Latest work: "Scrapbook Cover"

I woke up a couple of hours ago with an idea for a photomontage, wondering what it would look like if I combined a bunch of Japanese book covers together. I particularly like the look of the old Japanese postage stamp tucked into a fold of the paper.

It's raining today. Think I'll play with ink on paper. Which makes me think of when I was five. My parents (foolishly) gave me some markers (?) which consisted of plastic tubes that you filled with water, dropped in a color "pill," shook them up and were good to go.

"Don't play with them now. Wait until tomorrow when we can help you."

Tomorrow morning came and I was up and ready to go, but mom and dad were still asleep. "How hard could this be?" I assembled one of the tubes, added the color tablet (red), shook it up, and promptly spilled it onto their brand-new couch.

That was the day mom locked me out of the house. During a hurricane. Because she was afraid of what she would do to me.

I went across the street to the MacNeils, where they graciously let me weather the storm(s) -- the hurricane and my mom.

 ©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. Thank you!

Happy Halloween!

Kathleen Amt, thanks for the owl!  :-)

©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. Thank you!

This and that . . .

These are two of my latest works that I've uploaded to Fine Art America. I just keep making things and throwing them up there . . . Will these ever sell? I hope so. But I never know.

What I do know is that I just love this process. It drives me insane sometimes (well, a lot!), but when I come up with something like these two, I'm a pretty happy soul.

I like the tropical colors in the banana montage, and was happy to find a couple of postage stamps that were just the right colors to add to the mix.

And the second image? Thank you to Kathleen Amt for sending me the background paper, to which I added more papers from vintage Japanese books as well as a photo of the back of a clock face.

In the studio, I'm working on some assemblage pieces and having a lot of fun. Here's what I'm using, and you're going to think, "This sounds HORRIBLE!"

I'm using (among other things) driftwood collected from the beach, feathers, paint, copper, old papers, twine, horsehair, rusty fabric, newspaper bits from India, and string.

Ha! See what I mean? Doesn't this sound like a horrendously tacky mash-up? It's a project I've had in mind all year and finally I can begin putting it together. We shall see. If you hear nothing more abut this, you'll know you were right, it WAS a horrendously tacky mash-up!

And by the way, I now have 1,400 images up on Fine Art America. Not too shabby.

©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. Thank you!

Studio update . . . halfway there

The studio space is now definitely workable. Another bookcase is going in. Probably more shelves. More things on walls. The photo lights. A comfortable chair. I still have lots of boxes to unpack. But for right now, I can do things! Hooray!

Here's a "before" shot that I posted on October 15th, along with what the place looks like today. Both are panorama shots taken with the iPhone. The second one is much more inclusive, so the place looks way bigger than it is.

That white thing sticking out on the left is a big ol' light table that Chris had made for me when we were living in Costa Mesa. It has been in Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, San Diego, San Francisco, Palm Springs, Nevada City, the Oregon coast, and now here.

I no longer use it to look at slides, but it's a great surface to use to take simple photographs when I need to. I have two lights that sit on top of it, a rack I can put together in the back to hold backgrounds if I wish, and I can turn on the internal lights to do tracing and other things. It straddles two lateral files and is a good height for overall working.

I've got a little self-contained oil heater there in the back that seems to be heating the place just fine. We'll see how that goes as the winter season kicks in.

Keep in mind that this is a garage. It's not a cute little standalone casita down in the lower forty. It's not an artist's loft. But it's going to work great. I can go right into the laundry room from here to clean brushes, gourds, etc. I can open the big door in the spring and summer to look out at the trees and the yellow jackets. And there's a huge amount of space to even set up a long work table.

What this all really means is that I have no excuse for not making anything. Yikes! No pressure now!

©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. Thank you!

Just pick the best one and shut up!

Here's a photomontage I created back in July. I uploaded the first version to Fine Art America. Although I created them both at the same time, I decided not to upload the second one.

Why? I'm leery of uploading two or more of the same image. I see other photographers do this all the time, though. "Here it is in sepia. Here it is in black and white. Here it is with a soft effect. Here it is in HDR." Makes me crazy. Just pick the best one and shut up!

And now, here I am, doing what others have done, doing what I swore I would not do. I have two different versions. I like both of them very much. When I uploaded the top one, I thought it might be more marketable because the colors are neutral and subdued.

But this morning, when I came across the second version, it made me feel happy. It was lighter and brighter and I liked the traces of turquoise up toward the top that really came through.

So, sigh, I uploaded it today.

Maybe because the uploads were three months apart, no one will remember the first one ...

©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. Thank you!

