Oh! The photographs included in the RAA Featured Artist Display!

I forgot to include the images for the twenty or so matted photographs that are also part of the display now up at the Redlands Art Association in Redlands, Calfornia. I'll assemble those and post them within the next week.

Stay tuned ...

While I'm in the midst of posting this, I'll also add that I'm still having a ball posting and viewing photographs on Instagram. I have posted over 400 images in my Instagram gallery, but I've decided to refine the photographs uploaded to only black and white images from today through the end of April. I'm enjoying the challenge of taking photographs that make strong black and white images.

All of my Instagram photographs are taken with my iPhone camera. I'll share some of those on this blog shortly. If you just can't wait, go to @kweststudio8 on Instagram and see for yourself!

Done and Done ... 30 Day Photography Challenge Days 25-30

It's nearing the end of the first day of 2014. Woo Hoo!

I have been one busy chaquita! I've finished two fiber-wrapped brooches that have been languishing on my workbench for, dare I admit it, years, and I've revised some acrylic paintings I had previously started, to be more in line with my goal of fearlessness in my art this year. I'm takin' chances, folks! And I must admit that the paintings have a bit more verve and interest than they did previous to my adaptations.

But ... today's post is to wrap up those last six challenge subjects that never got posted. The photographs were taken, but one thing or another circumvented them being uploaded to my blog. In one fell swoop, I'm posting the remaining challenges: Strangers, Close-Up, Celebration, Flowers, Black and White, Self Portrait. Then I be done with this particular challenge (Thank you, Lori Sanstedt) and I can move on to bigger and better personal challenges.

I enjoy challenges such as this when my creativity lags a bit and I need a little something to prime the pump. This exercise helped a lot.

Some subjects were easier and more comfortable than others, but I liked the subjects with which I don't normally work. I've not done much in the way of photographing people and I think in the coming months I would like to explore the human animal a bit more with my camera lens. I cringe at self-portraits and being included in any photographs, but it is a fact of life so needed to get over my aversion.

We're such a color-oriented society, but I liked working with the Black and White subject to get back in touch with contrasts, textures and composition.

Happy New Year!

Day 30 Self Portrait

Day 29 Black & White (Tinman Gallery doorway entry)

Day 28 Flowers (Supermarket orchids)

Day 27 Celebration (Winter Solstice)

Day 26 Close-Up (Workbench Tools)

Day 25 Strangers (Garland Post Office)

Du Jour 15 and they're starting to pile up ...

Awhile back I came across a small stainless steel fork, I think it may be a child's fork. I've wanted to do something with it, but was clueless as to how to incorporate it into an art piece. Apparently my mind went a little on the dark side, because today's painting is how I used it.

There could  be a story that accompanies this painting. Hmmm ... what would this painting say about your story?

This is acrylic, stainless steel fork on stretched canvas.

Lima, as in Lima Beans ...

While driving from Grand Junction to Spokane I decided rather belatedly to take the time to drive through the little places where I stopped for gas. I was seeing a lot of landscape as I flew along the freeways, but little in the way of "local color." (Private joke, eh, Terry DP?)

Gas stop in Lima, Montana in Beaverton County, with a population of 231, as of 2009 was one of my gas stops. Lima turned out to be a treasure trove of photo ops.

Gol darn it! I wish I had that brainstorm earlier. I was so intent upon getting from Point A to Point B, that the interesting inbetweens got overlooked. So unlike me not to meander around hitherto unknown places.

There was sign on a ramshackle old building that read, "Lima Historical Society" and my thought was that it was tongue-in-cheek, as there was no way anyone would be safe in that derelict! But it certainly presented all manner of photographic potential.

I'm including a few of them here. I put a B&W filter on them, to set them apart from simply photographs of an old building. I like how it highlights the structure, composition, rather than the colors. Although the wood was so weathered as to be drained of color to begin with. Wait! I'll upload both and you can see which you like better.

I'll be featuring more Lima, as in lima beans, photographs in the next few days.

July 12, 2011

Project 365

Today 01-16-11:

I've been playing with the B&W feature on my Canon PowerShot SD790 IS. While out picking up some dogfood, my eye was attracted to this grove of trees. Why not?

01-15-11:

I was photographing a newly made pair of earrings at the kitchen counter, and loved the colors of the copper pitcher and the red box, even the shadows and the warm and cool contrasting walls. This was shot with my iPhone.