Mosaic Monday: An Homage to Spring

I'm participating in Little Red House Mosaic Monday. You'll find wonderful collages and mosaics to inspire and delight.  Just click and be whisked away...

Of Textures, Barns, & Lilacs

Today is Tuesday and it's time to join the talents of other photographers at Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday, but I'm also joining the folks at Bluff Area Daily for Barn Charm.  Let's start with Texture Tuesday.  I so love textures of all kinds, the grungy, elegant, artistic, and of course vintage. I've always been drawn to the old and used, gently and hard.  It's the stories that I concoct about inanimate and animate objects that makes all those antique, vintage, retro and yesterday's stuff so appealing to me.  Whether it's a barn or a an old fame displaying lilacs, I'm intrigued and content.

Have you been fortunate enough to smell the heady fragrance of lilacs on spring breezes yet?  I'm blessed with an old lilac just out my window.  I can sit at the computer working and enjoy the elegant blossoms in every 'scents' of the word. (Bad pun intended)  How could my subject not be the lovely lilac this week?

 

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I'm linking up with Barn Charm on Bluff Area Daily  More barn beauty can be found at...





Want to read Tim Bowling's entire poem, Old Barns?  You can find it here.

Macro Monday

There's somethin' in the air and it's gettin' to me.  Itchy watery eyes, headache and general feeling of malaise has me running behind. Just a quickie this very late afternoon/early evening... a macro Monday offering.

Come join the Macro Monday fun at Lisa's Chaos

Texture Tuesday

I used two layers of Kim's texture, little things. The first layer set to set soft light with an opacity of  65% and the second layer set to multiply with an opacity at 65%, too.  When I use textures I want to see the texture so I tend to keep it stronger.  I like the grunginess of it. The brush is also from Kim Klassen.  It says a whole lot in a few words.

Did you know...when you want to change the color of a brush in Elements 10 just press Alt on a PC and the eyedropper comes up.  Click on a color in  your image and voila! your brush has a color to match your image. 

You'll find more little things in a big way at:

Looking Spring Up & Down

Once while on a walk my father-in-law, a rugged farmer and nature lover, he commented that he always looked up when walking in the woods while my mother-in-law always searched the ground for flowers. He looked up toward tree tops that held a mysterious beauty all their own.  He continued saying the woods was his sanctuary and it was here he found God, not within the four walls of a church. When I walk out my door these days I look up to find spring dressed in wedding white and....     

Even the small clusters clinging to heavily barked branches glow with pretty. 

The dogwood tree in the yard was a complete surprise.  Years ago I tried several times to grow dogwood trees, one pink and the other white.  Both trees died within the year and I never tried again.  When you stand beneath a dogwood and look up you can see layers of branches with the blood-tipped blossoms clinging tightly. 

Although I've been looking up quite a lot lately, it's a good idea to look down once in awhile and watch where you're stepping.

One more before I leave you...with all the serious business of living it's grand to have a reasons to smile so I must share this silly photo with you

Mosaic Monday & Daffodil Love

 I'm linking  up with Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday. Just click on the link you'll find more beauty to inspire and delight you. 

PS...the quote is by AA Milne

Yikes it's been busy!  Spring break, knee deep in puppy training, getting ready for guests this weekend, spring cleaning inside and out, and in a month my son will be visiting and I cannot wait to see him and his girlfriend.  Through all life's chaos coming to the blogosphere is a respite from the long To Do List.

  Really....it isn't that bad...honestly it isn't...  *sigh*

 We all needed a break so we went to the park

Have a wonderful spring day!

Texture Tuesday On a Spring Day

Hello my friends and welcome spring.  I'm a bit late in welcoming the gentlest season of the year, but better late than never as the saying goes. Last week was a stunner with temperatures in the 80s and glorious pink sunrises...

Yes, the sky was streaked with clouds as the sun cast a pink glow over my corner of the world.  I lived along this country road for over 20 years and passed this barn every time I headed west.  I don't know who lives there now, but I'm calling this the Boynton Barn in remembrance of the elderly couple that kept this farm in perfect order.  Here's another view of the sunrise.

 All of nature seemed to be on warp speed last week. Flowers bloomed, trees blossomed, and leaves burst green nearly overnight.

A pretty little farm cat that lives down the road sat in the evening sunshine peering at me while I photographed the magnolia tree in the yard, her spring green eyes echoing the color of the grass. 

And oh the magnolia....

stretching its twiggy arms to the sky praising spring and all the possibilities.

Per my usual Tuesday I'm linking up with Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday.  This weeks theme is all about pink and at least one of Kim's textures.

The top photo, Boynton's Barn: A layer of Kim's texture shine, a texture from French Kiss, and some fiddling with levels.

The second photo of the sunrise is pretty much SOOC except for cropping,  minor levels and hue/saturation adjustments.

I'm quite sure the blossoming tree in the side yard is a dogwood.  The dogwood photo processing began with a new layer set to soft light, opacity 67%.  Next came levels and hue/saturation adjustments.  A layer of Kim's texture, be still with a layer mask to remove the texture from the blossom followed by a layer of another KK texture called embrace finished the photo. 

The next photo I call cat eyes was simply processed with a few adjustments of levels, contrast/brightness, hue/saturation and of course, cropping.

The final photo looking up at the blooming magnolia was processed to create a soft spring aura.
After desaturating the photo, I used a Coffee Shop action: soft and dreamy and added two layers of Kim's embrace texture at 66% opacity and 100% opacity.  One layer of distressed jewell's texture 3 was added at 42% opacity. Finally, the text was added and there you have it.

Please stop by

and be amazed at the beauty of talented photographers everywhere! 

Has March been strange or what?  Here in sunny nw Ohio we're dabbling in 70 degree weather!  Most years we're longing for spring and watching for snowdrops and crocus...this year the world is all ready awake and turning green.

The trees are budding out.  Look closely...there's a riot of color in those catkins. No pastels or soft greens...

Orange, yellow, and... 

 bright reds cling to slender branches. 

Around the corner a cluster of buds nestle snug and safe within the arms of long thick leaves...

  hiding the sweet fragrance of hyacinths within tight buds. 

And then there's this...

The first daffodil blooming in the yard.  It's the first daffodil I've had blooming in a yard where I lived for quite some time and what a joy it is to see the lemon drop yellow trumpets heralding in spring.  

Daffodils were planted all around the house, so expect to see loads of daffy-down-dilly photos in the next few weeks.