Art is messy . . .

Earlier this year I visited a Goodwill store and bought two wooden artist boxes containing a few used palettes, paintbrushes, and a few tubes of old paint. Then, two months ago, while with Linda H. in Portland, I found a couple bags of really grungy paint tubes. (Actually, Chris found them, brought them over saying, "I think we should buy these." Do you wonder why I love this guy?)

This morning, which was quite overcast, I went out onto the deck in the back yard and set some of the brushes and paint tubes on one of the palettes and took some photos. Gradually the sun got too bright, my back got too stiff, and Abby began playing with the brushes, so it was time to stop. Here are the results.

You'd think this sort of photography would be easy. Just dump the paint tubes onto a palette, toss a few brushes on top, point straight down and click. Well, yeah, SOUNDS simple enough. But getting the tripod to straddle the whole setup, retrieving the paintbrush that fell through a crack in the deck, reflecting golden light onto the scene, keeping an eye on the cat, being distracted by the cutest little bunny that's taken up residence in the yard, making sure bright light didn't enter through the viewfinder (which results in underexposed photos), and continually wiping sticky, yucky old paint off my fingers, well, it's just a bit more difficult than it sounds.

Everything's now packed away, ready for me to drag it all out again and shoot some more, this time showing overviews of the whole box. Think I'm gonna need some more old tubes of paint . . . where's Chris?

©Carol Leigh, who spotted at least 10 whales off the coast yesterday!

Quiet afternoon

Excellent weather here on the coast and most of the fishing boats are out, um, well, fishing. The Golden Dolphin was still in port, however, as we took a quick walk on the docks this afternoon in Newport. We sure can tell it's summer — lots of motorhomes on the coast highway, lots of traffic, and lots of people doing 40mph in the 55mph stretches (better than doing 55mph in the 40mph stretches, however). We even saw someone on the beach the other day wearing a bathing suit! Hysterical laughter ensued. Tourists. Gotta love 'em. ©Carol Leigh

Something new . . .

A new blog appeared on the horizon this past week, and I'm pleased to share it with you. I'm in the process of creating some instructional eBooks and need a place where I can test out my ideas, so my new blog "VisuaLeigh" is the result. Subtitled "adventures in composition, seeing, and inspiration for photographers and visual artists of all types," it's a potpourri of snippets of information which will be expanded upon in my resulting eBooks.


Here's Rich Baker's reaction, and he kindly granted me permission to quote him here: "I like the idea of showing people how you compose your photographs. The concept of outlining the bones is excellent. This is what you did so well in your excellent critiques. I can see how this could be very instructive in developing the understanding of how composition works. Some people seem to see the composition they want with no vocabulary necessary. Other people need help refining their vision (me included) and a vocabulary helps. I have always felt you had a gift for giving photography a vocabulary that helps people see and discuss photographs."

This blog shall continue, but if you wish a bit more instruction and ideas, I encourage you to take a look at what I'm doing over at VisuaLeigh. Here's the link: http://visualeigh.blogspot.com

©Carol Leigh

No, it isn't . . .

When you saw the thumbnail of this image, did you think it was a sunset photo? It's actually a close-up of tree bark that I photographed in San Diego. Photography is first and foremost about seeing, and when I saw the tree and its bark patterns, I saw a potential landscape. ©Carol Leigh, wishing you a new day seen with new eyes . . .

What to do, what to do?

In Cambridge, England, if you find your car's been given the "boot," I guess there's nothing to do but buy yourself a Big Ass Burrito! ©Carol Leigh, (still) wading through pictures of England...

Lucky number?

Do you have a lucky number? A number that seems to come up for you more often than not? Mine's five. Maybe because I was born in May? Don't know. Here I've combined a photo I took of a metal tag with a photo I took of the interior of a sea shell. I like the overall luminous quality. Five. Lucky? If so, the sliding glass door will indeed be installed today. Unfortunately, there's no deck outside it yet, so that first step outside will be an unlucky one. ©Carol Leigh, wishing you luck today, no matter what number comes up...

House arrest

It began as a simple "let's replace all the windows in the house" sort of thing. Until they got to the dining room slider. And the dry rot immediately underneath. Dry rot that had spread all along the front. And onto the joists holding up the front deck. All of a sudden this construction project has turned into major problems and major money. The deck was taken down yesterday. Tomorrow begins work on re-siding the front of the house and building a new deck. But right now the place looks like we've geared up for a hurricane with plywood nailed over the dining room window and plastic flapping in the wind.

That's certainly not the case, however, in these photos of architectural detail in Balboa Park. Not being able to leave the house, I've been mucking about with old photos, throwing a lot away and reworking others.  I like the lush look of these four. And it makes me want to go back to Balboa Park and do some more. Like today!

Wishing you days of no rot and clear windows. ©Carol Leigh

Experimenting with flat forms

 Right now I'm experimenting with creating clean, simple, graphic images with lots of color. Not sure what I'm doing yet, but I'm loving the process as well as the results. I think these images are unique and they're fun to make. All a result of my constantly wondering "what if" and then following that path, hoping to come up with something different and exciting. We'll see where this takes me . . . ©Carol Leigh

(more) Summertime blues

Blue reflections in water created by a blue fishing boat. A Bulgarian postage stamp. And finally eyes along Highway 101 in the California redwoods. Wishing you cool days, cool blue nights. ©Carol Leigh

Summertime blues

A rooster weathervane in a blue sky at Spanish Village in San Diego's Balboa Park. A fish on a mural here in Waldport, Oregon. And, of course, a pear (one of my favorite subjects) that I combined with a photo of an adobe wall. Three more "blues" to follow tomorrow. Wishing you all cool breezes, smooth sailing. ©Carol Leigh

Bunny Van Gogh

What immediately strikes me about this image is how the paint strokes I applied look sort of Van Gogh-ish. I uploaded a similar version to my fine art website here: http://carol-leigh.artistwebsites.com/?tab=artwork

©Carol Leigh

Fresh Fish

I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this one matchbox label. Here's its most recent incarnation. Gotta love the "bubbles!" ©Carol Leigh

I've got mail . . .

My three latest photomontages. Cut and paste, cut and paste, cut and paste. ©Carol Leigh

Fresh crab

It's tough to maintain a schedule here on the Oregon coast because the weather is a huge factor, and when the weather's good, as it was yesterday, you want to be out and about. So we headed out and up to the docks in Newport, where the water was smooth and glassy, things were quiet, and we slowly walked around, seeing what we could see. Live crab and (not live) halibut were available on the fishing vessel Chelsea Rose. ©Carol (still live) Leigh

Napa, 2012

Reflections in a round window combine with scratches on a metal chair seat, among other things. ©Carol Leigh