Making an Attempt ~ Making Brushes

They used to talk about "the blue screen of death" when your computer monitor would just show a blue bank screen if you had your PC on when a buried virus was set to activate.  Well...I had the failure of an external hard drive...four years of photographs!

Did I have it backed up?  Of course...but I hadn't backed it up for 5 months...and off to The Disk Docktor it went.  So with limited access to photos, I want to show you a few of the brushes I made in my class with Kim Klassen using my Wacom Bamboo tablet.

A year ago I read Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That is Always Talking...coupled with my Ali Edward's class of One Little Word 2013...my word was "embrace."

So in honor of embracing my introversion in 2013...I made a brush set with "introvert" words.

Introverts re-energize by stepping away and spending significant time in solitude.

We are most "active" in our inner life...

Our minds are very active...even if we are quiet.

Does the saying "still waters run deep" come to mind?

Very little is done without forethought...at least the important things.  We have intention...

We love to reflect and process experiences...

And in our authenticity...we embrace who we really are.

One Good Turn Deserves Another...2B Take Two

Wow...that Autumn Edit from Kim's class was so fun...I wanted to try the preset on a "not so orange" photo, compared to the one I used on my first try...

...and this leaf was magically on the windshield of the van this morning as I waited for Edster to climb in.  This is the original photo.

Then with the autumn edit preset...MAGIC!

Whatchya think???

Autumn Processing with Kim Klassen - 2B Day 31

I am writing this blog post as West Virginia gets slaughtered by Baylor...so mea culpa for any typos...and I'm not EVEN going to try the before/after mouse-over coding...

So...this is the original photo...RAW...with no edits -- straight out of the can (SOOC).

Kim took us through an autumn edit she did, and provided two Lightroom Presets from her edit.  You can see this photo already has a lot of yellow/gold tones in it.  But after a crop and running one of the Presets...

and a little tweeking...this is my final image.  I can hardly wait to try it on a less gold image....stay tuned!

And now on to the second half of the game...Lord, help me.

Takin' It To The Streets - Sans the Doobie Brothers

I'm a little behind in my Beyond Beyond course...but I took it to the streets today!  Kim challenged us to take our camera out around people...and snap some candids...

So Edster, Arthur, and I wend down to the Cuyahoga Valley today for a Sunday road trip...

Indulge me for a second here...

You have to see how Arthur takes road trips...NO not in the back...ALMOST in the driver's seat...

With his head out the window...as if he could fly.

So we headed to Szalay's...which I knew would be hoppin' on a Sunday afternoon.  It's a produce farm known particularly for their great sweet corn...and have other attractions.  Very folksy!

I was amused by this young lad's despair...then became envious that my age doesn't allow me to squat like this anymore and get up gracefully!

There was a wonderful saxophone player making jazz with glorious style.

But THIS is Szalay's!  Buying a hot, roasted, buttery ear in the hull...and enjoying its succulent goodness!

Arthur had to settle for ice cream...life is tough...

The simple life is SO good!

Furry Friends for Day 25

Well, Kim wanted us to try something different this week in Beyond Beyond.

No stills...

           No flowers...

                     No landscapes...

Today it is our furry friends!

I'm biased...it has to be my Arthur.  I took this shot early evening today.  I desaturated the image after some editing in Lightroom and then added a white, feathered vignette.

He FINALLY stopped in one place panting...after trying to herd our boxer, Bruno.  What Bruno has in size and weight, Arthur is low to the ground and can nip those ankles of Bruno.  They are a hoot to watch!

Now, Arthur's favorite place is under our bed.  It's where he sleeps.  It's also where he puts and protects his Milkbone stash.  Bruno sometimes is aloof, even though they get their Milkbones at the same time.  He's looking the other way and off goes Arthur with his and Bruno's bone in his mouth, stashing it under the bed in the middle...and guards it!

And at times...when something is discovered...USUALLY one of my flip flops are missing and I know he has it...he hides under the bed.  He thinks if he can't see me...I can't see him.  But that nose ALWAYS gives him away...

What a joy he is to our household!

I Collect...

Kim Klassen had us focus on the beautiful things that we have, that we tend to save or collect...in my Beyond Beyond course...

A month or two ago, I created a Facebook group page for those cross-stitchers that used to be on AOL (You've got mail!)  X-stitch boards...like GeriRoyer, SuzNov, Grndmadi, Jane in WV, GinaEgg, Billsfran, MelissaJax, Mimibear1, GSRox1, Houstnrose, Lenora(andsomenumbers), HooBeeU...we knew each other by our AOL screen names.  Some of those folks have become lifelong friends...  Who knew?  We found 81 former members from AOL and we are all now sharing again on Facebook...

When I thought about "I Collect"...

I thought about crosstitch and pulled out some things that had been put away some time ago...or shall I say was packed when I moved in 2010 and still remains, for the most part...still packed.

There is comfort and solace running your fingers across such color, such fibers, threads, and textiles...bringing some of it back out was like coming home...

These AOL X-Stitch peeps knew without explanation about the joy of our stash...even if you could not get everything you had ever stitched up...we could not live without our S.E.X. (Stash Enhancement Xperiences) aka shopping for crosstitch stuff...and telling each other about our latest enhancements.

Beautiful colored evenweaves...some linen (Belfast, Dover, Newcastle, Newport, Edinburgh, and Cashel), some Lugana, Fiddler's Cloth, Floba, Jobelan, Hardanger...and yes what we all stitched on for our first project...Aida!

