"Hot and Cold"

I uploaded this image to Fine Art America at the end of last year. I doubt that it will ever sell, but that's okay. It's a different sort of image for me and I enjoyed the whole process of making it.

Here's how I described it:

A woman's face, with a rather aloof expression, gazes out from this piece that I created with photographs I've taken of fabrics (including a scarf), hand-painted papers, torn papers, and some old scrapbook pages. I like the contrast of the overall warm look and her cool expression.

©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Land Bridge"

Photographs of ordinary objects such as metal, and paper that I've used to clean my paintbrush, come together here in this image that makes me think of ancient peoples and their gradual movement across the Earth. ©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Major Cool"

Wall art mash-up. I can't even begin to describe how I put this photomontage together. But it all began with a walk by the ocean on a sunny day... ©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Five for the Books"

When I first began making photomontages, I made a LOT that revolved around letters or numbers. And I see that that predilection continues today . . .

I particularly like the number five, for no apparent reason. Maybe it's because it's my birth month, or because it's an interesting shape, or because it's a yin/yang thing with straight lines and curves, or maybe I'm just weird . . .

So here we have yet another number, this time mixed with hand-painted papers, stained papers, paint splotches, my own marks, and textures.

Five. Number 2,479 in a (continuing) series . . . ©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Table I"

So many elements went into the making of this piece, including photos of some of my hand-painted papers, envelopes, stained paper, thin torn cardboard, an interest chart from a very old math book, and more. I like the warm colors, the texture, and all the linear elements that contrast with the messy swash of paint across the bottom. ©Carol Leigh

Boom

This began with a letter "B" I photographed on the side of a truck. I cut it up and rearranged the pieces. Why call it "Boom?" Not sure, other than I sort of see some "O's" and maybe an "M." And I kind of like the word "Boom!" ©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Trout Fishing in America"

I hand-painted the background, slapped a trout onto it, used a couple of appropriate postage stamps I'd photographed, used a few more photos and then called it done! The name comes from a famous Richard Brautigan book. http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Brautigans-Springhill-Disaster-Watermelon/dp/0395500761/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398118449&sr=8-1&keywords=Brautigan+Trout+Fishing+in+America

©Carol Leigh

Collage: "Night Fishing"

I hadn't realized how many collages I've made until Chris and I began rummaging around, deciding what to frame and display. Before we framed this one, I photographed it to show you here. I like the various worn papers, the textures, and the way the red Japanese stamp stands out against the blue.

The stamp (1953) depicts a traditional way of Japanese fishing at night, using cormorants. The blue colors represent the night sky, the sea. I also cut up another stamp and glued the "bits" in the lower right, representing fish and echoing the red color of the stamp. White painted dots on blue-painted paper represent stars. Not bad! I surprise myself sometimes, and that's always a good thing. Wishing YOU a day of good surprises.

©Carol Leigh

It's a good day to . . .

. . . just doodle a little bit! ©Carol Leigh

Burglar flees crime scene . . .

In yesterday's post I mentioned a break-in. Our shed was forcibly entered and a LOT of birdseed went missing from a galvanized metal trashcan. We suspected raccoons.

At 3:20 this morning I hear something crashing around in the shed. I lay in bed wondering if the raccoon could remove the 4x4 piece of wood I'd wedged tightly between the garbage can lid and the handle.

Lots of thumps and thuds. Forty minutes later I hear a crash and a sound not unlike a garbage can lid crashing into the shed door. Then silence. Then I sleep.

Later this morning, around 6:45, I glance out the window to see the culprit emerging from the smaller of the two holes he's made in the shed roof. Slowly he pulls himself out, gazing groggily around. Takes him about 20 minutes to figure out how to jump from the roof to the trellis to the deck to his final getaway.

He runs across the yard slowly. It's hard to run with eight pounds of birdseed in one's stomach...

