"Hard-won cleverness"

To try to keep my mind working (the key word being "try"), I subscribe (via Google Reader) to a number of art blogs. Recently a painter asked if she should just give up. Is she ever going to be really good at painting. I always relate these things to photography. And there were two paragraphs in this blog that hit home. This is from the blog of Robert Genn. Here's the link to the article: <http://clicks.robertgenn.com/give-up.php> He showed some examples of the painter's work, and here are the two paragraphs that resonated with me: Your work has a fine sense of feeling and atmosphere--rain, fog, etc., and a simple, understated honesty. But is this enough? Is there enough to really carry a viewer away? Is there possibly a sense in the minds of many potential collectors that they could have done one of these themselves? As I see it, and there will be many who will disagree, this sort of work is really a bit too facile and too easy to do . . . While there are exceptions to this, the hard, cold facts tell us that only a few top workers are truly thriving. The competition is tough. To the admirable virtues of feeling and atmosphere, one needs to leverage skill, craft and a degree of hard-won cleverness that the average person on the street cannot easily attain. When you add a personal style that distinguishes you from the others, opportunistic gallerists are more likely to check you out. What's my point? So much of what we do with the camera can easily be done by someone else. Are we doing something that is uniquely our own? Is there "a personal style that distinguishes you (me) from the others?" I have no answers. And now I'm off, in an attempt to "leverage skill, craft, and a degree of hard-won cleverness" in my work. -- Carol Leigh

Two's a Crowd

©Carol Leigh

One of my first photos

Looking through an old photo album, I found one of the first photos I ever took using a 35mm camera (a Pentax H1a). It's a black and white shot of a bird and it's awful. But there is a certain appeal in that I like the lean of the fence post, the echoing lean of the bird, and the way the foliage and the overexposed background frame the bird and silhouette it. This was taken in 1977. Yesterday I re-photographed the print, added texture, added warmth, played up certain elements, and made the whole thing look older than it was. Thirty-two years ago. That was the beginning. ©Carol Leigh

Three Dahlias in Bottles

Thank you to my neighbor Gene for giving me the flowers and the inspiration. ©Carol Leigh

Dahlias in Blue Vase

©Carol Leigh

Red Rose in a Bottle

My neighbor Gene gave me a bouquet of dahlias and roses yesterday -- things are rather floriferous around here right now! ©Carol Leigh

Crow Fire

During a walk around the block last week I photographed a juvenile crow sitting on a telephone wire. To it I've added local navigational charts, texture from a wall in Bandon, Oregon, a compass, and a few other things to create a concept of "crow setting out into the world." ©Carol Leigh

Fossilized Fern

A couple of years ago I pressed a fern frond in a catalog. I found it the other day and took it into the studio this evening to photograph. The photo seemed blah, so I combined it with various textures to come up with this piece, which I particularly like. Which is good, because it took hours to create. Somtimes these things come together quickly, other times, well, it's a lot of work! ©Carol Leigh

Old Clock

The clocks are back. I like the double-dial on this one. I combined it with a photograph of a crack in the cement floor of my garage as well as a photo of a page from an old ledger book. ©Carol Leigh

Opium Poppy

I used to do Polaroid dry and emulsion transfers a long time ago and this treatment here reminds me a lot of that dry transfer "look." One would have thought, since I worked for Polaroid, that I could have gotten the film at some sort of discount, but nope, that never happened. Alas. It used to take a lot of expensive experimenting to create these things. ©Carol Leigh

Quiet afternoon

Trees, one of my hand-painted backgrounds, some smudges and a solitary bird combine for this piece. ©Carol Leigh

She's gone . . .

I set out to make one thing and it changed entirely. Deleted are the trees and the numbers I was working with, replaced with a lot of other things revolving around this photograph of a beautiful woman I found in a thrift store. ©Carol Leigh

Daisy and Sun

A daisy looks good when combined with a photo of some background texture I painted. ©Carol Leigh

Summer Weeds

Growing like crazy in the backyard right now is Linaria or "toadflax." I photographed them and then blended them with photos I've taken of my hand-painted backgrounds, did a few other things, and I'm liking the look. ©Carol Leigh

Opium Poppy

Another experiment. (Oh, who am I kidding? They're all experiments!) ©Carol Leigh

Complementary Pears

Music score, my painted backgrounds, and the ubiquitous pear. Or two. ©Carol Leigh

African Daisy Experiment

The process continues. ©Carol Leigh

Cosmos Experiment

I'm not sure what I'm doing. (Yeah, like I'm ever sure!) I'm painting my own backgrounds and then seeing how they look behind certain things. And then doing some other stuff, none of which right now is consistent or predictable. Or replicatable. I like the messy, raw, funky look of this piece, as well as the somewhat muted colors. It's been a good day. Calm waters on the Alsea Bay this morning. Interesting photography experiments this afternoon. ©Carol Leigh

Pear Painting

A pear, some handwriting, and a portion of one of my paintings went into this one. Dark? Yup. But there's light at the end of the tunnel. ©Carol Leigh

Pears in Orange and Blue

I've been working on pears for the past week and I like the way these two photos finally came together. The components? Pears on a cabinet in my living room combined with a super close-up macro shot of ice. I swear, I could do this every day and come up with something different every time. For a person with an incredibly short attention span, this is a perfect art medium! ©Carol Leigh

One Pear

I liked the look of the three pears (below) and so went back to take a "portrait" of just one. I gave it the same treatment as I did the previous trio, and added subtle handwriting to the wall to give it even more texture. ©Carol Leigh

