Day 238-Powell, Missouri

Last weekend we took a day trip to go check out a place that bore our name.  It's not very likely we are or were related to the person(s) responsible for creating such a town, but we totally enjoyed our visit to the past.

Day 237

Provo Canyon is an amazing place to venture for excitement and fun.  So much to do!  There is kayaking, tubing, fly fishing, regular fishing (trout is plentiful), hiking, biking, or an easy car tour through the canyon to view all the many sights.  

Day 236 & 237

The greenhouse in Liberty Park.

This was the first time I was able to venture inside.  I couldn't resist the open doorway!  I spotted the largest "Pregnant Onion" I had ever seen,  It was about the size of a free-standing oven.  

Day 235

A fun morning at Tracy Aviary in Liberty Park. This was taken during the bird show.

Day 233-234

I recently had the opportunity to go explore the Harley Davidson Showroom down in Provo.  They have this really neat cafe called: "Marley's" that offers breakfast sliders.  Yummy!  Couldn't resist taking a photo of the drive up window.  Love the metal siding next to the weathered wood,  Inside the cafe is amazing!  Glass windows from the old steel mill are every where, giving you views of the garage and the showroom.  I'll definitely go back!

Day 232

I've always wanted to have a hen house, for farm fresh eggs every day.  I've never had the room or the drive to take care of them though.  This is a photo of my friend, Bonnie's chickens.  They always come out to greet the visitors and I always look forward to seeing them.

Day 231

Red Butte Gardens is in full bloom right now and I had the privilege of walking around the grounds yesterday, experimenting with some new advanced settings.

This is perhaps the largest Koi I have seen and he was willing to pose for me until he realized I had no food for him.                        

 This photo looks like it could have been taken in the early morning hours, but actually it was more like high noon.  I pushed the ISO up and adjusted the speed to a much faster setting than I've ever used before.  Love these soft results.

Day 229-230

Yesterday I had the privilege of watching these horses in a field for a few minutes, while I was on my way to Ikea.  It's amazing what you can find, if you are looking......
The second image was of another horse who wanted all the attention and kept nudging me to pet her.

Continuing On....Day 226-227-228

It seems that distractions tend to get in the way of me posting to this blog, but I am determined to finish the 365 days, even if it takes me 5 years.  :-)  I have been doing a lot more watercolor painting because this is the busiest time of year.  There are at least 5 shows I would like to enter, including the lifetime 2-star membership, of which I recently was awarded.  Photography plays a major role in my painting, as I use my photos to paint from.  They are my inspiration and so I will share the most recent photos I took that have influenced my art.

A wagon wheel that I had not noticed was made of metal instead of wood....original photo followed by a digital enhanced imaged and finally the finished watercolor painting that was juried into the UWS Spring Show-2015 and is now on its year long exhibition journey.

 

 

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Day 225

Recently I was able to join the Plein Air group of painters at the Harmon's grocery store at City Creek for a fun couple of hours of painting this scene.  

Continuing to Post-Day 224

After a long sabbatical away from all of my blogs, I have decided to start reposting and continue to use my blogs as journals of projects I've done, places I've been, friends and photos of it all.  I have a huge collection of photos that I will share starting again today. 

These rosehips were cut from the bushes out front and the size of these are amazing.  I'm hoping they are not a prediction of what is to come this winter! 

Day 223

This was a fun night for Star Trail photos.  Each photo took about an hour and when 3 photos were combined, they created this image.  It looks as if the stars are rotating, but it's us who are moving, and with time lapse imaging, we can create some pretty unusual photos.  I've been playing around with light sources at night too and I'll share one of those when I get the hang of it. 

While we were waiting for the time lapse imaging to process, we ate a picnic dinner and told Zombie stories to scare each other.  Out in the desert, away from any lights, it can be pretty dark.  The perfect environment to tell ghost stories! 

Day 222

On a recent, first week of the new year, road trip down to St. George, we ventured for over 1,000 miles to find every petroglyph we could find.  These wonderful exhibits were in the Fremont Indian State Park & Museum.  We hiked for almost an hour through the valley to discover some pretty unique glyphs that are slowly eroding away. 

Day 221

While I was at the Senior Center over in West Jordan, I noticed these small perfectly round little balls hanging from this tree and thought, this would be rather interesting as a painting, so I grabbed a shot.  I'm in love with silhouettes and the sky on Friday was very stormy creating the perfect environment to capture this tree via my cell phone.

Life Gets in the Way-Day 220 in the year 2014

As usual, while my intentions of maintaining this blog were good, life sort of got in the way.  I am so surprised that I was able to continue for as long as I did.  I am ready to regroup and continue for as long as my life remains on an even keel.
Having a digital camera has allowed me to experiment with taking photos while riding in a moving car and every chance I get, I like to play around with the settings to see if I can create a photo worthy of keeping.  Here's one I took on our way through Price/Help Utah.  A long lonely stretch of highway.  

Day 217-218-219

Liberty Park: Plein Air Painting Group
What an interesting tree trunk.  Lots of faces in this one.  Must be over a hundred years old and withstood some crazy weather.


















This photo is of the new Koi Fish pond that was installed and still being built.  The problem is the bottom of this pond is like mud, so when the fish move around in search of food, it stirs up the silt and clouds the water.  I did get some pretty awesome reflections and water ripples.









This photo is my favorite of the night.  These amazing people stopped long enough for me to take their photo, when I asked them to please pose for me.  I hope to use this one as a reference for a future painting. 

Later today we head over to the county fair, so hope to have some really great photos to share with you tomorrow. 

Day 214-215-216

Liberty Park: Plein Air Painting Group
Here is a shot of Linda's palette before she started painting.  I love the colors she uses.

