January Bumblebee

So are you wondering where I found a bumblebee in January? In my photos... where else!

January always finds me working on photos and/or person history. This January I'm editing my blog book.** When I ran across this photo from last June I thought, "I need to try that new watercolor technique I just learned."

Bumblebee watercolor 2013

When I wrote that blog I'd been playing with watercolor filters, but as I've said recently, I wasn't happy with my previous attempts.

Bumblebee filters 2012

I'm still learning and hope that next year I will be further along the digital-photo watercolor painting trail.

** So what are these about?

I got my iPhone in mid-November 2011 so I didn't have many i-photos for that year's blog book. But 2012 is totally different story! Holy cow! I've got Facebook mobile uploads, Instagram uploads, and then UN-loaded photo represented by a plethora of iPhone and Rebel photos that got taken, saved, indexed and that was the end of it!

What's up with that?

Addendum... this is post 1111!

Watercolor Sunset

I've been following the blog Bailey Road for several months and have watched Pat do some wonderful digital watercolor photo conversions. Check her out here... you will be amazed! I'm awed by her talents.

I have previously played around with some watercolor filters (I'll see if I can dig them out of the digital filing cabinet of my blog and tag them with the watercolor tag.) But I've not been as happy with them as I want to be.

What to do? What to do? Ah! Contact my talented-artist-niece! She always knows... and if she doesn't do it herself she will ferret out some online helps for me. She found a great video tutorial which I've been playing with for the last few days (and staying up WAY too late!).

I needed something with a bit more contrast than my currently available landscape of ice and snow. I went looking and found this beautiful sunset photo that I took a couple of years ago and thought it had lots of potential.

This is actually my final attempt... but I'm happiest with this one.

This is the culmination of the first attempt. I added a watercolor filter to this one and lowered the opacity on that layer. The thing that is funny to me is that I followed the same steps with the same photo and ended up with two different looks!

Here is the original photo SOOC.

If you've looked at Bailey Road she has a much more realistic watercolor paper texture which I'd love to find.

Chime in here if you have any helpful hint for me.

The Lord, in His Goodness

Wednesdays are my Temple day. I love my service there. So many blessings have come as a result of that service in the last seven and a half years. Today was a particularly good day. It was one of those days where I knew that the Lord was aware of me; that He loves me and ALL who will seek Him. The Lord, in His goodness, delights to own and bless you.

As I was leaving I wanted to get some photos of the beautiful gardens before they are replanted for next spring. Come September I always know that the days are numbered and my next visit could be the one with naked flower beds. (Always a sad time for me... I leave my flowers in as long as I can.)

(DIGITALLY PAINTED IMAGE)

I was using my MPC (aka my iPhone), which can be difficult since I can't see the screen in the bright light. I'd just snapped a couple of photos when I saw movement from the corner of my eye. There was a sweet little hummingbird just feet from me supping at the zinnias!

I zoomed in and just kept blindly taking photos, hoping I would get something good.

It was just one more Tender Mercy of the Lord... just one more witness that He is aware of me and gave me a chance to see one of His wonderful creations.

226- Temple Garden Watercolor

The minute I looked at this photo on my computer is just screamed *WATERCOLOR*... so of course, I had to oblige.



I thought you might like to see the original SOOC.

221- Lily Art

When I was at the Temple on Friday I wandered the gardens and got so many wonderful shots. I've decided that I'm going to deal them out slowly and savor them instead of OD-ing all at once!

I had fun playing with some filters on this photo. I love how it turned out.

(I learned this technique from a scrapbooking magazine article by Renee Pearson which I can't find online. If you are interested I will send you the tutorial that I cut and pasted in a Word document.)



By the way... August and September are my favorite garden months. All the plants are in full bloom and splendor.