Clouds

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If you are bored, look up. You may be surprised at what you see. Clouds can be unicorns or dragons, fish or faces.

When I was young I would lie on my back and look up at the sky. Watching the clouds rush with rapidity or drift with stately slowness. Like the galleons I drew in my school exercise books. Then it was pirates racing to catch treasure ships.

Thunder clouds were mountains, or giant anvils, sometimes clouds looked like waves on the sea, or hills and beaches.

I gradually learnt a few of the names of clouds, cirrus, cumulo nimbus, stratus.  Each had a wonderful ring to them. Magical beauty flying high over head.

Later I learned a bit about chaos theory, and fractals. How if you magnify a bit of a cloud, the close up looks like the larger image. I heard songs like Cloudbusting by Kate Bush, and about clouds being seeded to make rain fall.

You see they are interesting creatures, even if they are not mythical beasts.

So, if you are interested, look up the cloud appreciation society. They have a page on Facebook. Their founder set up a group which people can join. They have a cloud of the month, and sometimes send out a newsletter.

With climate change, and the increase in severity of the weather, its interesting to find out how water vapour can be so beautiful and yet so wild.

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Tree pillar

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Went down the surreal route (root) with this photo a couple of years ago. This tree ‘pillar’ looks like its holding up a green roof.

Getting an image like this is based on placement of the object in the original picture. If you place a strong pattern in one corner, or in the middle, with interesting contrast or colours, you can multiply it and create something etherial. I like to think this could be a home for elves or fairie folk. Mad, but interesting.

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Photo manipulation

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The finger and the nose never touched. This is two photos, joined together, then I’ve drawn over the background and blurred it. I got my hubby to hold his hand out, a bit like in the painting of Adam and God’s hands in the Sistine Chapel, then I got my cat to sniff my hand, but I specifically wanted a male hand, so I’ve cropped the two together. I’ve blurred the background to look like clouds (and hide the messy background). I’m just wondering now if it’s gone a bit ‘ET phone home’?

The pale blue is where I drew a line. I tried to flood fill the background, but it didn’t work well. Anyway it’s almost 3.30am, so enough experimenting. Goodnight all.

Sleeping Cat

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The cat is sleeping next to me on the chair arm. He’s curled up, warm and snug. Now he’s got a paw over his nose, keeping the light out. Soon his tail and legs will be twitching as he falls into a dream, chasing toy mice or licking cream from his bowl.

His ears are moving around, as if hearing his sister coming running up to him. They often chase each other around the room or up and down the stairs. She comes up and pounces on him, he tries to catch her…

Deep breathing, whiskers are twitching, he’s so settled. It’s mesmerising, watching him sleep….

Floral

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I don’t remember when I created this. I know from looking at it it’s been manipulated in layout. I probably used an old app called kaleidoscope but I don’t have that any more. There appear to be eyes looking out, and some spikey bits? What are they? I think I took a photo of some sort of cactus.

Anyway I still enjoy looking at the image so I’ve shared it.

Fruit

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Just found out I have been offered an exhibition at the Waiting room gallery in April. The theme will be gardening, green men and women and spring, but I also want to do colourful work. I’ve been going around looking for subjects in the house as the garden isn’t growing yet, just a few buds.

The light was streaming in through the kitchen window and illuminating all the fruit my hubby bought yesterday. So I took a photo of it.

I will try and get some more interesting shots later. At the moment a neighbour is cutting down a tree, so I’m staying out the way. The sound of chainsawing doesn’t fill me with confidence!