Happy Holidays 2013

From my home to yours Happy Holidays

Photo Walk III

A friend and I went out for a photo walk this past Wednesday to what was once the Gooderham & Worts Distillery. What was once warehouse have now been turned into a wonderful shoppers paradise and a interesting place to take photos.
I took this photo of a old delivery truck

 

Then with a little Photoshop magic changed it into this:

And then into this:

I took quite a few interesting photos which I'll be using over the next few weeks and will be posting here.

Photo Walk II

Photo walk II using my Sony RX100

This photo became this:

And these two

Became this:

Lift

 

Each week Anna Aspnes team selects one creative page from the Anna Gallery at Oscraps as an inspiration page. It is suggested to take one or more ideas or inspirations and create your own page/Lift.  This is my take on this weeks Lift. The photo is myself as a very young child. I am guesting that I was about 2. The original  was in black and white which I recoloured using Photoshop.  It took me several days of work to complete. I played around with adding light as well as texture to give interest and balance to the page. I  added shadows to give depth and blended a number of the textures as well as adjusting the Hue & Saturation to get the colour that I wanted .
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Summers End

Summers End! I took this photo the last weekend we spent at our cottage. A bitter sweet time closing up for the season and saying goodbye until Spring.

Friday Challenge

Many of you who read this Blog may also be familiar with Kim Klassen. Kin's husband John has been fighting cancer for the last several months and it's been a difficult time for Kim and her family. Each week we are given a challenge at Photoshop Artistry- Grunge to create a page using certain guide lines and elements in it. Added to this weeks challenge was a request to dedicate the page to Kim, John and their family focusing on the theme Life, Hope & Love. Above is my submission.

Another week

I find as I age time seem to go so quickly! Here we are and another week has passed and we are heading into Fall weather, Halloween and oh to soon Christmas, snow, and cold weather.

This week I met with friends from out of town for a walk about in Kensington Market, a yummy lunch and lots of chat to catch up on  news. These ladies are fiber artist and  belong to The Group of Eight, you can find their bog here and Linda Kittmer's blog here. I took some photos of the day which will eventually end up in my work over the next months.

I am continuing to enjoy and learn with Photoshop Artistry-Grunge. Sebastian our instructor asked me to write tutorials for the group on two my pages Golden Glory & Venezia. You can see both pages on my Flckr page.

One of the pages I made in the last week called Finding my Way received quite a few comments on the  Photoshop Artistry-Grung  group  Flickr page

 

And this page called California Dreaming received a "Standing O" over at Ocraps. It was taken during my last visit to LA.

And California dreaming I am! I hope to be able to go back to LA in the New Year for a visit.


 

Another Project Finished

     
   Knitting this shawl was a bit of a challenge. The pattern is call Entrelac and it is made up of  tiers of blocks that are set on their points and are diamond shaped. Each block is knitted separately and jointed to its neighbor as it is being knit. This shawl is almost 6 feet long and took forever to finish. I used a yarn made in Japan called Noro. Noro yarn is handed dyed silk, mohair & wool and comes in beautiful colour combinations. I finished off the shawl by crocheting a fringe which I love the look of.

World Wide Photo Walk

I participated in my first World Wide Photo Walk last Saturday. The walk was started by Scott Kelby  a number of years ago. Last year there were over 900  walks around the world with 32,000 participants. What is a photo walk you ask "Its a social photography event where photographers get together (usually in a downtown area or trendy section of town) to walk around and take photos, and generally have fun with other photographers." And fun just what happened on my walk!
The walk I joined started at 10 am  and finished at 1:00 with a pub lunch. I really enjoyed myself talking and sharing with other participants.  I was super impressed with the camera's and lenses the other participants had. I shot with my new Sony camera and was happy walking with its light weight. I was also happy with the results of the day.

The photo above of the statue  was taken in alleyway. I came away wondering why it was there and not in some ones garden. 

Working with my hands

Although I love creating digital art, I also love working with my hands. And now having 3 adorable granddaughters knitting has become one of my favorite pastimes. I find it very relaxing when watching television in the evening to knit. Below are some of the sweaters I made over the summer.

And here's the cutie who wears this sweater.

I made the same pattern in pink for the "big sisters"

 

 

Another sweater that I made was given to a friend with a new baby. Unfortunately I did not take a photo of  the finished sweater, hat, and little shoes. So here is a second best the photo from the pattern.

 

I also knitted a sweater for myself. TWICE! Yes twice, I had to rip out the first completed finished attempt which was heartbreaking, but it was too big and did not fit.  It was either rip or give it away. I loved the yarn that I used that was sent from the UK and would not be easy to replace, so rip it was.

 I'm delighted with the finished results this time around especially that it fits!

