Using My Photography For What????

Oh my gosh!  I hadn't realized it had been so long since I last posted here.  Time has flown the past few months.  I've moved to a location much better suited for my work as well as my play.  But really my work IS play for me.  But in addition to this, I've discovered something totally new, for me anyway, and that is mixed media art and mixed media art journals.  So I have spent much of the past couple of months anyway, learning as much as I can so I can be able to do this kind of art properly.

No, don't worry.  I am not leaving my photography behind, although it seemed like it there for awhile.  Actually, I think I want to find a way to incorporate my photography into my mixed media artwork.  I think this would be so much fun as well as how it would make the ephemera (new vocabulary word for me) I use in the artwork totally my own instead of things I find elsewhere.  Or maybe a combination of both.

So, what I did in October and the first half of November was to create my first mixed media art journal.  Now the problem I had with this is my own impatience because I wanted to be able to do everything right away even though I don't even have all the kinds of supplies I need to do so.  For instance, stencils.  And stamps.  And that darn ephemera.  I also do not have a lot of options in the mixed media types of pigments such as watercolors and inks.  I do have colored pencils, black Sharpie pens (so far) and acrylic tube and bottled paints.  But to compensate, I used the computer to find and print out and then cut out or tear out various pictures of possible things I might want to use.  That didn't work as well as I had hoped, but to that I blame on not being well versed in this kind of artwork yet.  I learned how to make some of the things I will need also and have begun making my own stencils, and stamps out of things found around the house.  I think the most unique of these items has been the mallet end of a broken meat pounder (tenderizer).  It makes pretty cool dots in pattern and in two different sizes.  My best and favorite, so far, homemade ephemera or paper has been plain old coffee filters I've been using to blot excess paints both on the artwork itself and on the pallets.  Blotting over and over on the filters has thickened the paper quite a bit and I have finally used some in a mixed media canvas that turned out interesting.

Now I am looking at ideas for how to do this using my own photography in different parts of my art.  I think that especially the abstract photography or digital fusion photography will work best in my abstract art.  I am not sure yet how I would use landscapes, florals, or other photographs, but I am sure I will figure that out.  There is one layout in my art journal where I cut out flowers from actual photographs and put them into the design.  But they are thicker and heavier than the rest of the page they are put on so they required a heavier amount of gel medium to hold them down and cover them well.  I used glossy gel medium which took longer to dry properly even though it felt dry to the touch.  When turning the pages, they ended up sticking together and did some major damage I am not sure I can repair.  So I have decided for now to use my own printouts of my photos on regular computer paper or maybe card stock instead of photos from the photo developing places.

Then, some sad news, my little Jonah ended up needing to be put to sleep as he was in obvious last stages of his life.  He was having increasing difficulty walking and holding his bladder, as well as no longer eating after vomiting his last meal a whole day after he ate it.  It was very hard to let him go but it was harder to watch him struggle and have bouts of pain where he would make sounds I never knew a dog could make.  You can see more photos of Jonah in his own tab at the top of the page.

This past week I have focused on my photography again because I knew I was away from it for too long.  I've done some still life photos of fresh vegetables prior to making homemade tacos, and then later some still life photos of marbles and a flower vase with some different backgrounds, such as felt pieces, and the mesh wrappers that come on fresh fruit.  After that I went on to do some digital fusion artwork with the still life photos and have been posting those to my Flickr photostream.  Here is one example that turned out looking like a big open mouth on a fish...but hey, to you it might look like something totally different.  What beautiful dark blue eyes this fishy has!

So, this being very early the morning after Thanksgiving, I want to say that I hope you had a wonderful day and spent some great time with family and friends.  Or if you are like me and having your holiday on a different day to accommodate various scheduling issues, I wish you a happy Thanksgiving yet to come.  The Christmas season has officially begun and that means a lot of different things to different people.  For me it means a celebration of the greatest man who ever lived, Jesus Christ.  It's a busy time for many and I hope I will be back on here before this year is ended.  But, if I don't make it, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Feathers, Shells, and Water Bottles--Say What???

My granddaughter, who is now 12 years old, continually brings me different things to add to my photography portfolio.  Her's too, because she is learning photography from me, and let me tell you that she has a real eye for the art.  This time she brought quail feathers that she got while cleaning at some older couple's home as part of a youth group project.  A few days later she brought two halves of what looks like a clam shell.  Since I haven't looked it up and I am not an expert on these things, I simply call it a mollusk shell.  Where do water bottles fit into this?  Well, let's just say that at first, her turquoise water bottle she was drinking from ended up being a beautiful background for the quail feathers.  But eventually the bottle ended up offering some very interesting macro shots itself.

For the following photos, I used my Canon Rebel EOS T3i with and without my 5 extension tubes.  When I used the extension tubes the images are very, very close and almost have the quality of having looked through a microscope at times.  When I didn't use the extension tubes, you can tell that the images are just close ups, but not extremely close up.  I believe the feathers turned out very beautifully, while the shells are also very pretty.  But when you see what happened with the water bottle, you may be very surprised.

Understand that I did no editing of any kind other than to place my watermark on these copies.  Here are the photos.

You can see in some of the above photos the turquoise showing through from the water bottle.  How to photograph the feathers was at first a problem as I could not really think of any possible way to lay them on a surface and end up with a good photo.  However, I did have a small cut flower vase with an empty green floral sponge inside.  That became the holder for the feathers and also provided a greenish background in some of the photos.

I am really going to have to research mollusk shells to find out what the fossilized circles are on the outside of the shell. To do these photos with the marbles was actually my granddaughter's idea and I was really glad she came up with it.

Okay, so now what is so special about a turquoise water bottle anyway?  Well, when the bottle has its own designs on the side, and it is about half filled with water, and when light hits that bottle in certain ways while it is on its side on a table, you end up with lots of various abstract results.

I really was pleasantly surprised at the bokeh that appeared in this shot above.  I have found that I can create interesting bokeh when light is reflecting off just about anything, as long as whatever that "anything" is turns out to be shiny.

Now I am on the hunt for other interesting objects that can end up either as still life or abstract photography.  Since the water bottle was more accident than anything else, it gives me inspiration that there could be any number of objects around the house, yard, or even at garage sales, that could end up in my portfolio.  What do you think?  Got any ideas of your own?