Liberate Your Art 2017

These are the lovely postcards I received this year in LYA2017. Top left is from Lee Albritton, this is a mixed media called spirit of the Hawk, it won an award in an art showing. Middle top, one of my favorite trees, the dogwood, from Jeannette Knower, love this, and Jeannette lives not far from me in OR. The lovely pottery card is from Mary Krudwig, she painted and glazed these pieces. Bottom left, is from Allen Chinibi, a wonderful graphic design. Allen is from Calgary. The middle card is Kat's beautiful and colorful leaves. On the right is the card from Toni Hanner, She took a wine label and added it to a piece of painted cardboard.

Another part of LYA2017 is side swaps after the main swap is over. It's always fun to connect with even more artists and ones you connected with previously.

So far I have received 8 photos in the side swap. The top cacti is from Sheila Delgado in AZ. The rooftops are from Louise Mamet in France. Just beautiful. The blue coneflower is from Chandra Lynn, perfect pick for me Chandra, I love it.Then the artwork of Teresa Harrington Hazelbaker called Tree Spirit. with words on the back to "Get up off that thing and dance till it gets better" by James Brown, wise words Teresa. The lovely pink cluster of flowers is from another fellow Oregonian Tammar Stubblefield. The striking black and white of the daffodils is from Janice Darby in CA. Patsy Lawrence sent the acrylic and oil pastelin an altered photo book, picking up the colors from the original page. I would like to learn more about that technique. The watercolor is from Christine Brooks. Its of the San Francisco Peaks in Flagstaff AZ. A place I would love to see. I am waiting on a few more cards and will post another blog post when they arrive. Thanks to Kat, for the wonderful adventure and all of you for your wonderful artwork that you so generously share.

 

Liberate Your Art

This was the first year that I have participated in LYA, what a fun experience it has been. From trying to choose the photos for the postcards, printing them, looking up quotes that I wanted to add to decorating my envelope, a wonderful experience it has been. I look forward to doing it again next yr.

THANK YOU KAT for bringing this to us, it is truly inspiring. Looking thru some of the blogs and websites I am so amazed at all the talent out there. I am very pleased to have made contact with a few from the swap and look forward to learning more about them and their art.

Above is a collage of the photos I used, all but one were taken with my iPhone and edited on the phone or tablet. The Santa Fe bench was taken with my Canon 7D this fall in Santa Fe NM.

These are all of the lovely postcards I received. The beautiful lady in red is from April Rocco in Cocoa, FL. Love the artwork.

The Zebra are a photo by Charlotte Prado in Annapolis MD. Great shot Charlotte.

The beautiful garden shot with the wonderful quote "Leave Room in the garden for the fairies to dance" is from. Snap. twistylane.blogspot.com

I love the birds form Jewels. She made this art for another project called "Whats Your View" Love it.

The frosty weed is from Kate Lehman, I love old weeds Kate and especially when they are covered in frost.

Finally the card from Kat arrived marking the end of the swap, although I will be swapping with Elena soon. We each had gotten cards from the same people and our cards had gone to the same person in one instance.

Connections, that's what it is about. I found as I read comments and posts on the swap that so many recipients go cards that held meaning for them. It is as if Kat had a connection to us in some way and knew where the card needed to go. Here's to next year, thank you all for making this a wonderful adventure.

Through Light Photography Workshop Manzanita OR

The following posts are about the weekend workshop. Please enjoy.

Metaphors and Shapes, Manzanita

After we shared our morning photos we had classroom time. This time was spent on going over some of the basics of operating the camera, as our group consisted of women at different levels in their photography. These lessons were good for all of us though because it never hurts to refresh the hows and whys of  ISO, shutter speed and aperture. These numbers are often confusing and unless they become second nature we struggle with them. Then we moved on to what do we see when we shoot a scene, what do we want the viewer to see and feel. Is the photo one that you wander into and look around, is it one that gives you a place to sit and be still and contemplate or dream. Interesting ways to think when you are shooting. We went over composition, lighting, rule of thirds, leading lines. All the things that make a photo.

Next came our assignment. Go out and shoot 10 photos each of SHAPES...........ok, that should be easy, there is shape every where, and METAPHORS...............huh??  Oh, dear, that sounds hard, I am not even sure I know what that means. So Beth explained and gave examples.......OH, I get it. Out we go, I think we had just under 2 hrs. to do this assignment then get back for lunch and process images to share before the afternoon class and assignment.

My friend Jacqui and I headed down the street to see if we could find things along the way. Shapes were easy but I also found that Metaphors can be in a lot of things too, it is just how you interpret them.  I also discovered that the subjects I shoot translate into metaphors, that is the way I see them. Old cars, old barns, doors, windows when I see these things what I am seeing are things that are representative of things discarded or abandoned, so that is what they are saying to me

 We came back, had a beautiful lunch set out for us and got busy processing images to share. We did two from each category. Very interesting to see the interpretations from the other women. We all may see the same thing but we all see it differently. All in all a very insightful lesson.

Reaching Out....To me this represented our weekend. Women reaching out to each other and learning

 

.

Reflection.....Looking in looking out.

Shapes

"S" Curve

.  

Manzanita, OR Workshop

It has been WAY too long since I have been posting on my blog, it seems that I was getting too involved in being on the computer and had to get away from it for awhile. I have been inspired by one of my fellow workshop women to get back to it. She had a beautiful post of photos and story about the weekend, I am following suit. Thanks Bonnie, (ps. we share a birthday too).


What a wonderful month February has been. It is the month of Valentine's Day, my birthday, my oldest grandson's birthday and come to find out several of my new friends have birthdays too.

What made it so special for me was getting to go to the OR coast twice in one week. I not only got to go for my birthday, for the day, but at the end of the week I had signed up for a weekend long photography workshop. Thanks to Beth Buglione and Chela Melendez of  http://www.throughlightphotography.com several women came together to share their love and learning of photography. Beth and Chela are fantastic teachers, they have a way of making you stretch way out of your comfort zone, put yourself out there for all to see. The weekend was very well organized and set up so that there were several challenges and assignments to meet.

The first evening was set up as a "getting to know you" kind of evening. Several of us have been in a Meet Up group for a few years together but there were some new faces too. It was fun hearing everyone's story on how photography came into their lives and what it means to them. We visited, drank some wine and had some snacks to pass the evening. All provided by our hostesses. We all stayed together in a fabulous beach house with a great view of the ocean.

Our next morning was up at dawn and get out there and shoot the sunrise. Well sunrise was a no show,but so was the rain for the most part, it was quite windy. Back to the house for a beautifully prepared breakfast and time to relax and share some of our attempts from the morning shooting. Then class time, assignments for the afternoon and back out to shoot the images for our assignment.

For the sake of length, I am going to do several posts for each assignment. 

The dunes restoration project.

The little sea birds, scurrying about the surf.

Storm clouds

Manzanita beach, looking South

Blowing in the wind. Softened with a filter for an ethereal feeling