1st of April are we fooled?

I think March can be as tough as November because we are in that in between stage where we are dealing with some rather drab colors in nature. 

And now we move to April which begins the real season of spring surprises.

But for now? I take the ugly parts of the day and do that never ending job of cleaning up what I didn't take care of in the fall.
I looked back on what I've done in the past few years in March and it is the same fight. Clean up burdock, Motherwort, pile, burn, rake up as many seeds from the sour dock and do the same. 
Hack down elderberry tree sprouts -- more come up from suckers... and generally clean areas up so I don't have equine full of burs when I can start rotating them.

One of the spots that I didn't work on last year proved to be extra nasty come this past fall.

If I had a herd of goats and proper fencing, I'd send them through here a few times a year and let them clean up the nasty weeds.

The Dexter cattle did a good job at that. But we had too many and we all know what overgrazing does to the land.

Charlie and I worked on this one little spot. Well, Charlie supervised, I worked.

I make small piles and wait for an early morning without wind then burn the small brush piles.

Just to the right of where this photo was taken the Buckthorn woods start. The only thing that will rid me of those nasty trees is a bulldozer, then forestry planting and a lot of work bringing the forest back to its glory days. 

This section is only about an acre or so, but it is on a steep hill.

Face it. It is wild.

I have one thought on it. If I were to invest in doing all of that, I'd never live to see the benefit. One more thing to leave to the next generation of owners after I am gone.

I have to admit defeat and let that area go. I am only one person who has no business operating heavy machinery or chainsaws. I don't have the time nor the energy. I feel like I am failing as a steward for my land.

I obsess about it each year. However, I've decided to fix fencing and enjoy my property and all it has to offer. 

I will pick my battles.

This year I have one less grazing animal. Three of our equine are over 25 years old. So it is mostly retirement time for them.

My neighbor is a forester and I am looking forward to a tour of our land with him [and his wife]. 

I'll keep trails open and mark the best places to gather eatable mushrooms, dig parsnip roots, pick berries, and enjoy the beauty of nature.

This is a mental battle I do each spring with good meaning and ideas.

As soon as the wildflowers start though, I feel good again.

Right now? It is snowing and coming down hard. 

Sven thinks it is just fine.

As daylight seeps into the grey morning here, I am putting on my coveralls and heading out to enjoy Mother Nature's Joke on us.

Last night over an inch of rain. This morning, heavy snowfall. Tomorrow? Looks like a beautiful day.

I'll take it!

Play time

My tomatoes are simmering, and all the outdoor work is done. Thank goodness I found some movies for the other half to enjoy while I have some time making things up and learning about this A.I. Stuff.

In my opinion, A.I art is interesting and I am curious as to where it will go. I really love the experience of going out and creating a mood with a photograph. So I am not saying it can take over the feeling of actually going out with a camera and creating a scene.

However, with the AI art, it is fun to type something up and insert it into the "Neural Engine" and see what appears.

Pennywise the Clown as an Octopus:

What love looks like:

[This reminds me of the profile of The Little Prince in the movie made in 1974, not the new movie.]

I swapped over to another program called Nightcafe. It uses 3 different methods of AI all of text based.

Knowing art styles is pretty helpful. I think I used 

Indigenous Native, full moon, clouds, epic sky the last one

as my prompt. This result was a surprise. I liked it in an abstract way. 

With all AI, there is a very steep learning curve and a lot of Geek Talk that I will never ever figure out. People discuss using 'servers' and what not.

I just stick with the basics and learn the language for making things up.

I'm not even sure what I used here, but it included futuristic, horror, moon and stones.

Talking of horrors! The sprayer on the sink wouldn't turn off! I didn't know how to fix it but went to bed dreaming of a sink that would attack me with water. I let that worry me until I fell asleep. I was sort of put out because I just got that set up in April!

But for fun I put this in the text:

Madness of a sink blowing colored bubbles.

The texts don't even have to make sense. 

Wait When Are Humans Going To Ask Me To Do A Drawing So I Can Demonstrate My Ability To Laugh monsters, witches, bats, and crows detailed matte painting 8k resolution holographic astral cosmic illustration mixed media by Pablo Amaringo

The image sure doesn't make much sense at all but I liked it anyway. I can see a hooded figure, a fly, misty stuff, maybe something electrical and it is moody.

I edited the text to read 

 

Skull in a cave with  monsters, witches, bats, and crows detailed matte painting 8k resolution holographic astral cosmic illustration mixed media by Pablo Amaringo street art

I was insanely surprised at the moody dark and kind of scary scene it gave me. It felt like I was going over to the dark side.

Some of the creations are pretty. Just that, nice and pretty.

Fall as I see it in my mind but never in reality.

There is something addicting to be able to 'create' images from words and then watch something appear on the screen before your eyes.

I've worked with Fractal Flames and Mandelbulb 3D works and experienced the fun of watching what transpires as a person uses different colors and formulas.