And you had to have an interpreter or special primer to understand our language as a newbie:

• Frogging - Pulling out threads from a mistake (you had to rip it, rip it, rip it...get it?)
• U.F.O. - Un-finished Object, project started but not completed
• Fuppies - Completed projects but they were not finished up (i.e., framed, sewn into something, etc.)
• Rotation - You might have several projects going at the same time and you would work on one for a week, go to the next one for a week, and so on...and repeat so you completed projects without getting tired of them...

EXCEPT for SuzyNov...this is her photo of her GBH (Great Blue Heron)...she would always groan about still working on the water of her GBH.  It is legendary and still talked about today all over the country..

And as I went through the little bit of items I unpacked for this challenge...other memories surfaced...

We had ornament swaps, floss swaps, stitch-a-longs (subgroups of those working on a specific piece together)...but we also made a quilt for Susan who was hurting, and supported those who had lost spouses, enduring illness, divorce...while keeping it light talking about our "Cabana boys."

And as I looked at things I had stitched...memories of my own life flooded back...a time when my own last name was different...with different initials stitched to show I had done the work.

I also remembered how long it took...one-stitch-at-a-time...an exercise in patience...each project.  Kind of an illustration in tenacity...

And as I looked at patterns I had dreamed of making at one time...I remembered my dream for my bedroom...

It's kind of a Sturbridge-Yankee colonial style...always wanted my husband to have something that could pass as "the Lincoln bedroom" with a wall filled with my handstitched reproduction samplers from past centuries from patterns shown here...

...but maybe I've been inspired by finding my AOL X-Stitch girls again...and by running my hands over a minuscule of my stash (I have tons of stash!)...and I may go back to my dream...my sampler wall...

And before putting this time capsule away, I pulled out a small antique reproduction project and kitted it...

Maybe I'll put my needle to work this weekend...and before long you'll see it here!

I'm so grateful to have not just my stash...but also my collection of crosstitch peeps from over the years!

Latest Pages - Beyond Beyond

It's been awhile since I did any scrapping pages of my work in Kim Klassen's Beyond Beyond...and my challenge from Viv Halliwell to scrapbook each work so I have 52 pages of work done all year...

In case you don't remember, this is a year-long course of inspiration, photography challenges, and editing tutorials...a continuation in some ways...of Beyond Layers, which I participated in last year.

Day 7 (Week 7) - We were given this image...here is the original...

and edit it with our own interpretation...possibly had text.

Day 8 (Week 8, actually) had two different lessons.  This was my work on editing with a matte finish on my photos...

The second lesson that week was about making chalkboard images in Photoshop.

Day 9 (Week 9) is about having fun with type...typing on shapes, et al.  This was a super fun lesson!!!

I have not done Day 10 (Week 10)...but I have a whole year...but  Day 11 (Week 11) was about gathering items of similar colors (I chose pink) and make a storyboard.  Another fun lesson!

Day 12 (Week 12) was about taking a color photo and tinting it with a shade in Lightroom 4.  Arthur steals the show!

Day 13 (Week 13) had two parts...I've yet to complete the second part (I was on vacation for goodness sake and started Kat Sloma's course).  We were taught out to take picture fonts and color them...turning them into stamps to use over.

Day 14 (Week 14) showed how we could take a "portrait" orientation photo (which really looks long on a blog) and add a wide border and text to make it more landscape or square.  Great idea!

Now...what will Day 15 bring?

A Sense of Place - A Bookseller in Sepia

Tonight...still behind in my Beyond Beyond lessons...was a jaunt to our local Barnes & Noble to pick a few magazines as a part of our prep work...(it's been a while since I bought a magazine...they've gone UP)...

So I decided to kind of put some of my thoughts from my Kat Sloma course to work...she makes us think about everything!  (Very attractive to a thinker like me...)

For some reason, since color was not my main mission...and I was editing...it seemed that color was a distraction, yet b&w too cold...after all, it's spring!

And look who greeted me as I came in the door?  Oh, Grace...only color for you my dear.  You deserve no less...

I saw this man...probably retired...maybe interested in a second career to supplement his retirement income...or he was really reading a "Dummies" book but did not want to stand in front of the "For Dummies" sign...

And this man...in his golden years.  Was he trying to fill up his time now left alone as a widower?  Or was his wife at home and he needed downtime away from the chatter?  Perhaps he just had cabin fever and wanted to feel the breeze on his face, getting out of the house...perhaps have a cup of coffee before leaving...

And of course, this shelf of Shakespeare...

On the second level, I was attracted by these chairs...not in a perfect row...turned every which way...for patrons to sit down to peruse their possible purchases...

I wanted to take a view from upstairs...a birdseye of the bookshelves and a glimpse of the cafe...  Now I've heard the discussion of shooting with intention, but I tend to enjoy seeing what transpires.  Shooting several shots, I was unsure if I wanted people in the scene...but it became hard to avoid.  When I saw this shot with the blurred boy, it made me smile...  You and I both know kids do not stand still on escalators!  They scurry...as he did here.

And yet this public place has a strange phenomenon...a place to be alone but not by yourself.  Many focused on computer screens, oblivious to others...even of me snapping their photo!

What a fun story to write with photos to give you a sense of this place through my eyes!  See you at the bookstore!