More Random Plant Pictures

April 7, 2013April 7, 20132 Comments

: Red Tulip

: Red Tulip

: Red Tulip

: Dandilion

: Vinca Major

: Grape Hyacinth

: Curled Leaf

: Pine Tree

Random Photos

March 31, 2013March 31, 20131 Comment

Here are some random photos I took around the yard the other day.

: Maple Bud

: Maple Bark

: This branch on my maple tree broke in this weird, square shape which seemed to sort of frame the empty sky. It struck me as interesting for some reason.

: Daffodil
Three of these because they’re my favorite flower and they actually bloomed this year! They are in serious need of dividing.

: Daffodil

: Daffodil

: Vinca Major

Candy Cane Hearts

March 5, 2013March 5, 2013Leave a comment

Double Heart Candy Canes 500

I think this will be next year’s Christmas card. I was playing with HDR again. Real HDR, not HDR-style. The image didn’t really need HDR, but… eh. I like how it turned out, though I haven’t printed it, so it may need some adjustments still.

I love the spot healing brush tool in Photoshop, because after several days, the snow I used wasn’t perfectly clean. Also, when you set a candy cane in the snow, it starts bleeding red into the snow. So, I had to correct that as well.

And here’s another one.

little candy cane heart 500

Snow Pictures

March 1, 2013March 1, 20133 Comments

As some of you may have heard, it snowed a bit in the last week or so. I didn’t go out taking many pictures because it was cold and I didn’t want to. But here are three I did manage to come up with. The third one’s my favorite. I was playing with HDR on the last two and I fiddled with the colors a lot for the bike.

: Bicycle Built for Two

: Fence Shadow

: Snowy Tree

Roses, Pumpkin Blossoms, Mums, and Woodsorrel

December 1, 2012December 1, 20122 Comments

Macro Pumpkin Blossoms

Trivia:
These are male pumpkin blossoms.

Macro Nearly Wild Roses

Trivia:
The spider is known as a Daring Jumping Spider. It’s orange spots mean that it’s a fairly young one. The spots will turn white as it gets older. This type of spider is a hunter rather than a web weaver.

Macro White Roses

Macro Mums and Yellow Woodsorrel

Trivia:
Yellow Woodsorrel is edible.

I’d also like to mention that I like how you can now post multiple galleries to one post in WordPress. 🙂 Very useful.

Leaves in the Water

October 15, 2012October 31, 20122 Comments

The lilypad image is available as a print.

Illustration Friday: Water

October 12, 2012January 13, 20246 Comments

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to find the Illustration Friday topic to be the one I suggested recently. I think I suggested it last week or the week before. And, yes, it’s mine because I was cited as the one who suggested it. It’s a little thing, but isn’t it cool?

So, that’s why my hits are unusually high today and probably will be all week. Yay! Welcome everyone from IF. Feel free to take a look around the site and comment on things. Make yourselves at home. Follow me if you like.

But now I’m sitting here with MY illustration topic as the one for the week. Which means I really should post something good. Initially I suggested the topic after photographing this image:

I really liked it and I thought “water” would make a great topic. But it’s hardly an illustration, is it? Well, maybe a photo illustration. Not exactly what Illustration Friday is all about, though.

I could also post one of several other water-related images I’ve created in the past.

Or I could point to the series of Rocks and Water photographs I took in Wisconsin this summer.

I really would like to give IF something new, though. Perhaps I could finish off this sketch which I started for the IF topic of “carry” but never finished.

Really, though, I’m afraid I won’t work on anything for IF because this week I have THINGS TO DO. The kids are off school several days in the coming week, I have to send out Halloween-themed art samples to potential clients before the end of the month, I need to meet with a web design client sometime next week, and I’m preparing all my stuff for the SCBWI conference on the 27th. I’m busy.

So, it may turn out that this week I’ll have nothing new to contribute to IF, even though Penelope was kind enough to choose my topic.

Scenery

August 5, 2012August 5, 2012Leave a comment

Here’s some scenery from my trip also. Unfortunately, it was cloudy most of the times I tried to take scenery pictures on this trip. Still, I got some and I played with Photoshop filters to salvage others.

Rocks and Water

August 5, 2012October 21, 20123 Comments

Here’s another collection from my Wisconsin trip. Mostly rocks and water in black and white. Most of them are from the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth. Yes, I know that’s not in Wisconsin. But it’s on the way. The first three are from Sister Bay, which is in Wisconsin.

Some of these are available as prints.

Macro Photos of Flowers

August 5, 2012October 21, 20122 Comments

I just came back from a family trip up to Wisconsin. Since the kids wouldn’t have the patience to wait for me to draw pictures of the things I saw, I took photos instead. Even that tried their patience a bit, but they lived through it. 🙂

Here’s a collection of close-up flower shots I took. Both garden flowers and weed flowers. And three that aren’t actually flowers, but they are plants. I don’t know what all of them are, but if you recognize one that isn’t labeled, let me know.