©Carol Leigh

P.S. Photos hastily taken through a dirty window using a Lumix G2 at ISO 3200 before sunrise. Colors are wacky and light balance runs to a bluish green. Not unlike the raccoon, I was groggy and in a hurry!

Breaking and entering . . .

We have a shed in the back yard, maybe 6 feet by 10 feet, made of weathered cedar. The rudimentary roof is covered with cedar shake shingles, a few of which have blown off in storms.

Inside we keep typical sheddy things such as empty flower pots, lumber, rolls of chicken wire, and a small galvanized metal trashcan that holds a fair amount of birdseed.

We returned from vacation yesterday and this morning I wandered around the yard to see what was blooming, what was leafing out, etc.

I noticed a couple of largish holes in the shed roof. One of the holes was big enough to admit one, two, or maybe three raccoons. Uh-oh.

With a certain amount of trepidation I slowly opened the shed door. (Raccoons can be cranky when unexpectedly awakened from a mid-morning snooze.)

The trashcan lid tumbled out of the doorway and came to rest at my feet. Uh-oh again.

Even though the lid fits rather tightly, and even though there’s a metal loop that secures the lid even more, the raccoons managed to move the secondary metal bit, removed the lid, and have been gorging on birdseed. They also opened a large plastic bag of thistle (for the finches), which apparently exploded open as thistle now covers everything like black confetti.

Raccoons, so cute in TV commercials, a pain in the ass in real life!

©Carol Leigh

Industrial art . . .

I like the horizontal blue base, the way the weld seam leads your eye vertically, and how the round nut/bolt acts to soften the more linear elements. And then there's the texture -- yum! What is it? Detail on the side of a fishing boat. ©Carol Leigh (still on vacation)

Plane art . . .

Nothing like visiting an air museum to encourage you to take abstract (weird) shots like these. Invariably the planes are packed in close to one another, there are people all over the place, so overviews aren't possible (well, they're possible, but they tend to look like snapshots).

The Pima Air Museum in Tucson is a particularly wonderful place to shoot, which is where I took these four images. The dust adds to their patina. The bird poop doesn't, so I do my best to keep it out of the frame and get rid of the rest (at least most of it) in Photoshop.

Love the saturated colors and the overall simplicity of the shots. Ahhhhhh...

©Carol Leigh

Gridwork

As I wander around with my camera, just looking, I find I'm drawn to simple compositions that consist of squares and rectangles. This gridwork format offers a lot of compositional possibilities, from straight-on centering to incorporating other elements that sit off-center, or that fill the lower or upper third of the frame.

Here you see one of my favorite buildings in Reedsport on the Oregon coast (which, every time I visit I expect it to be torn down and gone). The second photo is a reflection I found in a skyscraper in downtown San Diego. The third is a window in Portland while on a walk with Linda H. The last shot was taken in a fabric/sewing store in Eugene, Oregon where the clerk kindly granted me permission to shoot. ©Carol Leigh

Signs of the times . . .

As you're reading this, I am on vacation! Yay! Enjoying some sun, some warm weather, and valued compatriots. No laptop with me so I shan't be posting photos to this blog until I return.

In the meantime, watch where you're going, look before you leap, and pick up your feet!

©Carol Leigh

P.S. Hello to Ginny G. and Jan H., back in my old stomping grounds in and around Nevada City, CA . . .

Cheap love . . .

I photographed part of a physical collage I made and then altered it in Photoshop, including adding a few dots here and there. I'm particularly fond of the colors. Back in college when I was tan and had a hot bod, I had a bikini in this same fluorescent pink. Yowza! ©Carol Leigh

Latest work: "Facing Future"

A raven faces forward, his posture echoed in the faint swirls behind him where we see, perhaps, the head of another raven ahead of him. I used all sorts of photographs to create this, including pictures of torn paper, a bit of a physical collage I made, one of my favorite shots of scratched metal that I use in a LOT of my work, letters, lines, and more. I may end up turning this into a postcard, but for now, I like how things stand. ©Carol Leigh