Indoor Stuff/Creativity/Play

Generally around this time of year, I get stuck inside not because of bad weather, but because I am tired of the scenery outdoors.

I get weary of the same black/brown/white scenery that is being offered up outside and in the woods.

So I get out my craft stuff and start making a mess. I am all over the place. I can be painting a skull or thinking about photographing Still Life. The table can be littered with various paints, my 'craft' table has projects and 'stuff' all over it.

However, I am getting better and not leaving a mess in the house all of the time. I don't like clutter, so by the end of the day, I generally tidy up and put things away. The house is too tiny to clutter up all the surfaces.

I started messing around with the white skull. It looked nice in all white, but I wanted to add shades of silver and grey. The pearl white showed up very nice and the black looked out of place. 

Hubby liked the black on the skull and asked for more of it. In the photo below, the various shades of grey and white do show up. I turned the light box on its side and used a white tea towel. I kept moving things around...

I ended up using masking tape to attach the tea towel to the sides of the box.

--- of course, Farmer Bob was very helpful in taking care of things....

The towel experiment didn't work out so well so I went back to the basic white plastic back drop.

Hmmm. This sort of sucked too. However, there is always a possibility of a little editing to help out. I used ON1 and made the shot into more of a High Key shot which eliminated the box edges.

The result was satisfactory, so I went on to experiment with a tiny pitcher I'd picked up ages ago at an indoor flea market. 

the set up...

the shot...

the edit...

I actually liked the slight textures from the towel in this shot. It felt right. Of course, I should have had something else in the shot, but I was just experimenting with light and exposure.

I experimented with different lights and different ways to diffuse or soften the light. I wanted to use things that I had on hand. Below is a flashlight with an amber pill bottle as a diffuser, a plastic cap on another light, and even bubble wrap!

Rich walked by and just shook his head. 

However, before it got too bright out, I decided to see what the purple light and bubble wrap over the flashlight would do.

Purple light in back, flashlight in my hand from
the right.

What it looked like with the curtains opened and taken with my very crappy cell phone:

And now I have to deal with this...
somebody wants to get out and explore....

You can't use up creativity

the more you have

the more you use...

Maya Angelou

Rain! Heat ...Stuck inside.

Maybe my heart is in creativity in all shapes and forms.

I am not talented in drawing or painting. However I can make excellent stick figures and cartoonish figures.

Cartoon I did for Mules and More Magazine years ago. See? I can draw a line!

I read some articles debating the use of AI Art and some other articles which discussed the positive uses for AI in doing graphic art and commercial art. 

I've experimented so far with two AI generators. NightCafe and wombo. Both are free, both can be done from your computer or your smartphone. 

These are the simple AI art things a person can do.

I like to delve even further into the realm of 'interesting-ness'. I admit. It can be ho-hum and sort of pretty in a strange way. But since I was stuck with evading the heat and humidity, I thought I'd dabble in another form of abstract art. 

I went on a Horse kick and got this:

I mean most of this looks pretty and abstract. So I decided to get creative.

I combined two 'creations' from a photo of my favorite box elder tree in the winter.

I typed in Tree Ents for one image and Tree Ents with cottages for the second image using the above tree as a base image.

I combined the two to create my own mystical Tree Cottage.

It looks like some strange house straight out of a story like the Hobbit.

I can see where an AI application like this could be used to create a book cover, an album cover, or even perhaps a poster. [Each of the sites do offer prints for a pretty nice price and offer a way to sell your artwork as an NFT.] 

I could see this as a book cover!

I really wanted to create something with a horse in it so I went over to Nightcafe and started experimenting.

This looked like freaky flying horses with red farts.

It was not something I wished to work with. The one below looked vaguely like Wrath Horses stuck in a Swamp of Sorrow. 

The one below involved the words: Horses, clouds, angels, wings, 

...and something strangely creepy, but it held my attention with a ... 

This IS It!

I wanted something more dark and strange.

This was the original.

Here is the final edit.

I stopped right here because this exemplified what I thought was the definition of 

a

Nightmare.

Okay, this is not for everyone at all. I mean it has a certain scary awful dystopian feel to it. It is dark and a bit frightening.

I like scary movies though and this really resonated with me. It was all created with just words and then run through Artificial Intelligence and a Neural Network.

Let's end on some happy and cheery doodles.

Steam Punk Flowers and Clouds

What the dashboard of creation looks like:

Tropical Beach Cheerful Lifeforms...
I don't see the life forms, but at least it is cheerful and in the rather fantastical and weird style of Kincaid paintings. The colors are pretty, but I don't see any beach!

The Happy Table

 

I was given this table by the neighbors as they said it would be too hard to fix it and refinish it. I knew it would become a future project some day so I stuck in in between two pine trees and used it as a shade plant base for begonias.

This year I pulled it out and noted that it was basically falling apart. I nailed pieces of wood to it from the underside to try and make it stable enough to use. 

It wouldn't become a house table. I don't have enough room. If the bottom of the legs were too rotten, I'd simply cut them off. 

I'm a terrible planner. I just started to pick colors that appealed to me and went for it. The legs had to be dressed up with bright colors. The mood is to be Happy. 

I found a butterfly sticker that looked neat and stuck it on one leg. I may do another one or not. The table is to be a discovery of sights, not something that is the same. 

I thought long and hard about the top. At first I thought of painting the top sections of wood in different wild colors. Then I took some mild green paint that is meant for porch floors and spread it on the top.

What about stickers?

I found some old neat stickers I hadn't used on other projects and laid them out.

