golden hues from recent walks and trips out...as I'm posting this, it's getting grey and dark already at 3.10pm and I'm thinking it'll soon be time to light the fire...It's very misty and peaceful, I like those melancholy days sometimes...although it now seems like a real treat when the sun's out, picking out the colours of the last remaining leaves and berries. With thanks and gratitude to Kim Klassen for the fun template, I'll be using that some more soon! Have a great weekend with some sunshine I hope :)

Textures in nature...

linking with texture thursday , this or that thursday, show off your shot & photo art friday

Lately, it's all about textures for me, with the photoshop texture course I'm doing with Kim Klassen. I've always loved texture, colour and form, I was obsessed with rusty objects at design college back in my late teens (quite some time ago!) and my art was all about colour, texture and experimenting to see how different things worked together...this photo is all natural, it was so beautiful! I'm still always noticing textures and colours in nature and this autumn has been rich in both. I think this tree is an acer, it had the most amazing red leaves too, so beautiful :)

Two's company...

'golden' texture

This week's texture tuesday theme is the number two...so I choose this picture I took in August...two purple peas in a pod! Or rather, two purple pea pods...anyhow, I loved how they were just resting there together, with the sunlight coming through the shells just enough to show the yummy purple peas growing inside!

Some colour to brighten things up...

linking with the creative exchange & macro monday

It's been very dreary, wet and grey here this weekend and so I thought some colour might help lift the gloomy atmosphere a  little...I hope it's been beautiful wherever you are!

New Ideas...

linking with texture thursday, this or that thursday, show off your shot, photo art friday, photo friday, photo story friday & sneak peek friday

I've been learning how to use Lightroom 3 recently and this photo was processed there, changed into monochrome then sent to photoshop and cropped, tidied up and sharpened. I can see why the pro's use lightroom, it is amazing and worth the time to learn, there's certainly a lot to it but I'm loving it...

p.s the bokeh is all natural, it was a very dewy morning and I put my coat down to kneel on as I was getting very wet knees!

Victorian Hydrangeas...

As I mentioned recently, I visited Beech Court Gardens, a local garden that is full of acers and hydrangeas, the colours were amazing, the acers vivid and vibrant while the hydrangeas were all colours, having had a touch of cold on their flowers, which had begun to turn the petals into amazingly varied palettes of teal and petrol blues, dusky pinks, magentas and aqua greens...I've never seen such variety of colour combinations before...

'and then some' texture

'empty page' & 'aurora' textures

'and then some' & 'empty page' textures

linking with texture tuesday, wordless weds with words, wordless weds, naptime momtog,wordless weds, Tina's picstory

I have in mind some other textures to use but I wanted to try some of the techniques I'm learning with Kim on the Art Of Textures course, which is really amazing so far! I also inverted the texture layers to get the white effect and used the linear dodge blending mode in photoshop...