New paintings and regular art updates.
Another evening, another walk. Up the hill and right instead of left. Expanding the distance slightly. Hubby slipped and almost fell on the icy pavement. The view over Stoke-on-Trent from the top of Penkhull, first photo, was like watercolour splashed against the sky. Streetlights reflecting off the cloud base.
Each day’s walking is making me tired but happy. And it’s good to see the world turn. Sunsets getting slightly later.
A few views of the area near Etruria Flint Mill and along the canal towards Shelton. Then we walked along the main road back to our starting point. By then the mist was dropping down and fine flakes of snow had started to fall so I drove us home… At least we fed the geese and I had a short walk. That’s four walks in five days. A couple of years ago I would barely walk a couple of hundred yards. My friend has encouraged me and I’m starting to really enjoy it and feel a lot fitter for it.
There was ice on Westport lakes and ducks were standing round on it while the geese and swans swam in the open water. The light was glancing across the surface as it headed down towards sunset. There was scattered cloud that gave the scene light and shade. All in all very picturesque for a short cold walk round the lakes.
We took grain and fed a lot of the birds, we were mobbed by them all clamouring for something to eat. A lot of other people had the same idea. Hubby and I were wearing masks, but we saw very few others wearing them, and there were groups of up to about ten people!
I enjoyed the walk, not really very far, but slippy underfoot. Pleased with my camera phone photos too.
A great big cat, he’s clearly moving in. Stayed most of last night and got in bed with my hubby last night under the duvet! When I got up at 7.30 he was asking to go out (outdoor cat, not hubby!) Now he’s sleeping on the doubled arms of the armchairs, between us. Sometimes a questing paw reaches out to rest on my arm. Little claws kneading slightly…. He is a very big cat. I think because if he wasn’t he would not have survived. Sleeping cat, happy cats!
My camera phone won’t get a good picture of the moon because it won’t zoom in enough. So I can’t get details. In this case I wanted to get less glare. On auto (final picture), all the foreground is lit and the moon glares out, plus the photo was taken through the kitchen window that needs cleaning. The other three were all taken on manual, again the camera doesn’t have the magnification to show details, but at least the glare is reduced. The first two show the moon peeping out from behind the neighbours roof. One is a slightly lower exposure than the other, at least they are slightly atmospheric. The third one is a fuzzy blob, but you can tell its a round object. It’s had the glare cut out….. Maybe time to get a telescope?
Have you tried adjusting the colours in a photo in curves? I had taken a bland photo of a tree outside my window and I decided to see what I could do with it. I wanted to increase the contrast, change the colours, add brightness to bring out where the light was in the photo to differentiate between the tree leaves and the background.
Curves is like a graph, by changing the height and depth of the curves you can enhance brightness and colour by making the curve higher, or lower the curve and the image loses brightness and can lose contrast too….. The curved graph representing this was up and down then back up again. All I can say is have a go and see what happens. You don’t have to accept the result and you can go back to how it was originally.
Paws up under the thow
Head out, mirowing!
Climbs up,
Head thrown back!
Claws tear the chair arm
Jump
And
Pounce
Twist
And
Jump!
Sister runs past
Cat slalom off
Into the distance…..
If you start with a photo of an object and multiply it you can get some interesting effects and patterns. I started with a photo of our halogen heater, changed it to black and white in a filter and then duplicated it over and over again with my photo booth layout app. I have put them next to each other so you can see the original black and white photo and the duplicated ones. I think the second photo reminds me of a wool blanket I had on my bed as a child.
They are wilting…
Every day they are declining, wilting, leaves and flowers crumpling. We still haven’t had a frost but we have had cold rain.
Once they are gone we won’t have flowers till April or May. A few plants might be able to overwinter. I’m still thinking of getting some winter flowering pansies and a few cyclamen.
The main decline is amongst the plants are the begonias, their soft stems hold lots of water but I think their cells are only thinly walled and they split in the cold weather. Fushias are stronger, their woody stems hold out against the cold….
And then I’ve got baby raspberries… Weird!
We just attended a Zoom talk on Nepal. Our friend went walking there in 2006 to raise funds for eye surgery for the residents of Nepal. The talk included beautiful photos of the mountains including the Anapurna range. They were close to the eighth highest mountain in the world. The scale of the mountains is incredible. The villages in the valleys are tiny in comparison.
Through wonderful photography of the landscape and the Nepalese people my friend gave us such an informative talk about the country. He also included the music of the people with sweet, calm songs. A very pleasant couple of hours with many friends attending.
Mallaband-Brown