Latest work: Series in Red and Blue

Over the weekend I created a series of 11 images for Fine Art America that are all variations on this theme. The background is a photo I took of one of my hand-painted papers and then I just bent, folded, spindled and mutilated the images to create the series, each image being different yet part of a "set."

My thought process was that perhaps designers or decorators might want a set of photos for a hotel or a restaurant that were different, yet had a unified look. So, voila!

Although it was fun making the images, there's a fair amount of background work that goes into them, mainly describing the image, adding all the keywords, changing the format to what FAA requires, and then framing them so I can post them here in my blog.

Which brings me to a different point . . . There's a lot of image theft on the Internet. The only way to prevent this is simply never to post your photos. Well, what's the fun in that?

Since forever I have been prepping my pictures as you see them here. They're in a frame, have my name and copyright symbol on them, and they are just 72dpi in size.

The frame, the small size, and the copyright statement tend to prevent people from snagging the photos and using them for something else.

I do find my pictures being used on a fair number of blogs. They're not my framed pictures, however, but rather pictures they've right-clicked from the FAA site.

Do I bother with this copyright infringement? If they give me attribution, I don't. Otherwise I send them an e-mail telling them I'm aware of what they've done and that it's not cool and to please remove the image. Most of the time they comply; sometimes they just ignore me.

Do I pursue it further? Nah. It's not like they're making money off my pictures (I'm barely doing that myself!), so there's no cause for action, really.

The studio is coming along well. I'm now unpacking boxes, putting books on shelves, figuring out where to stash stuff, and deciding what else I might need for the space. BUT I CAN'T FIND MY BATTERY CHARGERS YET! Grrrrr . . . So I'm shooting a lot of iPhone photos. Better than nothing.

Once I finish unpacking, I'll post another panorama of the space and then that's the last you'll be hearing about it. And won't THAT be a relief?!

Have a good week ... Special hugs and healing pixie dust being sent out to my friend Carol Davis. Please think good thoughts about her right now if you would.

©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. Thank you!

Latest work: "Blue Moon"

Yesterday I finished this piece, created by playing around with hand-painted papers I'd made as well as some metal bits.

Before uploading the image to Fine Art America, however, I also converted it to a square. It looked pretty good as a square, so I then went back to my original image and cropped in from the left and the right to create a more narrow, vertical image.

The result is that I have three different options for a potential buyer to choose from.

Just trying to be smarter about marketing.

Novel concept for me . . .

 ©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. Thank you!

Fall on Whidbey Island

There's a pretty tree in our front yard that I haven't identified yet. The overcast light yesterday afternoon was so soft that the tree glowed yellow.

Using my iPhone 6+ I experimented with a couple of apps just to see what would happen. Foolishly, I neglected to take a "normal" picture of the tree so you could see how it really looked. Maybe today.

Using the Brush Stroke app, I created the first two images, each of which has a different painterly look.

The third photo was made using an app called Slow Shutter. Not only is the shutter slow, but I also purposely moved the phone during the exposure.

All three photos were then processed with Snapseed to give them a bit more punch.

October. My favorite month. Color and daily change. Love it.

Along with changes in local flora, local fauna is also changing. The owls aren't nearly as vocal, with just the gentle hooting of the great horned variety and an occasional complaint from the barred owls. The terns have gone, along with their strange raucous calls. The coyotes are a bit more subdued. Saw a pileated woodpecker the other day -- only the second time I've ever seen one and (bird nerd that I am) it was rather exciting to see that huge form and bright red head clinging to the side of a pine tree. A couple of what sound like ENORMOUS frogs are in residence, croaking loudly from time to time, all day and all night. And I'm still hearing the ravens, so I hope they're nesting nearby.

You know what's really weird, though? And I'm told by someone who has lived here all his life that it's NEVER been like this, is the constant hum of bees. Stepping outside you notice it immediately. They're not honeybees, though, but yellow jackets. We have a nest under the eaves both in the front and the back of the house, way up high. And undoubtedly they're nesting in the trees surrounding the property. Once the weather gets really cold, we'll get rid of the nests. But right now? Frankly, it's kind of scary. They seem to be scouring the grass both front and back, flying low, checking out every little anomaly. Luckily I'm a big anomaly and thus not quite as interesting.

Happy fall! May yours be yellow jacket-free.

  ©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. Thank you!

Studio update (panorama) . . .

The studio is being built in our garage. The house has a 2.5-car garage, each space with its own big garage door. We had a wall built between the garage door on the left side and my studio on the right. What you’re seeing is the view from outside the right-hand garage door into the 1.5-car space that will be the studio (B). (Click the photo to see it much larger.)

