Wisdom of the Ages

You Create Your Own Reality

This piece was inspired by a dream I had recently. I was observing some man in England who couldn't see me, and before I left I wanted to leave a message to let him know I'd been there, so I wrote that on a wall and hoped he'd see it.

Storm in a Teacup

I wasn't sure where I was going with this, so I just followed along...

Happy Earth Day!

I know it's not always easy being green, but just go out and find a tree to hug today...

Ocean View

Wasp or Bee?

I have been keeping dream journals for over fifteen years. I interpret my own dreams in my own way, although for the most part I just jot them down and move on. Some dreams just stick with you. I had a dream recently that involved a swarm that I was afraid of because I thought they were wasps. (This is just part of a really long dream, of course.) I soon realized that what I thought were wasps were actually bees, so I wasn't frightened. When I woke up and pondered this vivid dream, I realized that there was a message in it for me.

Because I am intimidated by wasps, I had a really blurry picture to work with to include the wasp. It was from one summer when they were invading our porch, and we kept trying to convince them to move on. They kept nesting in these big balls of wasps, which were fascinating and scary, so I took a few shots. Lucky for me I have a telephoto lens.

Frog Day Afternoon

I had a little fun with frogs today.

Love Is the Answer

I had the John Lennon song "Mind Games" stuck in my head, so I made a little ouija board and had some fun with it.

Acropolypse

I was playing around with some pieces of coral today. The lizards in the picture are actually small enough to fit in your hand, but in a close-up they look quite fearsome. These boys were engaged in a little territorial dispute.

Moon in Hand

Even a damaged slides can be useful. The ruins in the background are from a shot of the Acropolis that had some interesting textures to work with.

Heaven to a Cat Lady

You know those movies you see where the person dies and is greeted by his old dog who died twenty years ago? Well, it occurred to me that when my time comes there will be an entire herd of cats waiting for me. Between my own beloved fluffies, and neighborhood cats that befriended me over the years, it's getting crowded on the other side.

This morning, I went outside and took pictures of single blades of grass. I used two of them to create the lawn. I'm very patient that way. Every journey starts with the first step.

The kitties in the foreground are some of my departed darlings.

Steampunking Lady

This is for the Steampunk Challenge over at the Three Muses blog.

The lady, her wings, the zeppelin, and the tower are from Deviant Scrap.

Play in the World of Dreams

This is a challenge from Digital Whisper. It's part of a quote that grabbed me.

Those mushrooms were actually growing in my garden one year. I've never seen any like them since, but luckily I got their picture before they faded away. The clock was from clip art, but it was altered quite a bit. The beach is our beach (sans the checkerboard). I took lots of pictures of marbles yesterday--I love marbles. The orchid was mine too. I tried to raise orchids one year.

Rainbow Challenge

This is for the Rainbow Challenge at So Artful Challenges. I got a little crazy with this one:

Who doesn't love Crayola crayons? I keep a box of 64 in my art studio for inspiration. I never use them (well, until I photographed them today), but they remind me of how creative and unlimited I felt as a child. I just loved experimenting with all the colors. Sometimes I just open the box and sniff them to take me back to that place. The lizard in the picture is a Florida Anole. They change colors from green to brown.

Window to My Soul

I took up on a little challenge over at Digital Whisper and created this.

Take A Word: Egg

Here is my first attempt at a challenge. This is for the Take A Word: Egg challenge.

The images I used were mine. I remembered to save an eggshell when I made eggs and took a picture of my hand. The crackly ground was created in Photoshop. The daisies in the background were actually a mistake, when I scanned two old slides stuck together, but are there every really any mistakes in art?

Sometimes I Draw Things...

I have a little sketchbook that I do these drawings in. I have big ones too, but this one is set aside for my little drawings.

I always start with two circles that I draw with a compass. Then I just start filling them in. It's my own form of doodling, I suppose. In another sense, it's mandala therapy. Whatever it is, I like to play with light and shadow, and I have no idea what each drawing will turn out to be.

I just start a shape, and the shape tells me where it wants to be shaded, and that leads to another shape. I keep going until it's all filled in. Very meditative...

Hong Kong Friends

This piece gets a long story. I lived in Hong Kong for six years during the eighties. I loved wandering the backstreets with my camera--there was so much to take in. I encountered these two men at the end of a day, and at the end of a roll of film (you'll have to explain to the youngsters here what a roll of film was). They were such a pair, and obviously old friends. The light was fading and I only had two shots left. The man on the left was reluctant and grumpy and the one on the right was friendly and cheerful. They were such a delightful contrast to each other, and neither spoke English.

I had the photos developed and did an oil painting, but never finished it. The developers had cut off the man's feet and I could never get them right in the painting. I still loved the painting, though.

We had a hurricane some years back and lost most of our possessions. Half of my photos were completely destroyed, and half survived. The original photos of most of my Hong Kong shots had soaked in brine and had to be tossed out. Before we demolished the house, I found some negatives in the attic--many of which were of the lost photos. It's been great, because I lost most of my kids' baby pictures, but found their negatives. I've been scanning like a fiend, and lo and behold, I found my Chinese men. The negatives were damaged from the heat of the attic, and I had to splice the two photos together, but here they are. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of them. The stuff on the right is from a photo of a store, which was typical of the little Mom & Pop stores there. I photographed my fish vase and added it just for fun.