 Right now I'm knitting and Entrelac shawl. It takes 10 balls of wool and feels like it is taking forever! And if you don't know what Entrelac knitting is (I did not until I started the shawl) you can see some photos here

Featured on the Oscraps blog

This page was featured today on the Oscraps blog http://ozone.oscraps.com/?p=5793.
You can read about how it was made in an earlier post http://journey-to-self.blogspot.ca/2013/09/before-and-after.html. It's always a thrill and an honour to have my work recognised.

Fiddler

I was out for a walk earlier this week with my youngest granddaughter. We stopped to listen to a street busker playing the fiddle and he gave me permission to take his photo. Actually he hammed it up a bit for the camera. My granddaughter was entranced with the music, I'm sorry I did not get a photo of her face listening to him.

Module 3

I'm slowly working my way through the class Photoshop Artistry- Grunge. The many videos are pack with information not only about using Photoshop, Lightroom and Adobe Illustrator is covered as well. I'm finding that I'm using shortcuts in Photoshop and exploring many of the features that make that I have not used before . Each lesson is a new adventure!

Before and After

 

 

Experimenting  with what I am learning  from the class Photoshop Artistry - Grunge

 

 

 

Original photo taken with my new camera a Sony RX100

Some changes made in Photoshop

.

And now added to a layout

Journal Page

I spent some time today working on another journal page that came out of  Valerie Sjodin's Embellishing Edges class. Working with Tombow & Zig markers I finished this page. Just a few more pages to complete and I'll be finished.

Old Barns

I've been enjoying learning what my new camera can do over the past week. Yesterday while driving back to the cottage from an outing I stopped the car to take photos of old barns. I just rolled down the window and clicked!

As shot from the camera without touch ups.

After

I did a bit of fiddling about in Photoshop with colour and blending modes to add a bit of drama and try out some the what I have been learning in the Fine Art - Grunge class.

The Eyes Have It

It was raining today, which gave me a perfect excuse to watch some of the video lessons from the Photoshop Artistry- Grunge class. Todays lessons was using light. What do you think of my results?

Bird watching

 One of the joys of being at the cottage is seeing the wild life.  Having a digital zoom on my camera made it possible to take these photos as the birds were quite a distances away.

 I saw a pairs of  Trumpeter swans in the wet lands near the cottage as I was driving back from a shopping trip. I stopped the car and  tried walking through the bush to see if  I could  get close enough to see if there were any babies. I was only wearing sandals and was a bit worried about being bitten by a Massassauga rattlesnake which have make a comeback in our area.  In the same area I also saw several Great Blue Herons and what I believe was a Cormorant. Unfortunately I was unable to get close enough even with using the zoom lens to get a good shot of the Cormorant. Today I did get some photos of Canada Geese right in front of the cottage.

 I have a humming bird feeder outside of the kitchen window and get to see aerial fights on a regular bases between the Humming Birds. They are surprisingly very aggressive towards each other. I would love to get some photos of  the Hummers, but they are shy and don't come near if I'm outside.

Trumpeter Swans

 

 

 



 

Cormorant

 

 

 

 Great Blue Heron

 

 

 Canada Geese

New Camera

After my trip to France and Italy earlier this summer I felt I could not travel again with my Canon Rebel T2i. Not that I'm unhappy with the quality of the photo's, it's the weight of the camera and lens. I did some research and stopped into our local camera store to see what suggestions they had. After looking at some amazing small  cameras like the Fuji M1 I  decided on  the SonyRX100.

It is a "large sensor" pocket camera 20.2 MP with great reviews. The camera arrived yesterday and I've had a chance to try it out, and I must say I'm impressed. Compared to the Canon Rebel it is light weight and can fit into my pocket. It shoots in both JPEG & Raw with fantastic low light sensitivity.

This photo  was taken last night in my garden with out the flash

And this one with the flash

 

 

No flash

With a flash

 



The aperture is F 1.8 to 4.9 and both a digital & optical zoom.

 

 

 

 This little camera comes with all sorts of bells and whistles which I have yet had time to learn but so far I am delighted with what it can do and especially the size and weight.

New Class

I'm taking another on line class called Fine-Art Grunge Compositions, given by Sabastian Michaels.
Kim Klassen recommended the class and I'm into the 2nd of 4 module now and have found it terrific.
Module 1 is mostly  a overview of how  to use Photoshop & Lightroom. Working through the videos in Module 1 (there are over 60 in total for the class) was a refresher course for me and well as picking up some new tips.
I'm now starting Module 2 and completed one of the suggested assignments.
I started with this photo which I found on Deviant Art.

I cut out the background and made my own textured background. I then played with adding texture,  brushwork, and changing the blending modes on several different layers.

And here is the finish page.

 

Gallery Standout

I have been featured on Gallery Standouts today for a layout posted at Oscraps. No matter how many times this has happened I always get a thrill that something I created has been chosen.

Summertime

I've been enjoying cottage life for the past several weeks and keeping away from electronics. It's been for the most part very relaxing. I have had  time to read, knit and generally enjoy a slower pace. Saying all that I have used Photoshop to create a few pages.

I hope everyone else is enjoying the last few weeks of summer.