The small door in back (A) leads into the rest of the entire garage and then there’s a door that leads directly into the house. No need to go outside to get into the studio. I just walk downstairs, into the garage, and then through the door into the studio space.

Over to the right (C) is an L-shaped counter with shelving underneath for supplies. All this came with the house.

Underneath the tarp (D) is a tall set of shelves that also came with the house. Those shelves turn the L-shaped workspace into a big U-shaped space. Nice!

The back wall (E) will probably contain an apothecary-ish multi-drawered cabinet as well as two storage cabinets.

The side wall (F), the wall that separates my studio space from the space for the car, will have three lateral files (G) backed up against it. Those lateral files will give me a lot of flat surfaces to put things on as I’m working on them. I may also set up a photo “shooting station” there. We shall see.

So there you have it, my studio in the rough. It’s not pretty but it’s utilitarian. It’s a BIG space for me to work in. My expectations for my work are also BIG. So it’s scary! I have a lot to live up to. But it’s going to be FUN!

I have never had anything like this, and I am humbled. Thanks to Chris for pushing this project forward, for doing this final coat of paint, for moving boxes from one side of the garage to the other and back again. And for loving me so much that he does this just because he can.

No pictures for awhile until things are pretty much in place. Sorry for boring you with what’s been going on, but I know that there are a number of you who are really interested in all this. Woo hoo!


©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. Thank you!

In search of landscapes . . .

Chris and I will be painting studio walls all day today, and perhaps installing an overhead light fixture. Baseboards will come a little later, but maybe, just maybe, we can put some furniture in place tomorrow and I can take some photographs.

In the meantime, however, I offer you these three images. At one time I thought a good lesson in seeing would be to find "landscapes" anywhere, in tree bark, rocks, rusty metal, etc. (And aren't you glad you weren't a part of that!)

I think it's a good lesson, though, and if I were still doing my online classes, I would definitely put it in the mix. Here's what I mean. This first photo is a close-up of a weaving, a very large weaving, but I immediately saw a landscape, a land formation, in just a part of it. I asked the gallery for permission to take a close-up shot and this is what I made. It could be a headland of sorts, with the ocean a small element at the base.

And this shot could conceivably have been taken from the deck of a ship as it passed a cold and snowy coastline. In actuality, it's a close-up of the side of a fishing boat that was being sanded and repaired.

And finally, doesn't this bit of cement look a lot like Diamond Head on Oahu? Cracks in cement had been filled in and then had turned a darker color as a result, so the formation stood out.

For me, one who rarely sees the big picture, but who can easily find something small and abstract, this is a fun exercise. How about you? If you're a big-picture sort, your challenge is to find something small and make something of it. Like these three (yes, weird) "landscapes."

 ©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. Thank you!

Studio update . . .

Are you getting sick of these studio updates? Wouldn't you just like to see the finished product? Yeah, well, so am I and so WOULD I.

The worker bees are gone. The check has been written (gulp). So now it's just me and Chris cleaning the dust off the walls, priming the walls, and then painting the walls. We also need to paint and install baseboards. And then we can move file cabinets, tables, shelving, etc. into place. As well as unpack all the boxes marked "studio."

It's nice to have the place to ourselves now. It's nice not to have to wonder if the guys are going to show up or not. And it's nice to be totally in control of what happens now. This is the fun stuff! More to follow.

 ©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. Thank you!

Around the house . . .

Early morning shadows on the living room wall. As the sun begins moving farther south, shadows in the house are constantly changing, appearing here one day, there the next, nowhere the next. On this morning, the sun peeked through all the trees and their shadows, as well as the window details, all showed up on the wall. For just a moment. Shot with iPhone 6+ and processed with Snapseed. The shot was incredibly noisy, so I used Topaz DeNoise to smooth things out a bit.

The studio? Funny you should ask. It is so close to being ready to paint that I'm champing at the bit. But the work schedule has been sketchy. And it's making me crazy. We cannot unpack anything more until the work is done. They're going to be here at 9 this morning. Crossing my fingers.

©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. Thank you!

Around the island . . .

These are all iPhone photos, taken while running errands the past two days. Loved seeing the bicycle in front of an antique shop in Freeland. And then there were lots of pumpkins in front of the Payless grocery store, also in Freeland.

The "FURBALL" license plate caught my eye (and I can relate), and then a "yard art" decorative star at Ace Hardware made a colorful shot.

Nothing great, just simple images of what I'm seeing as we are out and about. Fall has definitely arrived.

The lads are at work in the studio this morning. A door has been installed. I figure if I keep plying them with cookies and coffee, they'll be inclined to stick around a bit more!

