Ode to Spring

I took these earlier in the year but never got around to posting them during the spring. Spring is so short in Colorado, but intensely pretty when it's lush and the sweet smelling flowers are all blooming...

52 Saturdays 2011- Spring Flowers

My Saturday photo from this weekend is the last shot of the beta PX680 polaroid film I have from The Impossible Project  .  Time to load up on more of this colorful film.

As always, you can see more of the fun Saturdays of 2011 flickr groups' photos here.  If you need a kick in the pants to take more of your own photos, it's a great group to join.

Cheers,
Andrea

Postage Stamps of the Week- Plants & More Plants

Blogging has been a bit spotty lately as I hit the end of my most difficult semester. It's been a quest of pure mental survival the last few weeks, but now I'm on break and things are looking good to graduate next year (approximately 18 years late!!).  Life is getting back to normal and I'm back to blogging, working on some mixed media pieces and a lot more photography. I'm also in the process of getting set up to try my hand at infrared photography which I'm really excited about.  I'll be spending my summer above treeline which should make for some great IR shooting opportunities.

So, we are back to regular feature 'postage stamps of the week' and in my attempt to woo spring back to Colorado, I thought I would post some plants & flowers today. These are from my smaller, well, plants and flowers stamp collection. The weather-guessers are guessing that we may get up to a foot of snow tomorrow, but I'm not bothered by it because I'll be thinking about these little guys....

Spring Flowers

Just a few of my favorite flowers from the garden on this sunny morning.

It's Spring Somewhere Already.... Here's Proof!

No, it really is spring somewhere and soon it will be spring here too.  I'm dying to plant flowers, find a beach to travel too and just laze around outdoors.  In the meantime, I torture myself with great photos from around the world like these and eagerly await my own blue, sunny days in Denver with flowers blooming in profusion.

These photos were all taken with Holga cameras and I'm especially excited for spring this year so that I can take my own new Holga out and explore the world with this new perspective.  I just love these shots that I found and wanted to share....

Sound of spring by Jeansman found here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeansman/

Daff and camelia by mccheek found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mccheek/453292808/

Spring explodes by kevin dooley found here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/2406318231/

Early spring #2 by noe** found here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/noe0712/381680406/

Early spring #1 by noe** found here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/noe0712/381680406/

Pool games are not a joke by chaps1 found here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_light_show/1318026271/

Chester the seaful by rhett maxwell found here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhettmaxwell/3642731112/

By graham bones found here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/grahambones/2747433084/

Holga misiones Flowers, Yaracuy, Venezuela by rahuldlucca found here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/rahul3/2178950545/

Flower by Shoichi Masuhara found here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/shoichimasuhara/3551753122/

Best Part of Spring?

All winter long my little yellow cruiser has been sitting out back patiently waiting for it's day in the sun.  Yesterday it was around 60 in Denver and we busted out the cruisers for a ride through Wash Park after stops at the library and coffee house. 

(Oh, and the best part about my hot yellow bike, which you can't see in the pictures, is that the tires have a flame design in them.  She's on fire!)

Summer days are almost here again!  So get off those computers and go out for a ride.

'Profusion of Blooms' is Finally Finished!

I've been working on ,and talking about, this piece for a couple of weeks now. I finally finished it this morning and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I was hoping to capture the colors of all the pink blooms that come out for such a short time in Denver each spring. Here's the finished piece:










I've posted a couple of earlier posts on this blogs (see below) on the process for putting this piece together. First I laid down the vegetation (green), then the sky (blue) and then the tree trunk and branches. These two pictures show what the piece looked like before I laid down the blooms.







I didn't take any pictures during the process of laying down the blooms, which took me several days. I laid down approximately 3 layers of blooms and then added just a few more until I had achieved the tree that I set out to create. There are more pics of the finished piece on my Etsy site here: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=23236467



My next project is going to be something a little different. Stay tuned for updates later this week....



Cheers,
Andrea at Studio 6

Almost an art disaster...

I very nearly ruined my latest piece. Luckily, it's small, because I was experimenting with a new technique, so it wouldn't have been a huge disaster to have to throw it away, but I would have been bummed.



I've been experimenting with acrylic. I have been using stamps of one or two colors for my backgrounds, as in the two pieces below, but as you can see , the backgrounds get noisy sometimes. I like them for their colorfulness and the backgrounds are interesting if you take a close look, because of course I think most stamps are interesting, but sometimes the stamp backgrounds drown out my message.

Which is why I've been experimenting with painted backgrounds. They definitely make my pictures pop out more, though to me these backgrounds are a little less interesting. But the paint is really difficult to adhere the stamps to. They slip and slide all around, frequently become crooked and have to be completely reworked- it takes a lot more time to build on the paint background than on a background made of stamps.

Today I tried sealing the paint first, with varnish, before laying my picture down on the black paint, but the varnish and the adhesive had some weird chemical reaction and all of my yellow stamps looked gray from smudges of paint! Very disappointing- especially because yellow stamps are incredibly hard to find- countries just don't make many yellow stamps for some reason. Luckily, I was able to take the whole picture off, repaint the canvas and rebuild another yellow house. I actually like this one a little better than the first one, so I suppose it all worked out.

Here's my latest miniature canvas 'Spring House':

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=22466370

Andrea at Studio6