Mobile Art Monday No. 18

One morning these words came out of the blue as I opened my blinds at work. I jotted them down and a few days later this photo was begging for them.

A few tweaks in Snapseed, Tune and Tonal Contrast.

Several layers from Overlay, Grunge, Leaks and Light paint in Pixlr set at very low opacity.

In iColorama I chose Effects> Glow> 3 and reduced the opacity.

In Word Swag I typed my message and played with the different options until finding the one I wanted.

This was my first attempt at Word Swag. I thought it was a pricey app but in looking at a few examples on Instagram of some very creative people...    I'm glad I bought it.

How is your Monday going? How about letting the day in?

Friday Finds, Daisy Bokeh

Good morning! It's Friday Finds over at Kim's blog and this week I found…

You can pick a daisy and stick it the dewy morning grass to capture some great bokeh! I believe I'll do this more often. All shots with my Canon 100mm.

Some presets used are Kim's.

f/4, 1/500, ISO 100

f/3.5, 1/350, ISO 100

f/4, 1/350, ISO 100

f/2.8, 1/1000, ISO 100

A matching bug!

f/8, 1/125, ISO 100

Don't you just love the randomness of daisies?

f/8, 1/125, ISO 100

More awesome light. The garden was just magical yesterday. I love the flares you get shooting into the light. I could tell I was getting a sun flare but didn't realize it was colored until I saw it on my computer!

f/8, 1/125, ISO 100

f/8, 1/125, ISO 100

Have a fabulous friday and check out what everyone else has found/discovered this week at Kim's.

Adventure with the Velvet 56

This week I found a fun lens in my friend's camera bag! It is the new Lensbaby Velvet 56. (I must admit I love the name.) She loaned it to me for a few days and here is what I found through this lens in my garden.

The only thing that is an issue with me is that this is a manual focus lens. It's very hard for me to see that detail and I tend to get eye strain in the process.

All these photos are unedited except on a few I did a little exposure boost (noted). Otherwise, no crop or anything because I wanted you to see what the lens actually did.

I love that dreamy look but this shot was one of my favorites.

There are 7 aperture settings from 1.6 to 16. The three apertures 1.6, 2 and 2.8 give you the ethereal dreamy look. The distance settings range from 5" to infinity.

Here are my daisies beginning with 1.6 aperture.

Another of my favorites!

(slight exposure boost)

(slight exposure boost)

This morning was so windy I did a little experiment inside. The aperture on this dried flower was set at 2.8 and I just adjusted the distance setting and moved a bit to get the different looks.

It was cool to play with but my pocket book has another lens on it's priority list. I did manage a few shots of my grand daughter, even though she doesn't stand still, that I'll post this weekend.

Happy Friday everyone!

Linking up with Kim for Friday Finds.

Daisies, 100 Day Project, Day 8

My 100 Day Project is coming along nicely.

I stared at a few how to sketch books at Micheal's yesterday and one was really tempting. I may just have to go back.

At this point I'm only 2 days behind but that is just fine. I'm not trying to keep up. If I just drew with out making a mobile edit I could probably keep up. But that is not the point for my project.

This is my original photo. As you can see in some of the edits, I cloned out parts of the background and blended in and blurred parts of the foreground.

This is the edit I spent most of my time on in Stackables and saved a new formula. 

Tip: Did you know you can re-order your own formulas so your favorites are at the top? This only works for your own formulas. I wish it would work for the others.

The rest are some of my 'saved' formulas.

And my sketch...

I will be looking for the simplest things to draw… Maybe I'll start taking photos of just parts of flowers. Ha, ha, ha! I have switched for a pen to a pencil so if I really need to I can pull out the eraser. I've made myself not because I want the imperfections. I'm also finding that it's a lot easier to draw something the exact size that it is instead of smaller. (I need to get larger paper because I'm drawing from my iPad onto a piece of 4x4" paper.) Makes my mind go crazy.

Texture Tuesday June 3

It's Texture Tuesday over at Kim's blog today. The theme is …. Nature!

Come on over and check out what everyone's been texturing.

My poppies are blooming in all their glory. I took my lens baby out to see what I could do.

kk_100 Multipy and an old film frame by 2lilOwls.

The daisies are particularly fond of posing for the lensbaby.

This was a bit interesting.

This was shot with the soft focus optic.

I have made some interesting discoveries this week about red flowers and Lightroom. I'll try to post about that later this week.

There is a learning curve with the Lensbaby but I am determined to conquer it.