paintings prints and stuff

Hazy light and glowing rapeseed, near Market Harborough The fields around the south of Leicestershire and into Northamptonshire are currently glowing vivid yellow as the rape is in flower.  When the skies are purple with storm clouds and the sun is still shining on the fields in becomes spectacular.  The day of the photo was hazy and not so dramatic but you can still see the intensity.   I need to get out with oil paints. I've been very busy with work committemnt, appointments and my youngest daughter moving house so no painting going on at the moment.   I will get out though.

The little acer in my garden, glowing in the sun this morning, with Virginia creeping turning crimson in the background. I need to get the paints out :>)

I was really disappointed with the photos I'd taken of  the poppy field, they were bad - it was so dramatic and that didn't fully come out in the pictures. This is an experiment in photoshop using various tools under the Adjust options plus a few from filters.   Brightness and Contrast, Hue and Saturation, Posterise, Dry Brush, Paint Daubs, Ink outlines, Find Contours, paint bucket, dodge and burn tools  - selecting parts of the image, erasing, cropping ....... The result still isn't great!   I needed a better photo to start with  - maybe I'll get out to take some more with the 'best' camera instead of the compact.

Summer flowers in the garden :>) Playing with the close up filters again.   I love the way that it throws the background out of focus - these were using the 10+ and the 2+  filters together - which cuts out a lot of light (meaning even shallower depth of field/danger of movement blur) and causes a really shallow depth of field. The top geranium is a new one this year and has these wonderfully intense deep purplish/black leaves. Foxgloves remind me of Cornish lanes :>) It took me years to think to grow Hydrangeas  but I've now got 2 - one in a pot that is a beautiful intense purple/blue  (various shades of it over the plant, some bluer, some purpler, I feed this with the aluminium salts to keep it blue as it started to turn pink in it's second year)  and the other the delicate pale blue and cream one in shade at the foot of the garden.  The pale one was new last year so I wasn't sure if it would revert to pink - but so far so good....

We've been busy planting and sorting things in the garden, so I took the camera out for some close ups of my tulips. These were taken with one of the cheap screw on magnifying filters that help you to get really up close and personal (much more than this if you want to) I really like the very shallow depth of field they give, with the flower focussed but the background very much out of focus, losing all the nitty gritty details there that detract from the main subject. Keeping the camera still when taking the photo is crucial and these were taken without a tripod - they would have been better with one. details of the magnifying lenses here for anyone who doesn't know the kind I mean and more photos of flowers here and here and here and here

Final stage - using levels and colour balance to regain warmth and correct tonal values So - today is showing how I adjust the photograph in the same way as I did the scan and showing the stages. I won't repeat the stages (see yesterday's post) but the effects of scans and photos are a bit different - sometimes I like one better, sometimes the other. The warmth was put back into the image again using colour balance and the tonal values sorted out with Levels. (see yesterday's post) stage 2 duplicating layers A bit too dark in parts but this will be adjusted in levels and using the colour balance in the final version above. This has put back the darks and the pale colour in the sky that had been lost. stage 1 - an untouched photograph taken in dull natural light Much too pale and the paper much to cold and white, not the creamy colour of moleskine. I suppose I could take time to reset the white balance on the camera - but haven't actually investigated how to do t...

Groby Pool, Evening Light. phographs by Vivien Blackburn My much loved Fuji camera is big and fairly heavy, like an SLR, and for ages I've toyed with the idea of a pocket camera for times when I wouldn't carry the Fuji. Last week I bought a little Panasonic Lumix from a friend who had upgraded and this is it's first outing - some very very quickly snatched photos on the way back from a family visit. I have to say I'm really pleased with it. There was a scary bit when my computer wouldn't talk to its HDSC disk - but that was solved when I dug out the card reader that I don't normally need. Phew! relief. The light was very low, subtle colours in the sunset and I haven't had time to absorb all of its possibilities. These were taken with aperture priority and a wide aperture, flash switched off. No tripod, just hand held - so I'm quite pleased with how they came out. The sheen of the water was beautiful. This is an old flooded slate quarry with a...

Flowers in my lawn, June 2010 Why would you dig these pretty weeds/flowers out of your lawn? I'd rather enjoy looking at them and spend the time going to art events :>) So ........ On Friday I went to Patchings Art Festival for the first time. The idea was to see one friend - Gayle Mason , a very talented animal/wildlife artist at her stand there and to meet up with another friend, Katherine Tyrrell at my local station, travel up to Patchings together and have an art/chat-filled day. We had complementary tickets. See Katherine's review of the show here. There was a lot of chat! I also kept bumping into people I knew, which was very nice :>) more chat! Katherine and I had taken sketchbooks to discuss and we had Gayles work in progress and originals around us - lots of discussion :>) Patchings - I'd been considering whether it was worth a stand for a small group I belong to, for another year, but the verdict was a definite 'no'. The event is ...

