New traditions

It has become a tradition in my house to have pasta after church on Sunday afternoon. It has also become tradition for me to experiment a bit with Photoshop on Sunday evenings. Here is a "painting" I made tonight.

My brother is 18

How did this happen? Now I see how a whole life can fly right by. 

Oh, how I love my brother.

Here are a few from how we spent his big day.

Okay i am loving this. We are doing PREZI and my students keep shouting out "this is so cool!"

The 21 challenge

I have been SPARKED once again... this time by the fabulous Rhonna
I watched the live web show on House of 3 and she spoke about making art a habit. So starting in October I am going to try to create art daily for 21 days.

It may be that I am adding another thing to my plate that may fall off, but maybe not.
First I must prepare my space.

Stay tuned for updates on that front. For now, a snack and Survivor.

Being Positively Ridiculous

My work in progress bedroom

A painted wall
A platform bed
A print I bought in Florence
Original artwork
Some curtains from Cost Plus
But...
Most especially...
The lamp from my grandmother's house.
How cool? How funky? 
As Margie would say, "Stop it, right now!"

A little love note made from SPARK swag

And my completed bracelets made from genuine wool from genuine sheep all the way from Australia.

p.s. I am playing with a "watermark"-esque brush. Any feed back is appreciated. 

Learning more from the Pioneer Woman

This time I was playing with her photography tutorials... especially the Photoshop Elements ones.

Before

After

I know I made the colors a tad unrealistic... but hey, I'm playing here. 

What is playing without a bit of fantasy and whimsy?

Here is a fun one with photoshop "painting." It's all brush stroke-y.

Inspired by the Pioneer Woman I tried making a collage in photoshop. I picked pictures from my latest trip to Utah. On my way home I stopped in the little town of Meadow, where my grandmother lived from about 1975 till she died.
I spent time there every summer and Christmas break. The house, which looks so small to me now, seemed  huge to my little girl self. My favorite part of the house was the creepy attic. It was exciting to build up the courage, climb the creepy stairs, and look around the attic "bedroom". It was all spider web-y and dusty, but there were still beds, a window, and a flag hanging on one wall. If I used my imagination I could see a really cool room that I would have loved to live in.  
Someone else lives there now, so I only walked around. Lots has changed, but lots has stayed the same. Same wheat-y grass growing, same stickers in my socks, same broken down chicken coop. The old barn is now gone. It used to seem like such an adventure to hike from the house to the barn (it must have been only 90 yards). There would always be mouse bones in there from all the owls that roosted up in the rafters. They used some of that 100 year old wood when they build the Hinckley House at Cove Fort.
Well, no more talk for now... on the the photo(s).

Sundance

Provo Canyon... just like old times.

I love visiting Sundance... mostly I love the art shack. I went this time to buy another of Tim's wonderful mugs. So one of a kind and original. Art you can drink from... or hold colored pencils in, as the case may be.

I am determined to take the jewelry making class the next time I go. 

Mostly I like a quick shutter speed, but every now and then I like to open it right up and let the river blur.

Grandma's house

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

Nelson Mandela

Something I really love

     I just love it when you meet amazingly talented people (photographers, teachers, artists, etc) who are not uncomfortable sharing the tools of their success. They are not threatened by your improvement, they celebrate it and want you to be your best. So many people might want to keep you from being, say, the best photographer you can be, because then you would be competition. I love people who are not like that. People who share, and teach, realize that even if our skills are comparable our style and personality will make us different.
     One person like that is Wendy Whitacer.  She makes her living traveling the world and taking pictures (tough, huh?). What I really appreciate is that she is an amazing teacher too. She teaches workshops for beginners and the wanta-be professionals. She is out there training her competition, and loving it. I think it is because in the end she knows that even if she teaches me to take amazing pictures I will never be able to capture her exact style... I will develop my own. So she will still have a unique "product" to offer.
     I wish more people were like that.

Clearly she has no competition from me as this is a lousy photo... but I liked her expression best of all my shots of her.

Strange reality

Blogs have created this strange reality.

There is this woman I see at church. I never talk to her, because we aren't really friends. We aren't really NOT friends, it's just that she doesn't know me. The weird thing is that I know her. I know her kids names, I have cooked recipes she cooks, and I even know some of her heart... at least the parts she shares on-line. What a strange reality this is, indeed. Our ancestors did not experience this. They got to know each other face to face, or at least they knew who they were sharing themselves with. 

It is taking me a bit of getting used to, but Emily taught me somethings this week. She understands... and so do other bloggers. We all know, because we all read one another's work. Also, I need to share every positive thought that occurs to me. Bloggers are uplifted by sharing and even more when others relate and give them feedback. 

Thanks Em.

Final day at Spark

This day FLEW by... before I knew it it was dinner... then it was over.

  

 

 There was a whole room devoted to snacks. Incredible!

They pulled out all the stops for dinner. 

I had to look twice to see if they were, in fact, not really roses.

 Good Bye Spark. You were wonderful. Meet fun people. Made cool things. Learned new tricks. Felt...uplifted.

 

Noah's is a cool place... all concrete-y and industrial. Great wood floors. Nice rooms. Springy chairs.

This is most (most, but not all) of the loot I scored at spark. Some things I made. Some things are ingredients to things I did not finish there. Lots of it is paper. Note the striped bag of candy from the super snack room, and the Emily Falconbridge camera strap, with ribbon from Thailand. It was a gift from her. I will treasure it.

LOOK what I MADE.

In Photoshop... a real first for me.

SPARK

Today was the first day of the *SPARK* event in Lindon Utah. Here are a few shots.

The ATTENTION to DETAIL. People. PLEASE.

I met the AMAZING emily falconbridge. (I'm a big fan)

Things got a bit messy... but still FABULOUS!

A great photography tutorial by the UBER talented Wendy Whitacer of Blue Lily Photo