Tag / ocean

by Janet

Ghosts

I found a guy on Instagram who does photo edits of surfers and beach goers and I was kind of inspired. His images are absolutely beautiful, and God knows I have a lot of beach photographs to play with. What’s basically happening here is I’ve taken an iPhone image and brought it into Photoshop, then I did a motion blur on the entire scene but I masked out the people in the photo so as not to blur them. I then brought down the transparency on the guys so that they’re just a wee bit see-through.

I thought that ghosts was a good name for both the image and my post because… well… I’ve been like a ghost here lately. My story was at a standstill while I finished my class (which is now over and I am officially on summer break!), and the few times I tried to do a little illustration I was stuck in stick figure purgatory. Nothing was working. Sometimes you just need to walk away, ya know?!

With my brain out of the books now, I really want to get creative for a while and tip toe my way back into the blog through experimental and playful imagery like this. Plus I caught a bug and it gave me a little brain fog so I’m steering clear of tasks that require too much thought. I’d really like to play with colors for a bit so hopefully you’ll see some bright and shiny art for a while… until the fog clears anyway.

That’s about all for now! Thanks for reading/viewing – I hope you enjoyed!

by Janet

A Visual Story

Today’s Word of the Day Challenge was Timeless. Besides the fact that I wanted to take a break from the story – I thought that the best way to sum up the word was with an image.

I’ve been super tempted to get my camera out lately, but there’s just no scenery here in my town. My son and I were talking about that the other day. He reads a LOT, and he was telling me he read something recently that talked about planning and architecture, and how larger cities these days are being constructed not only to pack people in like sardines, but to create the illusion of imprisonment – so that people are more inclined to ‘comply’.

I think the word he used to describe today’s architecture (in cities where they are simply trying to house more people) was ‘barbaric’.

I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that he reads a heck of a lot more than me when it comes to ideas about what is happening to society these days. And I also know that my city gets me down sometimes because all you see is concrete.

I guess what I’m getting at is that when you look at nature – the ocean, the mountains, the desert, and so on – you get a view of something that’s timeless. Nature never really ages or gets old. It may disappear, like it has (somewhat) in my city, but without human interference – I think that nature would only improve. It never needs refurbishing, or a new coat of paint – it stays beautiful all on it’s own.

I don’t know. Just something I thought of when I saw the word timeless. That being said, I found a photograph that I loved on the internet- and this is my rendition. I think it looks pretty timeless. One of the definitions I found was “having no beginning or end : eternal,” and I think that nature is about as eternal as we’ll ever get here on earth.

Anyway, if I remember correctly, I believe the actual photograph was taken in Wales – so if anyone actually recognizes it let me know. I’d be curious if you did. I need to work on my highlighting and shadows – which is why the sand, the grass, and the rocks are so basic, but I think it does the trick. It was an all day effort – and I’ve had enough.

I guess my visual story turned out to be pretty wordy here, haha! But I think I’m done. So, that’s about all for now.

Thanks for stopping by… I hope you enjoyed the illustration!

“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.”

Frank Gehry

by Janet

Picture Perfect?

Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it.

SALVADOR DALI

One of the reasons that I enjoy doing my series Life: From A to Z is that most of the time I’m not even sure what I’m going to write about. These posts are very spontaneous. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But, HEY, nobody’s perfect!

It’s usually either a great quote that I manage to dig up, or the content of my featured image that inspires me or helps me along. In the case of the letter “P,” it was the “perfect” quote (above) that helped me select my p-word; PERFECTION.

Good old enticing… titillating… and unattainable perfection.

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