weekly photo challenge

Ooh, Shiny!


 
Three years ago today I responded to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge with images from what you all know is one of our favourite places, the Pacific Spirit Regional Park here in Vancouver. By way of today’s photo from yesterday’s walk in the Park here is that post from three years ago that shows how this special place continues to be such an important part of our lives.
 

that’s the spirit – August 16, 2017

Ooh, Shiny!
 
Diversions, distractions, and delightful detours.


 
For this week’s Photo Challenge from The Daily Post we are asked where do we find our “Ooh, Shiny” moments. If you follow The Changing Palette you will know one of my favourite walks is in Vancouver’s Pacific Spirit Regional Park, and when the sun is out it’s all about those Ooh, Shiny moments, whether it be the height of the summer, as it was just a week or two ago…

 

      

 

…or in the cool, clear, colorful days of Fall, as I posted in October 2015

      

 

In tomorrow’s post I will revisit a day on which the beauty of the park suddenly became transformed in the studio to a place of pain and anguish in response to a never-to-be-forgotten terrorist attack, the third anniversary of which is tomorrow.

Remembering Vincent

Today is Vincent van Gogh’s Birthday. He was born on March 30, 1853. I thought I would celebrate the occasion by reposting Vincent’s Room which I originally posted on The Changing Palette in June 2014. During these difficult days taking a moment to look back on the life of someone who had to “suffer for his sanity” but was still able to show us the beauty that surrounded him in his own wonderfully iconic way should inspire us all.

Who can look at a sunflower and at the same time not think of Vincent? Let us celebrate his memory together, and please listen to Don Maclean’s “Vincent” imbedded in the post. I promise you will it will be the highlight of your day.

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything.” Vincent van Gogh

Vincent's Room i

Can there be a more iconic room than Vincent Van Gogh’s bedroom at the Saint-Paul Asylum, Saint-Remy, France where Van Gogh entered voluntarily as a patient on May 8, 1889 and remained until May the following year. During this time he painted the gardens, with their wheat fields, olives groves, irises and sunflowers, all of which he could see from his bedroom window.
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“reflections and thanks” revisited

I posted this photograph six years ago today in response to The Weekly Photo Challenge that so many of us used to be part of. Given how we are all supporting each other in the blogosphere, the world’s safest place to practice social distancing during these challenging times, my thanks today are for all the heroes and heroines working so hard to save us all.
 
Cortona ii
 
The photo was taken early one summer’s evening from the Youth Hostel in Cortona, Italy and shows the bells of the Chiesa del Torreone reflected in our bedroom window with Lake Trasimeno seen shimmering in the distance; a moment of pure magic.
 

 
My little watercolour shows reflections in the window of another Italian youth hostel in Finale Ligure, the magnificent Castello Vuillerman, recorded in my Journal on July 2, 1999. We’ll never forget climbing the more than three hundred steps, with packs on our backs, to the Castello where the view of the city, seen in this window reflection, was well worth the climb.
 

I hope this raises your spirits just a little. Be well and stay safe.

all time favorites

This week’s Weekly Photo Challenge is sadly the last from The Daily Post and we have been asked to choose our all time favourites, an almost impossible task after five years of posting regularly to the challenges each week.

Those of you who follow thechangingpalette however shouldn’t be surprised that I would choose these photos from last August’s Photo Challenge: Corner of my beautiful granddaughter painting with me in my studio, on that day perhaps the happiest corner in all the world.
 
      
 
    
 

Thanks to everyone at The Daily Post for a great ride.
 

See you all in the blogosphere.

WPC: Place in the World

 
In May 2017 I posted a number of images of Vancouver for the Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflecting. Rather than repurposing all the images for this week’s Photo Challenge: Place in the World from Erica, I invite you to visit Vancouver Reflections to see my city enjoying the same brilliant sunshine as it is today.

yes, they’re back

 

First ladybug: Do you think anyone will notice?

Second ladybug: Unlikely!

It’s an old one but a good one 🙂

WPC: Lines


 
We returned from the grandeur of Utah and Colorado this week (post to follow) just in time to enjoy the last few days of the Tulips of the Valley tulip festival in the beautiful Fraser Valley of British Columbia. Just in time also to meet this week’s Photo Challenge: Lines in which Cheri asks us to “share a photo with a composition dominated by lines — hard or soft, straight or curvy, vertical or horizontal, or made in nature…”.
 

 
Those of you who follow The Changing Palette may remember my post from last year The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring Tra La  when we visited the Tulips of the Valley festival almost exactly a year ago. It was a glorious day once again this year and one that needs to be be shared as the Lines for Cheri could not have been more brilliant in every way. Enjoy.
 

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awakening

I have interpreted this week’s Photo Challenge: Awakening the best way I know how by sharing the joy of spending time in the studio last weekend with my beautiful, creative granddaughter who shows us all so perfectly how a box of paints, a few brushes, paper and a little water can awaken the artist in all of us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

❤️❤️❤️

sunrise sunset

Rise/Set

“For this week’s photo challenge, explore the vibrant, hopeful colors of your favorite sunrise or sunset.”

Here are two of mine

Sunrise on the road to Vimy in northern France, 2012

Sunset over the Grand Canal in Venice, 2017