Just for a few minutes each day a narrow shaft of sunlight illuminates the glorious natural beauty of Upper Antelope Canyon, Arizona. It will take your breath away.
It certainly took mine.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Narrow
photography
we happy few
Discover Challenge: Shared Journeys.
“For this week’s challenge, tell a story that shows the value of company.”
I think these pictures speak for themselves. I am always happy to have the opportunity to revisit our six day trek to Machu Pichu three years ago with Mountain Lodges of Peru in the company of a great group of individuals who came together for the first time and parted as the closest of friends, having shared in the adventure of a lifetime.
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”…and sisters 🙂
WPC: Cherry On Top
Couldn’t resist putting a cherry on top of yesterday’s
miniature landscape for the Weekly Photo Challenge today.
landscapes in miniature
“There are a number of very simple yet amazingly effective ways in which you can create effective landscapes in miniature inside your studio that will enable you to sketch and paint as if you were perched on that cliff. What’s more, if you’d like the view to offer more or less of the valley, you can shift the mountains around a bit. It’s easy, and the materials are probably beside you right now”
Tony Smibert from Chapter 11: Idea Starters, in Painting Landscapes from you Imagination
This has been one of the most enjoyable and rewarding exercises so far, and as Tony writes it was remarkably easy. It began by taking a sheet of white paper and crumpling it to create an imagined mountainous terrain complete with soaring peaks and distant valleys, which became further defined with washes of color.
Once I was happy with my miniature landscape it became time for some creative fun. First I placed it in front of a landscape I painted for one of the earlier exercises in Tony’s book,
which you may remember in a post entitled imbued with possibilities.
Then I tried it against one of the dark ceramic tiles I often use as a
backdrop to some of my photos in the studio.
Finally, I took the landscape outside as Tony suggests and photographed it against today’s beautiful blue sky, “shifting the mountains around a bit” to create different views.
It’s been a great day as you can see. I very much hope yours has been too.
Worldwatercolormonth Day 21
she loves me
she loves me, she loves me not…she loves me
With all the dandelions about at the moment I couldn’t resist
one final submission for this week’s Photo Challenge: Details.
all you need
On another day of tragedy taking place in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a message from our beautiful granddaughter whose radiant smile is lifting all of our spirits this weekend.
If only love was all you needed, but it certainly is a start.
palettes de jour encore
Weekly Photo Challenge: Details
These close ups of my watercolour palette become
unique pieces of abstract art.
Palette de Jour 16.7.16
the right road
This week’s Discover Challenge from WordPress “brings out the positive: tell us about a piece of advice you’ve received — and would like to share with others.”
Tony suggests making small loose drawings and washes as notes, and not to worry about the consequences. Some are very abstract but some became quite specific and more detailed as they developed, as you can see. Each was intended to convey the sense of a fork in the road with a choice of direction between the light and the dark.
The Right Road 14.7.16
When I was a young boy my beloved grandfather said to me:
” In life Andrew there are always two roads, the right road and the wrong road.
Make sure you always choose the right one.”
His advice has stayed with me all of my life and echoed in my mind over the years whenever an important decision has needed to be made or a life-changing direction to be followed. It has been the best advice a young boy could have ever have hoped.
To complement this week’s Discover Challenge, and particularly as this month I am working through Tony Smibert’s Painting Landscapes from your Imagination, and also painting as part of Worldwatercolormonth, I thought I would continue the exercises of Chapter 8 in the book with imagined images that reflect the spirit of my grandfather’s advice to me.
Tony suggests making small loose drawings and washes as notes, and not to worry about the consequences. Some are very abstract but some became quite specific and more detailed as they developed, as you can see. Each was intended to convey the sense of a fork in the road with a choice of direction between the light and the dark.
This last image is perhaps the darkest of all and reflects what might have been.
Dedicated to the memory of my wonderful grandpa from his grandson,
now a besotted grandpa himself.
a summer bouquet
I couldn’t resist painting this summer bouquet of
lavender, margaretas, cosmos and photinia
picked from the garden today.
Looking up on the Admiralty Trail in the Pacific Spirit Regional Park in Vancouver on a beautiful Spring day in April this year. You can see more photos of these spectacular leafy canopies from our trail walk in spring forward fall back, and the same trail decked out in glorious autumnal colors last October in Boundaries.
thechangingpalette 