Photo of the Week - "Father"

The same uncle who took the photograph I posted in honor of Mother's Day of my mother and I also took this photograph of my father and I. In honor of Father's Day, I post it here today. I am pretty sure, judging by the little dress I am wearing, that this was taken on the day I was baptized; I was 6 weeks old, and he was 22 and a few months. I always thought that my Dad is one of the handsomest men in the world.

He is 71 now, but he still runs miles and miles with his dog every day. I don't know if he intends to run any marathons this year, but he ran 2 last year. If you were to see him today, you would be able to recognize him from this photograph. (Me... not so much!)


I still think he is one of the handsomest men in the world.

Photo of the Week - "Black and White"

It is my month to choose our themes - for this week I chose "Black and White". I have lately become fascinated by the artistic potential of black and white images - who knew there was so much you could do beyond removing the color?


My roses are in full bloom right now (or they would be, if it would ever stop raining long enough to quit damaging the buds. Sigh...)  I photographed this bud this morning and then started playing around with the image in Photoshop Elements.   I love how taking color out of the mix really plays up the lines and movement of the petals.

 

I snapped this photo of my daughter last week while playing with the super zoom on my new pocket camera, and just for fun I started playing with it in black and white mode. There is so much you can do in Elements with black and white!

I never even noticed the lens flare in the lower left of the photo until I rendered it in black and white.  Too fun, and so much left yet to learn!

Photo of the Week - "Heirloom"

There are very few people in this world whom I love as much as I loved my Grandma Ruby. She lived in a wonderful little house under a huge maple tree, with a very explorable creek nearby.  No corner of Grandma's house was off limits to us kids. She was a pack rat of the first order and I absolutely loved digging through her piles of boxes. And boy, could she ever play! As far as her grandchildren were concerned, she was a one-woman personal entertainment system, and we couldn't get enough of her company.

She had absolutely no patience whatsoever with the domestic arts. I can only imagine that she picked up a needle at all as an attempt to fit in with other ladies in their social gatherings, which is why I think I treasure this little square of muslin so much. If the date is accurate, she was 20 when she made it.


Um... I did better embroidery when I first learned how when I was 9.  (But then, I like stitching. Motivation is everything sometimes!)

It isn't even hemmed, just basted.

Everything about this little hanky reminds me so much of her though, that it makes me feel that she is still with me. Grandma Ruby died while I was pregnant with my oldest daughter who is named after her. I am only sorry that she never knew her namesake, who is so much like her in personality that I wonder sometimes... Do names have more influence than we give them credit for?

So happy!

The gourd is finished, the glue is dry, and I still can't quite believe I did it. No glue holds the pieces together right now, but I think the weight of MerMomma's body is putting some stress on her anchoring arm - I don't want it to crack again, so perhaps I will end up gluing her permanently to the gourd after all.

I am rapidly using up my stash of Yadeno mohair. Does anybody know where I would be able to get some more??

Painted, Embellished, Ready for Hair

I wish I knew some magic to make glue dry faster, LOL!

Again, sorry for the awkward pose. This girl is quite uncooperative when it comes to being photographed. She fits beautifully around her gourd though, and that's what matters.

Oh, I think I will just go and prepare some locks of hair or something. I am dying to keep working though - I want to finish!

Photo of the Week - "Things with Wings"

Lots of winged things around here! Unfortunately, there has also been an awful lot of rain - not the kind of weather to make me take my camera outside for a look around. However, on Monday evening we were visiting my in-laws and the skies cleared up enough to spend some time on their deck. My mother-in-law has several bird feeders and houses around, so it wasn't long before the winged things began to appear.


They weren't too pleased to see us however, especially this daddy sparrow. The bug in his mouth is intended for his chicks that were chirping their little heads off inside the birdhouse, but he wouldn't go in as long as we were sitting there.   We could see momma sparrow hovering nearby with a bug in her mouth as well, but she didn't dare to come even this close.

There is usually a little flock of nearly a dozen finches at the seed feeder, but this little one was the only one bold enough to approach. He didn't look too happy to see us and didn't stick around either.  Sigh...

Fortunately for the birds, it soon got too cool for us to remain outside, so we retired indoors and they were able to go about their business in peace once more.

In other news, I have replaced baby mer's hair with a different color and sculpted momma mer's arms.  Unfortunately the clay cracked at the shoulder joint so I will have to repair that.  I am sculpting her tail fin tonight - it will all be over soon!