Oriental Poppy, photograph Vivien Blackburn We had heavy rain this morning so I thought I'd put the 10x magnifying lens on and get some images of the dripping wet flowers before they dried. Artichoke - or is it a Cardoon ? I can't remember! but it's flowering this year :>) 3 buds. I can't wait until the flower opens. They are supposed to be the blue ones - I love that sky blue colour. It has taken 3 years for it to finally flower. another of the Oriental Poppies that have done really well this year :>) Foxgloves - the bees love these. and finally the climbing Masquerade rose that flowers and flowers all summer. It's only little but I love my garden :>)

Pendeen Lighthouse, Vivien Blackburn I've been looking at the photographs from last week, to assess their potential for painting from - I simply didn't have enough sketching time being away with extended family but I'd like to get some paintings done. The simplicity of the image lent itself to posterisation/find edges techniques, with some erasing and tweaking and use of layers to combine the edges/posterised colour. This photograph, below, is ok - but I really like it above - simplified and made cool and airy (though it was a vividly blue day). I think it has potential for development - printmaking maybe? original photograph I need to work in pastels today to get some work ready for an exhibition so maybe not this image..

Sorry for the long absence - a mix of not being well, work being absolutely hectic and then being on holiday. This is where I've been - a lovely farmhouse up on the moor, just above the coast in the far south west of England - only a few minutes from Lands End. and the lane to the farm (above and below) just one car wide and lined with wild flowers in the hedges .... the stream that tumbles down through the valleyby the house, comes out at Porth Nanven below, less than a mile away. Back later with sketches

photographs copyright Vivien Blackburn Back teaching today and I took the camera. I was planning to take some landscape photos pf the snow on the way - and I did, you'll find them on my photography blog - but I rather liked the footprints in the snow in the car park, the road markings and asphalt shining through. Lovely abstract shapes, tone, limited colour range and pattern :>) and the cars parking and reversing had made this fabulous row of hearts :>) OK - enough now. We really don't want any more. Well I don't. That's enough snow for the year now please - now let us head on towards Spring with a gentler, warmer winter .... Please?

From Cape Cornwall. copyright Vivien Blackburn Inspired by Anita who has started a blog where she intends to take a photo a day, I decided to set up a photography blog for the new year. Another friend intends to start one - but I'll leave her to tell you when she gets it up and running :>) I've got an archive of thousands of photographs of landscape, the coast and objects that interested me. Occasionally I put them on here but there are too many. The new blog will be a mix of old and new work. You can find it here if you are interested :>) Through the Lens

Winter Pansies, photograph copyright Vivien Blackburn The summer flowers are still going strong but it's time to think about winter - shudder. Yesterday we popped into a local nursery I like, to buy some trays of winter pansies to plant in the old Victorian chimney pots on the patio. They will be cheerful to look out on as the days get colder :>) And very very appealing to paint. I love the little whiskered faces of pansies. I just hate to see flowers like these in a clashing jumble of colours - the burgundies and yellows and oranges and purples all planted together. I chose soft pale yellows, blue purples and pinker purples and the ones above in the same colours as the little wild ones - they all go beautifully and complement each other. I always think that the way you plant flowers is rather like painting - you have drifts of colour and then echoes of it elsewhere in the garden to balance and link. (I only have a tiny garden and it's quite wild and tangled and...

It's a lovely early autumn day and she-who-is-incredibly-spoilt is loving the sunshine in the garden. And yes, the lawn does need cutting I'm afraid. I'm up to my eyes in paperwork and hope to paint later - so I have no plans to even consider it - and anyway the cats love it long ;>) I love this kind of light. I hope the weather continues like this as it's the kind that leads to spectacular autumn colours that stay for a while.

Roman Bank ( a levee/ sea wall) at the foot of The Wash, inland side, near Gedney Drove End, Lincolnshire, photographs by Vivien Blackburn I'd always wanted to see the the shores of the Wash - and this time visiting my daughter I finally got to see what it was like. On a cold day it's very very bleak and windy but the day we went was gloriously sunny with enough passing clouds to make the light interesting. Soon migrating birds will flock to these marshes - there are bird reserves, with hides, all around coast here where they, and their environment, are protected, the salt marshes preserved. There is a sea wall (levee) that runs for miles, protecting the extremely low lying land behind it. On the northern side of The Wash there was a disastrous flood in the 50s when the sea broke through and killed a lot of people - you can see old film here , photos and details here My photos were taken from here That curious circular island offshore is man made - you can read about...

Brancaster Staithe from the Common . Photograph, Vivien Blackburn I'm staying with my younger daughter for a few days. Today we went to Brancaster Staithe , a salt marsh harbour on the North Norfolk coast. This is the view from the Common, up the hill above the village - you see the complex layout of channels from there - the sea is only accessible to boats when the tide is high. Brancaster Staithe, the harbour. photo Vivien Blackburn We've been lucky and the weather has been gorgeous :>) Back with paintings in a few days :>) PS you can see a slide show of more photos on our Watermarks blog