Always Watching

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I created this quite a while ago, just trying to come up with contrasts, the way how I experience the world at the moment - colours vs. white..... nature vs. technical looking squares and circles.

The eyes just seemed so fitting, as I also feel that there is a lot of help everywhere, and someone, something, is always watching over me.... over everybody, actually.

Even though one tree is depleted of leaves, and the other is bending to the side - which are all parts of me - I feel very calm, balanced... and excitement (the yellow) is there too :-).

Leave Your Footprint in the Clouds

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I have been contemplating 'being an artist', and why I am creating these photos and what I want to achieve.... and the more I spend time on this, the more I realise that I do it because I feel so good when I have completed a piece of art.

There is no consideration of other people liking it or not, of it being art or not.... good or bad..... it's the feeling of achievement within myself that makes me start the next one.

"Footprints on the sands of time is kind of like leaving your mark in this world or society"

In opposite to that - leaving my footprint in the clouds, where the sun and the moon will see them.... not worrying about them becoming a 'mark in this world'.

My pieces of art have touched myself... while making them, and after completion.... they have fulfilled their purpose.
If they touch someone else.... wonderful.

I hear the smell of Beauty
I see the speed of Wind
I taste the Rays of Sunshine
... and I leave my footprint in the Clouds....




And then Sebastian posted the following quote on facebook a few days ago:

“To be an artist it is not necessary to make a living from our creations. Nor is it necessary to have work hanging in fine museums or the praise of critics . . . To be an artist it is necessary to live with our eyes wide open, to breathe in the colors of mountain and sky, to know the sound of leaves rustling, the smell of snow, the texture of bark . . . To be an artist is to notice every beautiful and tragic thing, to cry freely, to collect experience and shape it into forms that others can share.” — Jan Phillips

Entitled to...

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I feel such a lot of joy, excitement, playfulness in my life and wish for everybody to have the same. Life is so wonderful in it's small and great occurrences and we really either can allow ourselves to see and experience the greatness... or not.

More joy for the world.

Dare to be Colourful

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Ah, I just wanted to be really messy without getting my hands dirty.... I loooove colours and it can't ever be too colourful. Brushes, splashes, textures, blending... and and and... lots of fun, for sure :-)

Rose Buds

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Kiril's behaviour changes have upset me so much that I needed to use cat photos for a composition to calm down again.
Only after I had worked on the cats photos with the rose buds in between for quite a while, I realised how suitable the rose buds actually were..... So beautiful, but some thorns in between, ahhhh.......

evoL(o)ve

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I saw a short film that somehow showed for a second a photo of the word 'revolt' and how reading (r)evol(t) backwards it is "love".
This made me ponder about other worlds that have 'evol' in it..... like evolve and evolution.... and I just had to play around a bit with this in Photoshop. For no other reason than having fun.

The result shows a bit of 'evolution' in it - the winter tree without leaves on the left, the cracks on the left..... none of that on the right, but beautiful flowers. The butterflies flying from one side to the other are meant to show that there still is a connection... it's not one day this and next day that, there is a flow, with evolution as well as with love. Sometimes there is more change, sometimes less..... sometimes love shows itself clearly, and sometimes it's a bit hidden and has to be looked for or assumed.


The text on the back in from John Lennon:

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” 

― John Lennon

Translucent

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I found these flowers yesterday in the garden, hidden behind some large bushes and weeds. After I had trimmed everything away that was obstructing the view, the most beautiful flowers became visible..... (and invited themselves for some photoshop work :-)

Another attempt at the week 7 challenge, see previous post...

Miniature Garden - The Second

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These miniature gardens will become a calendar for my parents in 2015. So there will be 12 of them, or maybe 13, for a cover page.....

My mum and I had quite large differences in our opinions about the definition and treatment of weeds. Maybe she is going to change her mind once she's seen the new calendar :-) :-) :-)

This was done for the 7th weekly challenge of the photoshop artistry class.
We had to take one photo and just use small squares of it without showing the whole piece, but the small squares should still show the whole. And then each of the small pieces should get its own treatment... and the end result should still be pleasing....

Grounding

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This one is for Karen in Qatar - thoughts are electric, emotions are magnetic.

The trees and the metal rope are symbols for grounding, stability, balance - the colourful elements and swirl of energy are my reminder to be balanced in playfulness. I can look at life with some humour and allow ourselves to add some colours wherever an area seems to be too grey.

Remembering to set my grounding cords, to feel the energy and to see the light.....

Motor-Music

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Ah, here another one for Tim. (It's our 12th anniversary today, all those many years and years of great memories...)

I got such cool photos of the oily motor, and of course, the clutch above, that alone those would keep me busy for weeks.

The eye is from Cameron when he was maybe 5 or 6 years old :-)



Textures from http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenabem-anna - thank you very much!

Take Me Home

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This was created for the 6th weekly challenge of the Photoshop Artistry workshop. I found joy in the simplicity of elements (even though we had to use three different textures) and was really happy when I managed to just get a little bit of colour showing up in all areas.

The bird's path can be looked at from top down... it lands high up and then flies down and further down to look for its home, which it finds on the lowest level.
Or the other way around.... the bird knows it is not at home on that particular tree, even though it got fed there... and now it's on its way up to find its real home...
or maybe all of that is wrong, and I just made it up!

It's a bit like life. Everything can be looked at from different point of view, and depending on from where I look, my interpretation of the situation can be very different.

