Lucy's Vacation Art

Some pencil, pen & ink and watercolor drawings/paintings done on vacation at Turtle Inn in Belize

Sunset

There is nothing quite so calming as time spent outside soaking up the beauty of nature.  Sunset photo taken during a super moon shoot in Marin County.  More super moon photos here: https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Lucy+Autrey+Wilson

Life is Beautiful

at every stage - especially if you are a rose!

Debris Photo Quilt Creatures

Working on some new creature designs made with digital photo quilts, created out of 2"x 2" square cuts composited from 16 themed photos.  The four above are a cat, giraffe, emu and a larger cat cut from a collage of street debris and steel road plate photos.

Disturbing the Vultures

Out and about in the neighborhood.

Variations on a Foggy Rodeo Beach at Dawn Theme

For a new self-directed photography class, I elected to shoot a series of photos based on invisible forces of nature, which were to focus on the unseen forces of gravity and magnetism. So, I got up at dawn to shoot high tide at Rodeo Beach.  It was very foggy.  My favorite picture didn't even include the tide.  And when I thought about it, I realized every photo ever shot represents invisible forces of nature.  So I shifted gears and decided to do variations on a theme instead.  The theme is my dawn photo session in the fog.  The variations reflect different techniques.  Here's what I ended up with:
Top to Bottom
1 and 5:  Original printed photos, taken at Rodeo Beach, of Fort Cronkhite and of the high tide
2:  A digital patchwork of 3" square sections taken from several foggy photos
3.  The Fort Cronkhite scene printed on fabric, then quilted and machine and hand embroidered
4.  A digital composite of the Fort Cronkhite scene with a photo of my father in 1942, in the army during WWII, combined with a periodic table of the elements and a table of fundamental force particles.  My brainy father, who I miss, was a rocket scientist, chemist, lawyer, artist and photographer.  He would have understood the science.  He hated the army.
6:  A reshoot of the original foggy high tide photo with two wooden artist models playing with a red rubber ball.

Color Emerges Out of the Gray Fog

These photos were shot in Salem, Oregon, where it can be foggy.  It happened, however, that it was sunny when I took the pictures.  Am experimenting with adding gray gradients to color photos to illustrate the impact of a little color on a gray day.

Migratory Sea Birds

Terns and Seagulls at Drakes Beach in Pt. Reyes National Seashore.  It's September and I believe some, if not all, are getting ready to migrate.  Probably not happy I disturbed them! More photos from Drakes Beach and nearby Mt. Vision up soon @Shutterstock here:  https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Lucy+Autrey+Wilson

Fairies in Sausalito

Bird at the Beach

Obsessed with 3D?  Yes.  Another wool-punched fabric bird made whole in the computer, combined with layer after layer on top of a photo taken at Muir beach.

Are You Going the Wrong Way?

More 3D applied to fabric birds.

3D Fabric Bird in Photo Composited Bucket

I'm newly enamored with the 3D feature in Photoshop CC.  Hence this 3D bird with cast shadow rendering of a previously created fabric wool punched and embroidered bird, which I then added to a photo of a bucket taken in Mendocino, already combined with another picture of the algae in Abbotts Lagoon.  Digital manipulation provides hours and hours of fun!  Especially since 3D rendering seems to take 1 1/2 hours at minimum.

Playing Ball at Stinson Beach

This took all day!  First drawing my wooden models, then painting them, then trying to figure out 3D in Photoshop so I could create real looking shadows.  I need a longer 3D lesson.  So much I don't know.

Old Art and New Photos Come Together as One

Trying something different compositing art with photos both in camera and digitally in Photoshop. Top image was done in camera in multiple exposure mode - shooting the original art and a copy of the photo printed in the same size as the original painting, then edited in Lightroom and Photoshop. 2nd from top is a digital blending of the two bottom pieces with minimal editing in Photoshop.