The sticker idea was cool. But I didn't have enough of the silhouettes to achieve what I wanted.

How about tracing them? I started to trace the birds because I suck at drawing them. But then I went freehand for the branches. Why not have silhouettes of branches and birds all over the surface?

I could hand paint them black or whatever colors I choose and then run some whitewash over it to add texture and interest. 

Besides, I want this project to last a while. I am in no hurry to finish it.

Hubby says I am ruining the table. I retort that the table is falling apart and I've nailed it together making it completely worthless to anyone. 

I remind him of the Happy Chair I did for my mother years ago and how she absolutely loved it and used it to display her stuffed donkey dolls in her living room.

Below is a table and chairs I put together as a 'coffee' table for the porch. The chairs were excellent garage sale finds. I've left both of these chairs out on the porch and now they have a unique weathering to add character to my sitting area.

This chair now holds one of my newer Not Fairy Gardens I made with

and old pie tin I found in the shed. The spool

holds the little grill and the patchwork table top 

is still my most favorite piece of work.
I would love to find a little base for

it to sit on in the house.

I'm in the mood to pick up another chair and take the worn out ones and place them in gardens. I have a thing about chairs. 

I have two nice heavy stout ones in the house that are begging to be worked on. I discovered some neat old chairs in LaFarge  that I drive by on the way to KVR. Hmmm. It is a junk place that has some neat old beat up chairs that look stout. I may have to put one in the back of my Subaru one of these trips!

But first? 

More work on the Happy Table.

It makes me smile.

The table will also provide me with a nice place to do Still Life photography with flowers this summer.

Just give me colors and the freedom to paint wildly and my life brightens exponentially.

Solstice HOT

 

Here we are at the summer Solstice. I try like heck to get out each 'event' of the year and try like heck to take a photo of the sunrise at least.

Over the years I've had lots of fond memories of things done with others on the Solstice nights. At times, I've gone with neighbors and children to a spot on the ridge where we lit Chinese Lanterns to celebrate the end of the day.

Other times I've had friends stay and we've delighted in hiking in the forest with the magic of fireflies around us.

At 4:13 AM CDT, I stood on the ridge and celebrated the midsummer morning. I am weird right? 

That's fine, I can live with weird.

I'm going to borrow a quote from James Norbury's book Big Panda and Tiny Dragon:
'I wish this moment would last forever' said Tiny Dragon
'This moment is all there is' said Big Panda.

[I've always wanted to do this-- 👆 -- I did use a little

creative leeway btw. But it turned out cool.]

I had to share this moment with myself but still, it was peaceful and awesome. Even the pesky gnats agreed as they tried to feed off from me.

I went home and rinsed out the smaller stock tanks and gave everyone fresh cool water.

By 7AM, my friend Molly came to our house on foot rather upset. Her very elderly dog had disappeared. I calmed her down with some coffee on the porch and then we set out in the 'Ru to notify all the ridge neighbors who don't have cell phones or internet. All the farmers reported back to me after they'd done haying all day with no reports of sighting the aged dog. 

Charlie and I spent some time on our porch working on the old table.

I just grab colors that appeal to me and add them here and there. We will see if it is a disaster or it ends up neat. I have an idea for the top of the table, but haven't figured out how to get it done quite yet.

By late afternoon, we retreated indoors.

I stayed up to watch the sunset and for the fireflies to appear.

I think tonight [Wednesday] seems like a good night to go out and photograph the Milky Way and Fireflies, depending on the skies.

The art of play?

 A friend of mine just commented that I am Nuts, but in a good way. He is a retired IT Guy. He cannot quite understand my world of play. 

My father was a very creative and imaginative soul. My mother is also. Both were master story tellers. Dad's creativity is well known in the commercial world of the 60's and 70's. 

My husband shakes his head at me when he sees me 'messing' around with my toys. 

Some people distract themselves with other things. I like photography and I am a fan of that little strange niche of  Toy Photography. It is engaging and fun. It is similar to doing Still Life and Fine Art but with an imaginative twist.

Saturday was a play day. I painted my dollhouse furniture that came colored in Pink. Pink for mini wood creatures? Nah. 

I did keep some bright colors for my these pieces. These little wooden figures came to us in the mail from one of my childhood friends.
She sent me her childhood collection of wooden 'zoo' critters.

Of course the donkey would love that toilet!

This summer I complained about this big old trunk that I moved out of the living room and set in an unused spot in the kitchen/dining area. I put some boards on it so I could use it as a folding table, but somehow, it has morphed into a play area.

Oh wait. No, it is a decoration area. See? See the Fall sign and the leaves?

Even Groot had to get in on the things! I purchased the wooden mushrooms at the Farmer's Market. They just go along with my critters so nicely. 

Then I had a lightbulb moment. Last year BJ sent me some Halloween windup toys. Crazy and fun little things. I couldn't use some of the toys unless it was really near Halloween.

So...with a bit of help from Charlie, I set the toys up on the floor in the living room.

Charlie was fascinated by the little witch who walked and wobbled when wound up. He was startled by the teeth that clacked. Rich and Charlie were quite entertained.

I decided to try just a plain white board for the back round. Other wise you'd see the door to our bedroom and the concentrator.

That was a bleh photo and not interesting. 

So, I tried a composite using ON1's Sky Swap just for kicks.

This rocks! 

This was a fun experiment. 

I can add my own photos to Sky Swap. The possibilities then become 

boundless for doing some interesting composite Still Life work.

Just think if I'd added smoke and fog in the foreground!

Brewwww hahahahah.....