Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Latest work: "So Long, Pete Turner"


When I was a little photographer, Pete Turner’s work was so exciting. And the picture below, of the trash can, was what drew me in. So colorful. So clean. So simple. His images were what I wanted to emulate. He passed away last week. But his work, his colors, live on in my head.

I was creating this top picture when I learned of Turner's death. So I saturated the heck out of it! So long, Pete Turner.

(Pete Turner photograph courtesy of Pete Turner Studio.)

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Radio-controlled . . .



We took a little day trip up to the Fisherman's Terminal, south north of Seattle. Little did we know there was a "Fisherman's Fall Festival" going on, with no available parking, mobs of people, and lots of colorful tents dotting the entire area.

Classic nightmare scenario for me. (Bright sunlight, too many people, etc.) But we lucked into a parking spot, and saw that NOBODY was walking around on the docks! Everybody was over at the booths, the music, the "build your own boat" facility, and watching ocean survival demonstrations.

My photos of the boats, texture, abstract images all turned out less than wonderful. But the radio-controlled boats? Very cool! They were zipping around, the fireboat occasionally spraying out water from a hose on top.

A good day, no matter the shooting situation. I mean, two ferry rides, a drawbridge, boats, rust, cute little boats, grilled rockfish for lunch? What's not to love?

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.


Friday, September 22, 2017

The last day of summer




Wednesday was the last day of summer. "Let's go walk around Langley!"

Our first stop was the Whidbey Art Gallery, which always has unique art and at affordable prices. I asked the man manning the desk which art was his. He's John Kloecke, a potter and does a lot of raku firing. I made sure we saw his work, and one piece in particular stood out -- a very elegant pot, a rich blue color, and a unique glaze that he said had glass in it, which melts to a lovely sheen. We bought it -- to be photographed soon.

This pink hydrangea flower is one of the last bloomers of the season, and looked good against a still-green leafy background.

And then down to the marina to see what we could see. Lots of crows, gulls, and pigeons, as well as dramatic clouds off in the distance.

I rescued a large starfish a gull had pulled off a piling and then left on the sidewalk. I grabbed an arm, gave a tug, and gently put him back in the water, watching him slowly, slowly sink down to the bottom.

Had an enjoyable conversation with the dockmaster, who showed us a photo he'd taken that morning of a bright orange (and huge) jellyfish. "That's Sandy Point. See that house with the sun on it? That's my parents' house. They've been there 45 years. Sometimes I call them and say, 'I can see what you're doing!' And they never fail to laugh."

A fine little exploration and an excellent way to celebrate the beginning of fall.

Wishing you all small celebrations such as this.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.



Monday, September 18, 2017

Nautical bits . . .


Late afternoon light raking across a rusted ship, creating a beautiful shadow of the chain. Although I like the full-frame, vertical version of the image, I'm more drawn to the "squarified" version. But why?

There's more mystery in the top shot, but more information, more emphasis on the chain in the lower shot.

Either way, gotta love the warm glow of the light!

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.


Saturday, September 16, 2017

Latest work


As I'm constantly throwing out photos that are taking up too much room in my computer and external drives, I'm also adding more to the mix!

Today I created the first image, a photomontage of the tall ship "Adventuress." She was way offshore, the island in the distance just a smudge. I photographed this ship last weekend during the Port Townsend, Washington's 41st Wooden Boat Show. We had a good time -- walked aboard the ferry, walked over to the show, walked, walked, walked, sat and listened to a man playing guitar, walked some more, walked back to the ferry, and then drove home. Walked more than four miles, and it felt great.

This morning Chris noticed a junco nest on the ground outside the garage door. Must have blown off in the night. The nest was empty. Luckily, I happen to have four empty junco eggs, in case of emergency. Figured just one would be plenty for this small nest.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.



Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Morning coffee

The usual routine ... Avoid the news, check out my Photomotivation group on Facebook, then go to Feedly to see which of the blogs I follow have been updated, read blogs (mostly artist blogs), feel inspired, add notes to my little notebook, check the weather, check the headlines if there's time.

And that's it! Then it's either out to the studio to add to my table runner, or back to the desktop computer where I'm ruthlessly trashing all photos I don't think I can use and/or aren't quite sharp enough to upload to Fine Art America.

Reducing the pixel load, 29MB at a time.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Never as planned



I'm making a runner for our dining room table. It'll be made of papers, and is sort of a giant, thick-ish collage.

The plan for this morning was to make some indigo-colored papers that I will tear up and glue here and there.