So while I have some time to myself, I thought I'd explore this new wave of art. It is fun and I don't know how it will fit in with other forms of art in the future, or how it will affect photographers and other artists.

It is fun, and I am enjoying it.

Oh...

And I fixed the sprayer! I watched a YouTube video on how to take apart a Moen sprayer and clean its guts to make it work right.

Yippee to me!

No more gushing water to dream about.

Exploring AI Art

AI in photography? Nonsense, right?
Well, I couldn't resist trying a program that allowed you to type in words and add a photo of your own, then pick a style using wombo ai art. I'd read about it from a review on new AI art which was pondering the relevance or non relevance of new ways of creating art. 

Is it real art? Is it not real art?

The consensus in a way is that it is not 'old' art in a sense but a new kind of art. 

I'm ambivalent regarding that. My conclusion is using AI as a means to an end can be art as long as the 'artist' is in control of manipulating the final piece.

I'm one that has explored computer generated art in the past and enjoyed using it. 

So....

Here is the original photo I used.

I typed in Scary, End of the World, and picked the Malevolent Style.

I didn't expect I'd really get anything I'd like. After all AI isn't really quite art or is it?

The result:

I sort of liked it in an abstract way. But felt I could improve on it tremendously if I used some magical editing skills.

Crop/Resize/a bit of punch added and this was the result:

Still neat but not quite there. It needed something to tell more of a story and create a feeling.

I put it in DxO's Analog app and gave it some minor adjustments and a partial 'dirt' texture.

Clearly, my Grand daughter who is a gamer, would appreciate the final result. Dystopian, end of the world, creatur-ish, scary, out of the world...strange.

I stopped there because it struck me with the emotion of slight discomfort. 
Perfect.

I thought I'd try another one. I uploaded this with the key words: Forest Love and picked the Arcane setting.

Edit:

I tried an edit with a double exposure using the very same photo at the start of this blog. 

It's okay but I can think of better shots to use. 

This was an experiment in using DxO's analog double exposure edit which allows you to do this effect easily. 

It works quite well.

I couldn't leave well enough alone so I wondered what would happen when I used this shot:

This one was a bit too gloomy, but the result from the text I typed in was interesting. Instead of a forest, it looks like a city on doomsday.

I upped the 'influence' of the original image and got this which ended up looking like a painting with subtle tones.

It is sort of addicting to type things in and see what happens. The end result isn't always wonderful, but it is fun to see what happens.

Yeah.

You can tell that yesterday was hot, muggy, and awful! I spent the late afternoon inside mucking around with ideas and art exploration. 

Too dang uncomfortable outside.

Get funky!

I thought I'd revisit some fun and odd looking 'art' generated by Deep Dream Generator. It has been argued that it is NOT art as it uses Artificial Intelligence to merge a pattern into your photo.

At first I had no clue of what I was doing. Some of the generations turned out simply awful and made no sense. 

Then as I experimented and looked at what others were doing and how they were using patterns,...it started to slightly click...just a bit.

Still.

You can end up with nonsense or something quite beautiful.

Original [actually I added a texture in DxOElite with this photo]

Um. Teddy Bear run through a painting texture and then another colorful texture then combined into this final image.

Original:

Next some just for fun. I don't recall what the originals were.

I really do enjoy doing this as a wonderful distraction to all the other things going on.

I posted an album of these on Facebook and it was shared --- another person asked where I 'sold' them.

Nah, I don't sell them. Selling items are so much work!

However, I will probably put them in an 'art' book in print just to keep around and page through occasionally. I have an idea or two also that I might see if I can print this following image to hang on the wall. I think it is so uplifting.

It feels so happy!

I think I will finally get serious on finishing up my photo book I was going to call The Creek. I've been photographing it for a few years to sort of see how it changed through the seasons and with flash floods.

It will be like my other two self made books 

The Enchanted Forest

and...

The Sleeping Forest

I have quite a few files to back up now and save along with some thoughts to get written down.

I'm thinking of creating a few designs with winter scenes for Christmas Cards.

It appears that with being so Isolated, it may be a good thing to sit down and write out many cards?

At least I could have fun designing them.

Get Funky.

Have a good week and stay well.

Stuck inside

Being stuck inside is always a bit of a bummer.

But then sometimes I get out somethings and do some painting, or some still life...
Or
Toys and do some photography.

It can be nice and serious stuff.

It can be whimsical...

Or completely made up stuff that I've messed around with adding layers...

Or some fractal edits and creations...

Or, I can edit through a program called DeepDreamGenerator...DDG and get some more odd and interesting 'art'.

Strange...

Frightening...

Angelic...

Or go back to using things around the house such as discarded toys and old tea cups...

Whimsical...

Cute...

And...things on hand.

I hope not to be stuck inside too long today. Charlie has a yearning to go for a walk.
At the moment, he is content to lay on the porch and watch the world go by.