These ladies were suppose to be our models who were supposed to be in costume, but the main character/model was ill and couldn't make it.  Thank goodness they showed up and everyone had a subject to paint or photograph.








 A lot of new faces in the group last night.  Usually we have the paint outs on Saturdays, so having one on a weeknight seemed to help boost the turnout. 

Day 211-212-213

Liberty Park: Plein Air Painting Group

This first photo is of the original adobe brick house called "The Chase House" after the original builders.  It was later sold to Brigham Young's family who lived here for many years.  Sometime in the 1980's the house was completely renovated and currently houses the "Utah Folk Art Museum".  Some amazing cultural folk art from leather saddles, to Hawaiian quilts, even some amazing Chinese paper cutting samples and calligraphy.




 
This second photo is of one of the several water parks there are for the kids & adults to wade.  There are steps with flowing waterfalls, walkways and ponds covering probably half an acre.  I was in awe of the patterns of grass and cement, like a big checker board that ran throughout.  What a fun place for the kids to cool off. 

This 3rd photo is of the carousel ride.  It's been at Liberty Park since I was a kid and came to the amusement park with my grandparents.  Wonderful memories.  I don't think this ride is still functional, it wasn't running but the music was playing. 

Day 208-209-210

Liberty Park-Plein Air Paint Group
There was a lot to see at the park last night, including these amazing flower beds and the glass hot house where all the flower seedlings are started for the park.  The park is a very large park, one that I visited often as a child.  It takes up several city blocks in all directions, has basketball, volleyball, horseshoes, bouche, water parks, pool, amusement rides, Tracy Aviary, etc. etc.  

Day 207

So Bonnie is hosting the Friday Pixel Dust Photo Art again and this is one of the photos I took this week.  I used her Spring Light Canvas texture along with a greyscale canvas texture and the blending modes.  I was going to add a saying/poem, but decided it was beautiful without any words. 

Update: Well darn, I was all gung-ho and it doesn't start again until August 2nd.   Oh well, I enjoyed making it! 

Day 206

Well I'm caught up again.  I get busy working on new projects and this blog takes a backseat.
I have been working on a new series of watercolor paintings and trying out some different techniques.  This is coming along better than I had imaged it would and I try to work on it several hours each day.  It's too hot outside to even consider "Plein Air" but when it starts to cool off, I'll be outside painting more.  The plein air style of painting seems to be so much harder to do, for many reasons, but I enjoy it.

Day 204 & 205

 This first photo is of a tree that appeared to have Japanese Lanterns hanging all over it.  They were probably seed pods, but my DH spotted this and asked me to take a photo of it.  We were both in awe.









This second photo is of our plum tree when it was in bloom. The grandkids were all eating the ripe plums this past weekend and I was surprised that they actually liked them. 

Day 203

Yummy! Delicious! Fresh Popped!

Day 202

I would have thought that a ball field would have retractable sprinklers.  The lawn was perfection.

Day 201

So, I had a good scare the other day when my Granddaughter and I were walking at the park.  I saw these grenades laying out in the baseball diamond and thought they were real.  I was ready to call the bomb squad folks!  It was my granddaughter who told me they were fireworks!  I was amazed on so many levels. 

Day 200

A thing of the past-in all its beautiful glory.  I loved this barn sitting out at the edge of a farmers field with this majestic mountain for a backdrop.  It's For Sale!

Day 198 & 199

From a Moving Car: Have you ever tried taking photos from a moving car, out on the highway, doing 75+ MPH.  We weren't doing 75, traffic was too heavy to get anywhere due to the dreaded "Road Construction" but we were still moving.  Maybe 45 at the time, so when I took this photo, it was suppose to be only the building.  The sign was creepy and this has not been doctored.  The reflection of the sun hitting the sign and the angle of the camera, must have caused it to be iridescent orange, or are the signs chemically treated to glow in the dark? 







This next building was also taken just a few miles down the road from the first one.  I have a thing for abandoned buildings.  They have so much character and interesting textures, lines, shapes and even softer, weather created patinas. 

Day 196 & 197

Castle Dale, Utah one of the oldest towns in the state.  A few of the houses are made from hand-made adobe brick back in the late 1800's, but years of weather has made the bricks begin to crumble.  Thank goodness for cameras and our ability to preserve the images before these amazing houses are lost forever. 

Another thing from the past is the indoor movie theater.  Every small town had one and it was my job this day, to photograph every one we could find.  It brings back many good memories of our trips into Kansas City where the most current movies would be shown.  That's if we weren't headed to the drive-in.  Remember those? 
Now it's a simple matter of locating a Red Box to find a movie you want to see on your home movie system or a click of your remote for Netflix! 

Day 195

My new easel finally arrived and I am loving it!  It's easy to assemble, lightweight (only 12 lbs.) and has a full box for storage.  I've only used it once so far and I'm loving the whole plein air painting.  There is just something about being so close to nature and not using a camera, but a paint brush to record what you see.  (I still take photos for future reference.)  Just need to learn how to paint landscapes and I'm working on that.  Learning a new media seems to overwhelm me occasionally, because there is so much to learn about using a new painting method, but I'm determined to do this.  I actually have several paintings completed, framed and ready to be entered in some local shows.  When the shows are over, I will be able to share pics of my paintings with you.  

Day 194

I don't always get a chance to post pics on a daily basis, it's more like a weekly thing now because I am usually in the art studio painting up a storm.  This is one of several small paintings I did for what I hope will be a  "Wabi-Sabi Abstract" workshop using water-media and lots of interesting texture techniques.  Metal tools are one thing I tend to collect and I love to hunt for them at my local yard sales.  The texture in the background of this painting could be made using at least 4 maybe 5 different tools that are easy to find, but this one was created using a notched, metal scrapper and gouache paints.  Fun!