Art

So I was in the mood for a blog post today, but not up for processing the remaining photos from my Cades Cove trip last weekend. So I started with pulling together these actual art pieces made at the office last year. And yes, my job paid to bring someone in for us to make this art in early 2009. It was fun. And happy workers do better work, right? So why not.

This first piece is actually my least favorite of the three I made, but for whatever this is the one that the art guy chose to frame and that still hangs in the Nashville office.

This piece is one I really and would have been the one that I would have chosen to frame and post in the office if it was my choice.

And this piece is actually my favorite, but I can see where it can be viewed as not right for the office.

So after pulling those together, I wanted something new and original for this post, so I decided to make a digital art piece.  I used three Apophysis randomly generated fractals and then played with them in Photoshop.

Here it is on a mousepad on Zazzle.

Heart Vortex by DigitialCreations
Make a custom mouse pad at zazzle.

I think it works particularly well on the mousepad.

I hope you all have a good Sunday.  I'm off to take the mom to satisfy a Kingdom Heirs craving.  Unlike church, Dollywood has a wheelchair rental available so she won't have to walk.  Just as a reminder, any and all prayers appreciated for her this Wednesday when we go to the hospital so they can figure out what to do about her blocked artery.

Cades Cove Part 2: A Deer

So it's taken me a few days to get the photos ready in a way that I liked and wanted to present them.  But I am really happy with the final results.  All of these photos are of the same deer.  She was happily eating her late lunch the whole time I and many others watched and took pictures.

Click on image to view full size

Click on image to view full size.

 If you look at the full size image of the collage above, you will notice something on her eye.  It seems to be some kind of strings that are stuck on her eyelashes.  That's actually the reason I went with the collage instead of just the bottom left photo.  The strings look like something wrong with the photo, but it was just something on the deer.  But I ended up really liking the collage of three photos.

Click on image to view full size.

So the last part of this Cades Coves series post will have a bear (assuming I can get one of the photos to a satisfactory state) and butterflies.

Cades Cove Part 1

So I decided to break my visit to Cades Cove on Sunday up into multiple posts. Since it took me a few hours to fix up just two of the photos, I realized if I waited until I had them all ready then it would be next Sunday before I posted any.

One of the fun things about the drive to and in Cades Cove was that the butterflies were out in force. I saw a bunch of Swallowtail butterflies while driving. Unfortunately while stopped with my camera, there never seemed to be any around. So the first two pictures were actually when I stopped after a black bear had run across the road in front of me. I was hoping he would still be sight-able in the woods, but, all I saw were some deer. And the photos of them did not turn out well enough to do anything with.

However on the way back to the car, I saw these flowers.

Remember to click on images to view full size.

I then took a second picture of part of the same bunch of flowers from a different angle. When I looked at it on the view finder, I didn't really think it turned out. But I usually don't delete anything until I get onto the computer and look at it full size. When I zoomed in one this one, I was quite pleased with what I found.

Remember to click on images to view full size

 I truly was surprised when I viewed the photo at 100% and saw the butterfly. I was hoping to get a nice crop with just one flower, but was more than pleased with the final view I found.

Well there will be more to come...up next some nice deer photos...

Happy Birthday Dad!