Yaquina Bay Three

I'm the most grateful recipient of a lot of cool stuff lately. My neighbor Juanita is cleaning out her attic and is getting rid of a lot of (to her) junk. I snagged a few nautical charts and have begun photographing bits and pieces of them to include in photomontages. I used a 3 from a railroad car, color and design from the side of a fishing boat, plus a photo of the nautical chart (of Yaquina Bay, just north of us) to create this piece. There is no end to the possibilities. And as I learn more about Photoshop, the possibilities increase exponentially. ©Carol Leigh

License Two

Ron up the street found a couple of old license plates yesterday and wondered if I'd like to photograph them. Well, duh! Of COURSE! So I zoomed in on this number 2, added a photo of one of my paintings, some rivets from the Alsea Bay Bridge, and a few other things and ta da! ©Carol Leigh

Cinnamon Blue Pears

Sometimes thing come together so well and so fluidly that you second-guess what you've done. But I'm loving how these pears look so good in these rich colors of blue and burnt sienna. You can see the original photo here, in my "daily photo" blog. ©Carol Leigh

The Wheel in the Sky Keeps on Turning

I found the crow feather on the beach this morning and purposely photographed it to be used in a photomontage. Same thing with the crow flying past — also photographed today specifically for this piece. I added a photo of a crack in the cement of my garage floor, an out-of-focus shot of sun and rain in Santa Fe, New Mexico, texture from the side of a fishing boat, and more. I love this piece. Love it. So much so that it brings tears to my eyes. May you all receive so much pleasure from whatever you do, whatever you create. ©Carol Leigh

Three O'Clock

Here I combined a railroad car, the side of a fishing boat, clock hands and watch faces. Amazing. I'm often asked to teach this technique, but since it entails a lot of sitting and staring, a lot of trial and error, an incredible knowledge of what photos I have and where to access them, and since my Photoshop skills are a combination of total ignorance and moments of surprising skill, teaching this would be difficult. ©Carol Leigh

In Time

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Think I'll let it clang around in my head a bit before I decide! ©Carol Leigh

Maybe it's time to stop . . .

Perhaps the time has come to put the clock parts away for awhile and look for something new. And then, in time, the clock parts may appear once again, like a phoenix from the ashes . . . Ashes . . . I wonder what would happen if I put a clock face in the smoldering ashes of the fireplace for a bit? Hmmm . . . Time will tell. Anyway, here's a square form of the watch face as well as the original. ©Carol Leigh

Clock Shadows

Clock gears, a clock face, an 1841 receipt, and a little watercolor sketch I did of a winged bug all come together in this piece. ©Carol Leigh

Twenty-Five or -Six to Four

When I was creating this photomontage, I made two at the same time, each one emphasizing a different set of colors. I put different clock hands on the blue one, but after staring at it for a day, decided I liked the original hands better and so this piece and the previous one now look pretty much identical regarding the "parts placement;" it's the colors and the feel that are completely different. ©Carol Leigh

Does anybody really know what time it is?

The possibilities are endless, and I'm endlessly creating these things. I'm beginning to wonder why, other than I just have to. Various clock parts come together well in this piece and the warm tones are especially appealing. I also like the contrast between the hard, linear shapes and the more softly rounded ones. ©Carol Leigh

Urban Streets

Squares, circles, clock gears, and the number "2" from an old train car . . . ©Carol Leigh

Leaf on Copper

Chris brought home some copper that had a great patina, so I photographed it and combined it with a photo of a leaf as well as some Japanese writing. ©Carol Leigh

Construct

I love this color scheme -- ochre, cinnamon, ultramarine blue. The colors come from an old car, a bridge, and drawings on a wall. ©Carol Leigh

Metal Daisy

What a good day for photography. In addition to photographing clock gears, I went to the local garden center, photographed a daisy, and then combined it with metal, scratches, different filters, and came up with this image, sort of a yin-yang, metal-organic image which I like. ©Carol Leigh

Winter Leaf

I found and photographed the leaf while walking around the block. What looks like peeling bark is part of a metal sign I photographed in Newport. I then combined some asphalt and some scratches to create this simple wintry image. Love it. ©Carol Leigh

Raven brings light to darkness

According to a Pacific Northwest Native American story, Raven brought the sun, moon, stars, and fresh water to a dark world. I created an appropriate background using three different photographs and on it placed my Raven. ©Carol Leigh

Tidal Flats

©Carol Leigh

Old Growth

©Carol Leigh

Time Shift

This and "Barriers" (below) are my two current favorites. ©Carol Leigh

Alphabetical A

A combination of an "A" from a railroad car, an old tin ceiling tile, and a series of old-fashioned letters make up this soft and weathered-looking piece. ©Carol Leigh

Three Silver Hearts

Images from Chimayo, New Mexico and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. ©Carol Leigh

Juanita Wheels

From my "Parts is Parts" class, I've used the letter "A" from my neighbor's mailbox. I combined it with wheels and canvas and ta da! ©Carol Leigh

Barriers

©Carol Leigh

Ottis

I began conducting a "Parts is Parts" class this week where we're all encouraged to take one subject and create 10 decent photos of it. I'm photographing my neighbor's mailbox, which is rusty and weathered and full of letters and texture. I'm not creating any photomontages for the class, but I had to do one for myself. At least one. And there may be more before the class is over . . . ©Carol Leigh

Bold Tee

My word for the day today is BOLD. This is my beginning. ©Carol Leigh