©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. Thank you!

Latest work: "Planetary Celebration"

Yesterday wasn't the best of days. The guys didn't show up to work in the studio, all the news headlines were negative, dark and scary, and for the past couple days I've been creating absolutely nothing new. Grrrrrrr . . .

So, as usual, I began looking at photos I've taken, mixing this with that, wondering "what if," and finally something looked promising.

Chris came in to see what I was doing and I was showing him the version you see below (which I took by pointing my iPhone at my computer screen). I was telling him the top middle portion looked too magenta to me and so began playing with hue/saturation sliders in Photoshop. And all of a sudden the colors went wacko and I liked them!

Here's the "before" image:

I liked the variety of blues, the warm browns down at the bottom. The vibrant colors I created just after this, however, lightened my heart, made me smile, and all of a sudden I could forget the world's going to hell, that lately I don't seem to have a creative bone in my body, and that the studio has been delayed a day.

So there you have it. A description of an afternoon with a madwoman! With a fun and lighthearted result.

May your heart be lighter today, too.

©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. Thank you!

Studio walls still being prepped . . .

Once again I've not looked in at the studio since they're still doing whatever drywall stuff has to be done and then one waits for it to dry. Again. Apparently everything's covered with tarps while this happens and it's organized chaos.

Baseboards need to go in, an overhead light goes in, and I THINK that's it. Until Chris and I paint.

This house came with a white chandelier in the dining room which we've swapped out and I think I'll put it in the studio, which is going to be a hodgepodge of assorted mismatched items, which bothers me not in the slightest. Space to create. That's my goal. And once the lighting is in and things are no longer stacked in the center of the room, I'll post some photos. Fair warning!

P.S. Shout out to Bugsy in Long Beach! Hope all is well with you, my friend and fellow weirdo appreciator of pictures of numbers. Remember being at the Orange Empire Railroad Museum in Perris looking for numbers on train cars to shoot?

©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. Thank you!

Studio walls being prepped for painting . . .

The place is a mess! I didn't even look in there yesterday because they've been sanding and fine white grit is everywhere. They're going to be working on the walls again today. Estimated end of construction is Thursday. But secretly I'm hoping for end of day tomorrow.

Now that I can see the space, the walls, the possibilities, I'm eager to get in there with Chris, paint the walls a clean, bright white, clean up everything, and begin organizing the small amount of "furniture" I have for it. This is the fun stuff! I can begin unpacking all the rest of the studio boxes, begin organizing, see what I have and where it will go, and get on with it.

Yes. For me, here's where the excitement begins. Almost, almost, almost as good as being seven again and Christmas is tomorrow!

©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. Thank you!

Faces in unlikely places . . .

Bunker detail, Fort Casey, Whidbey Island. Cute little guy, no?

©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. Thank you!

Studio insulated and electrical in . . .

The insulation is in, the drywall is up, the electrical thingies are complete. I would show you pictures but the place is rather dark at the moment. Today the drywall has mud and tape applied. Then it has to dry and be sanded. Then, apparently, done again.

So it looks like the crew will be done maybe the first of next week. Then Chris and I have to paint, get some lighting fixtures, clean, clean, clean, then organize the random bits such as a hodgepodge of file cabinets, bookcases, and shelves. Once we have lighting, I can then show you what's been going on, both before and after.

This isn't a little cute little cottagey studio of perfection like we see in art magazines. This is a 2.5-car garage that's been converted to a one-car garage with the studio taking up most of the rest of the space. It will be clean and functional and roomy.  On nice days I can open up the garage door and enjoy the weather while I work.

This is so decadently wonderful. I feel happy and excited yet guilty and overwhelmed that Chris pretty much made this all happen. He did the same thing in Oregon, where space allowed, singlehandedly creating a 7x10 room in the garage for me to do photography, then expanding it out to a 7x25 room to accommodate an art counter, shelving, etc. The man's amazing.

My proceeds from Fine Art America this year are paying for the construction job here in Washington, and surprisingly it's a relatively big job. My art account is just about tapped out now and I'm hoping that by having a roomy studio in which to work will enable me to create even more so that next year I can pay for a major trip in the fall.

High hopes. Big expectations. A head swimming with ideas. And someone who loves me pushing to make it all happen. I must say, life is pretty damned good.

©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. Thank you!

Studio framed in . . .

The studio is framed in, meaning all the wood beams and studs and the door opening are in place, electrical mostly done. Today is drywall day and perhaps insulation. It's beginning to look like a reality. Oh, my.

©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. Thank you!