San Anselmo Creek Meets Albion Forest

I was invited by the San Anselmo Arts Commission to paint at "Music in the Park" - a weekly Sunday event at Creek Park in downtown San Anselmo from July 31 to August 28.  So yesterday, I packed up my pen & ink & watercolor gear and headed out.  I was the only person doing any art that I noticed, but there were a lot of other people enjoying themselves.  The band was the Lonestar Retrobates - playing retro big band style music.  It was all very enjoyable.  My result was the 7"x10" image above. This was scanned and enlarged to approx. 13" x 20" and merged with a forest picture shot in Albion earlier this month.  Two nice memories merged into one!

What is this Photograph About?

My latest LensWork magazine's editorial exhorts every photographer to shoot with a purpose, rather than simply snap a picture because it looks pretty.  This is something I am trying to do more often.   Having just spent a few wonderful days with twin grandsons, 60 years younger than me, I've been thinking about family and the differences in age (from the amount of energy one has, to how one perceives reality).  These thoughts took me out into the garden, seeking images that reflect the cycle of life.

Hello

Garden chicken in the California sun.  Sometimes a little humor is calling.  Reminds me of Lionel Richie calling Adele:  http://zap2it.com/2015/10/lionel-richie-responds-adele-song-hello/

The Events of the Week Make Me Feel Like Running Away

Honorable Mention at the Marin County Fair

My five photos entered in the special category - "In Focus," judged by Jack Fulton, got an honorable mention.   #1 winner was Louise Williams, a Bay Area photographer, who composited zoo animals into rooms in a charming way.  Can't find a link on-line but here is her Saatchi page: http://www.saatchiart.com/louisekwilliams

Bird on a Wire

The crows in Seattle must have had nests near to be so set on getting me out of the neighborhood. But not before I photographed this bird harassing me!  The shot that got away was a vision of two crows chasing a bald eagle over Puget Sound.  Obviously the eagle got too close to the nest too.

A Story of Three Quilts

Quilting takes a looooong time, at least for me.  Here is the story of these three new quilts:

Top #1:  Florida Spoonbill, 85 1/2" long x 80" wide.  I started this quilt a year ago and only finished it last month.  Then it was too big for me to photograph, so I took it to the exceptional Jay Daniel at Black Cat Studio (link here), which took a bit more time.   The quilt was put together in 9 pieces to accommodate my small Bernina sewing machine, and is intended to represent the elusive spoonbill in a Florida swamp, with the blue sky above.  I stopped planning as much as I had with my earlier quilting efforts and cut and sewed most of this quilt without doing too much measuring.  I also learned to cut and sew curves.  I went to Florida in 2014, to Singer Island, looking for a Spoonbill, but never found one in the flesh so had to create my own.  The brown & blue batik fabric in the quilt was brought back from India, where I had the good fortune to buy it directly from the Mundra artist, Shakil Khatri, who designed it.  This was the 3rd quilt I made with his beautiful fabrics. Unfortunately, I sold the 1st one before getting it photographed.

Middle #2:  Amber's Marathon Quilt, 85 1/2" long x 72 1/2" wide.  This quilt contains only about 1/3 of all the winning T shirts won by my marathon running daughter.  Sewing stretchy jersey was a pain, as was the dot minky fabric backing.  To personalize the piece, I took photos on various trip to Seattle of Amber's awards and sewed those fabric photos into the quilt, along with various drawings I did of running shoes.  It came out a bit lopsided, so you can tell it is hand made!

Bottom #3:  Albion Bird in Window, 30 1/2 x 30 1/2.  Now that I'm taking a lot of photographs, my desire is to do something practical with them, such as printing them on fabric and sewing them into quilts.  This is one such example, having taking various photos of the windows in a shed in Albion.  I combined the photos then added an applique and embroidered bird before quilting the entire piece.  This is a new wall hanging format, rather than my traditional 'lounge on the couch' size.

Going to Kehoe Beach Digitally

Since I'm not at the beach today, I'll have to go there with this memory of Kehoe Beach last September.