"Making the paper" means using a Gelli plate and acrylic paints. You roll some paint(s) onto  the Gelli plate, make a design of some sort in the paint, lay a piece of paper over the design, press down, and then remove the paper.

It is fun and addicting.

By accident, I made some papers that were not indigo blue. Instead they were cream-colored, black, and some with just a trace of gold. And I thought they looked so cool I just kept on going. I know I'll use them eventually, so what the heck?

Here you see a table in the studio where I just toss things like this as they dry. Tomorrow I'll clean it all up.

You can see more papers in the middle shot, and then a close-up of one at the end.

I'm physically creating useful papers. Mentally, I'm creating a truckload of possibilities. [Rubbing hands together, cackly laughter.]

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

What I like about living here . . .

It was 10:30 yesterday morning. We've had breakfast, read the news (oh, boy), and what should we do today?

"Well, there's a wooden boat festival coming up this weekend in Port Townsend, maybe we could go over and see what they're doing in preparation for that."

When's the next ferry? 11:00. "I can be ready to go in five minutes." "Me, too."

Mad dash around the house and we're out the door. I forget my DSLR, but that's okay, at least I have the iPhone.

The ferry is just arriving, we get in line, wait for everybody to disembark. We don't know if we're going to make this boat. And then yes! We and the car ahead of us are next.

And that's when they load what looks like a 50-foot motorhome. A motorhome with a footprint that's about seven cars long. We've missed the boat.

Luckily we've lived here long enough to know to bring our Kindles for moments such as this. We have plenty to read. But we don't. We watch people, eavesdrop, talk, and before we know it the next boat (the Kennewick) has arrived and we're on our way.

Mid-channel, the ferry slows down because there's a pod of orcas off the port bow. How cool is that?

In Port Townsend we share a salad and tempura shrimp at Doc's, meander the marina, checking out the wooden boats, then to the boat chandlery, down a dock to the 1913 tall ship Adventuress. Beautiful.

Wandered around downtown, visited an art gallery, chatted with a couple who live in University Place (they called it "U.P."), then talked with an artist who makes beautiful wooden coat/hat racks. Time to head home. The ferry is just departing as we get in line. No worries. We sit and talk, relax, make the next boat and we're home.

This is just one tiny thing I love about living here. Jump up, miss the boat, make the boat, watch whales, look at boats, talk to people, look at art, walk, walk, walk, miss the boat, make the boat, home again.

Do we know how incredibly lucky we are? Yes. There are thousands of people trying to put their lives back together in Houston. There are thousands in Florida worrying about what the approaching hurricane is going to do to them. There are wildfires burning millions of acres of trees, historic buildings, impacting the loveliest areas of our country. And ash is falling seemingly everywhere, over everything.

This post is about sheer frivolity and sounds shallow in comparison. Luckily, I realize that. And give thanks to whoever is in charge that we had that wonderful day yesterday.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Latest work: "All Things Connected"

Another in my series of images featuring parts of an antique kimono package (a thick packet of paper designed to contain a kimono). I have taken a number of pictures of the package (not nearly enough yet) and then break them apart, reconnect them, and, in this case, I added an Enso circle I painted using India ink.

I like the combination and contrast of the round, organic form standing out on top of very linear, straight, horizontal stripes.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.

Monday, September 4, 2017

This book project is DONE!











My book is finally finished. It's 34 pages (17 sheets), made of a variety of papers, photos, postage stamps, etc. I included pages from antique Japanese books, plus my own hand-painted, hand-dyed papers, and a lot of inks and stains.

Was it fun to do? Oh, yeah. Was it frustrating? Immensely. Does it look as I intended? The photos do not. I had a certain look I was going for with the pictures, but due to computer meltdowns, printer meltdowns, printer replacement, and renewed experimenting, nothing seemed to work. So there aren't many photos in this book and I had to slightly change the concept.

What I LOVE about this book is how it feels. It's soft, old, has a weathered feeling. There's a tab attached to one page that I can lift and peek to see what's underneath (the closeup image with the blue stitching is the tab). The more this book is handled, touched, bent, looked at, etc., the better it's going to be. It's MEANT to be held.

I used Japanese stab binding to create a daifuku-cho (Japanese ledger book) look. And there are indeed some Japanese ledger pages used here and there.

This was an incredible learning curve (for me), involving collage, paint, ink, printing, stitching, binding, PATIENCE, and more.

What's next? A runner for my dining room table made along this same collage-like concept.

And then? A series of artist books . . . we shall see.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh.