Projector!

For Maggie's graduation (back in May), we had a Dr. Seuss themed party for her.  Oh, The Places You'll Go was the most relevant book so we focused on that.  Mom wanted to make something from the cover of the book with Maggie in the balloon, so I decided to paint something for her.  Jessica bought me an awesome projector and this was my first painting with it.  The projector is AWESOME!

I painted the castle and the ground but I printed, cut, and glued the small balloons on.  The big balloon was made from construction paper and a black Sharpie.  And Maggie, of course, was printed from a picture I took of her at her junior prom.  And, from that, came the masterpiece that you see now.  :)

 Chelsea

Gettin creative

 Because of all the goodies I received from Christmas (photoshop, lenses, filters, books...)  I have really been trying to brush up on my photography skills.  What I have tried to focus on mostly is shooting manually.  Why have a camera like this and not take full advantage, right?

I have really been focusing in the f-stop, which in my words, is a way to focus more on one area, while other areas that are near are blurred.  For example, if I had not changed the f-stop manually, the picture of the paint brushes would be focused on the brushes, water, and cup.

Again (although I need more practice on moving subjects) Jules' ear is blurry while her eye is not because I manually changed the f-stop, or aperture.

And here is just a picture I painted.  The background is a two-tone type of technique I tried.  First, I painted purple on the blank canvas.  On top of the purple, I painted green.  Then, I laid a paper towel with a neat texture on top of the canvas, and then pulled it off which exposed the purple underneath with the neat pattern intact.   Although it is much easier to see the texture in real life, it looks very neat.  Enjoy!