Isn't it just miraculous!

Steadfast

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I was pondering about stability and all the chaos that everywhere seems to happen and how to not only survive that, but also be happy and grateful.
The statue (Photo taken in Berlin/Germany) is very rigid and seems to try to hold things away from itself... and even though 'steadfast' while in the midst of the storm, it shows some little cracks everywhere, and it can be expected that one day it'll break.

We will need to become like bamboo in the wind - flexible and strong.....

Spiky

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Weekend Challenge 6... I worked all Saturday on this... just to find out that I couldn't apply the last one of the rules, bummer... :-)

But I liked what I got anyway, and that's it.
Back to trying the challenge again now...


This is for Barbara .... the spiky plant photo was taken in her house a few years ago, do you remember? I have been thinking of you sooo much during the last few days... looking forward to your visit soon!!!

The Many Faces of Beauty

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Every day I see so many beautiful things... it is completely impossible to get them all onto one canvas.... so I selected just a few.
Faces, young and old, animals from beloved pets to insects, flowers, beautiful hand writing, the feet of Spirit (the cat :-) ), fractals, snow, water, shells ... ah so many beautiful things in this world.

Wouldn't you think that everybody can be happy?


Here the text of the poem that I used as handwriting background:

Eyes tell, tell me, what you tell me,

Telling something all too sweet,

Making music out of beauty,

With a question hidden deep.

Still I think I know your meaning,

There behind your pupils’ brightness,

Love and truth are your heart’s lightness,

That, instead of its own gleaming,

Would so truly like to greet,

In a world of dullness, blindness,

One true look of human kindness,

Where two kindred spirits meet.

And since I’m lost, in what entrances,

Studying those mysteries,

Eyes, may you be drawn to see,

The intention in my glances!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Tim's Beddy

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Ah, what can I say. Tim's Bedford got taken apart at the weekend, and I have tons of photos to use....

But... this is also the 11th photo of the previous weekly challenge.
I had the composition very much done (I am talking about the inner picture only, not about the larger one).... when suddenly some corruption occurred and I wasn't able to modify the layers anymore, couldn't add any... spent a few hours to repair it, but no luck. Then I spent a few hours to recreate it, but somehow I just couldn't get it looking as I wanted it to.
So I gave up and went back to version 10, which eventually became the result for late week's weekend challenge (a real challenge in many ways, hahaha), I already had posted it here...

WAIT BEHIND THIS LINE

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Whenever I go to town with the train, I have to go over a little bridge and a white fence that stops me from falling into the little river ... while at the same time, somehow it is inviting to just jump in, not sure why. Then I arrive at the railway station and walk on the line where it says in bold letters - WAIT BEHIND THIS LINE.
More and more often I am wondering if I might be listening to instructions like that where they don't make sense..... where do I keep holding myself back, where do I stop myself from enjoying life to the fullest, allowing my grand potential to come out and show off... ? :-)

Those two scenes (the fence of the bridge and the train-station command) became the starting point of this composition.

The background certainly is another fractal...

There is so much 'out there', potentials, possibilities, challenges, unbelievables... a very different world. And what is it that keeps us waiting behind the line? It's just one more step :-)




And funny enough - when I was feeling completed with this, I went back to cleanup the photoshop image from unused layers, and by just switching on one single black layer under maybe 40 other layers.... I got a very different result, which I now like as well... it just proves that even in the night, all those possibilities are available :-) :-) :-)

Terracotta

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It's all about three days of agony over a piece of terracotta pipe... actually - over the photo of a piece of terracotta pipe that's sitting in our garden in front of a flax bush. I played with it in photoshop and decided that I wanted to do 'something' with it. Something for the weekly challenge of the Photoshop Art workshop.

I started 11 times altogether. (Well, the last one didn't contain the terracotta piece, and I really liked it.... but that's a story for another day.). I dreamt about it. I thought about it while doing my chores and while painting my garage/office walls. Obsession?



It's very obvious that this composition doesn't contain any terracotta pipe... but looking at the layers separately... haaaaaa.... THEN there is a terracotta piece somewhere in the middle, and when taking that out, all of the composition is just so different that it is unbelievable.

This shows once more that sometimes the little invisible things can make such a big difference :-)



This is the culprit...

Forkingeristic

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Funny how life goes sometimes - I keep looking at 'simple' objects and 'see' them in many different versions... kind of wondering why they look like thy look. For example, why is a pencil just straight, and exactly as long as it is, and how about making some changes and what would happen if.....

And while this has been going on in my head for a few days..... our weekend challenge was - to take a photo of a simple kitchen utensil and make art.
And that's how it came to 'forkingeristic' all objects on this composition, including the spirals, are parts of the fork that were somehow distorted - detailed explanations  are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heideho/10130684295/in/pool-fineartphotoshop/

And I had SUCH a lot of fun!!! :-)



And as it goes, again I wasn't sure about which version to use, as I liked another one as much... here it is:

We Made It!

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Today I am winning :-)

The portal that the rowers row through is actually a gate at Te Papa in Wellington, I like it so much with its colourfulness and crazy shapes and forms.

Cloudy Surprises

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Yesterday I felt as if a steam train had rolled over me.
It took me quite a while to see the sun, the birds and the flowers coming out of the clouds... to hear the music and find playfulness - just to discover that they all were there - patiently waiting for me to be noticed, appreciated, thanked for their existence...