August Challenge........Returning to the Canvas

Well I am in the last hour of August and this has been a fabulous month and my painting challenge has gone really well. I have not completed the piece but, I am almost there. This is my first mixed media piece so, I have made lots of mistakes in the learning process but it has been a lot of fun trying to figure things out. I am showing you a few aspects of the piece and when it is completed, I will post it on my page for all to see. This piece is inspired by Frida Kahlo's Two Fridas, mine is Two Talibahs. Tomorrow I will start my September challenge which I have yet to decide on.

Shadow Shot Sunday

shadow Shot Sunday

This week was so busy and I only captured one shadow, that would be my car as we crossed over the bridge, and the other one is from my archives, its my husband and I looking into the water at twilight.

One rule that I almost always follow when I am out and about taking photos is that I do not photograph people. I am way too scare to do that because I remember my sister taking a picture of a man in Jamaica years ago, I didn't want her to do it but she insisted and pretended that she was taking my picture. Well, the man road his donkey over to us while swinging a machete and demanded that we pay him for the photo and a big argument ensued between him and my sister. I snapped the two photo below earlier this year because I have always wanted to photograph jazz musicians. I really like this photo but if you look at the second photo, you see the guy giving me the evil eye.

Today I tried to turn my camera on different groups of people and it was difficult but I did it. The shots were not that great but at least I am trying to push pass this rule.

August Challenge........Returning to the Canvas

I am working on my painting/mixed media big piece and it is going to take some time and there is always a chance that I will screw it up but I am going for it. I had a friend over today and I was careful to make sure that the canvas was completely covered because it is not ready to be seen. I have found that letting people see the unfinished project, jinxes the whole thing, you let the energy out explaining the piece to them. I have learned this the hard way, ten years ago I was working on a story, I had written one hundred and eighty long hand pages and I was so excited that I started to share this with a few people and ended up losing the magic and was stopped cold in my tracks and it sits unfinished until this day and the world has changed and I lost my window of opportunity. In the meanwhile, I am still out there with my camera gathering images of my time on planet earth and I am enjoying all of the photo prompts I am participating in given by all of the fabulous creative photographer women bloggers, so much so that I might need to start another blog in order to have some where to put all of these images from the prompts and assignments.

Shadow Shot Sunday

August Challenge........Returning to the Canvas

Day ten of my August travel and my art project is coming along. For the first six days of the month I painted every day but then we went away for our first annual family retreat and I didn't do any painting for three days. I planned to try my hand at water color but, I forgot to pack my paints and paper. So home again and I am back at it, painting and gathering all of my ingredients for this mixed media piece of art. I am taking my time and not rushing, I haven't any reason to rush and that way I will get it right. This photo is just a little piece of the puzzle.

52 Photos Project- Week 16

It is time for another fun photo prompt and this week with the 52 photos project the focus is, reflections.

These water reflections were shot at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

Shadow Shot Sunday

I love Shadow Shot Sunday because suddenly I am seeing shadows every where and attempting to capture them with my camera. Here are a few that I captured this week.

Exploring with A Camera- A Frame Within a Frame

I have been painting every night this week and I am super happy and wallowing in my creative world. I am also trying to keep up with my photography assignments, challenges and just for fun prompts because my photography is also art to me. So this is a prompt from Kat eye view and I am loving the class that I am taking with her. These are photos of a frame within a frame!

August Challenge........Returning to the Canvas

Now this is a really scary challenge for me but I am ready to push myself in the direction that I need to go in. In 2005 when I/we(husband) became so called, "empty nesters," I, way too quickly as far as my dear children are concerned, started to build a new nest to nourish me and my husband's new life. I set out to become a renaissance woman. My husband, who is a fabulous artist, set up his easel and starting painting and initially, I tried to get him to paint the things that excited me, but I soon realized that it was not fair to intrude on his creative process in. So, I had not painted since childhood but I wanted to try and capture some of my wild imaginings. I have no professional training, no classes since junior high, oh yeah, I did take a ceramic's class in high school, but really no training, but I have magic inside of me and I wanted to get it out. So, my husband gave me a canvas and this is what I painted with a chair for my easel.

I didn't know or really concern myself with what others saw, what I saw was magic and it made me happy. I love Georgia O'keeffe and her skulls and this was a TA Ra original and next came my Frida.

Once my husband saw this and how happy it was made me to be able to express myself through painting, he went out and bought me an expensive easel and I was overjoyed because he loved and supported me but I was also a little worried that maybe he was wasting money. Well we both continued to paint for the next three years until my husband bought that darn idiot box and it all came to a gradual halt. This is the painting that I started at the beginning of 2009 and it is still sitting in my studio unfinished.

So now you get the whole (unfinished) picture, and this is why I am a little anxious about taking on this challenge, but I am jumping in with both feet! Stay tuned!