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Here on Long Island we've had nothing but hot sunny days for over a week now - sheer bliss! I am not sure what the next few days will herald as Hurricane Earl barrels up the coast. I guess we will just have to sit tight and wait and see!
In the meantime there's a little photo mojo from the weekend .......
...and of course, the latest in the "Lady" series ...
...Stay dry and safe!
Another new addition to the series of "Ladies" that I have been working on.
This one reminds me of a young girl, tripping home quietly (the back way) after a late night and dawn's first breath on the marshes.
Thanks to Aurora Dreams for the stock image.
As you might imagine, the walls in our house are full of artwork. Not all of it mine as both DH and I have a fair appreciation for the creative efforts of others and like to support those we like. Recently though I spied some of the stuff we have hanging around the house and decided that it was time to update! The walls serve as a nice testament to the change in my creative process but frankly some of the things we have up there now are more of an embarrassment than eye candy!
So last week, in a flurry of creativity and a monster urge to use my big printer I cooked up these three pieces. They are mixed media & digital creations printed on fine art canvas 24"x24". I then put together some gallery wrap stretcher frames and pulled the canvas across to a finished size of 18"x18" and I'm quite liking the result.
So out with the old, in with the new, and may the creative urge continue!
This past weekend DH and I traveled all the way to Slovakia to attend the wedding of one of his good friends. It was a wonderful adventure, flying to Frankfurt, then to Poland and taking a bus for 2 more hours to reach the little town of Tatranska Lomnica, way up in the mountains.
It was a picture perfect day with a beautiful bride, a happy groom and lots of guests who had come from all over the world to help the couple celebrate. In true Slovak tradition, the hospitality was great, much was drunk, hours of dancing and I think it will take me a week to recover from quite a wonderful weekend.
Needless to say, in between the various dinners and celebrations that went on, we had a chance to "take the mountain air"! Our hotel, Grand Praha, built at the beginning of the 1900's has weathered time and the advent of electricity and the internet very well, has a wonderful view from half way up the mountain and was quite the idyllic retreat - one that I'd love to visit again.
Even though the US dollar is rather weak against the Euro, it did not seem to matter as everything in this part of the world seemed be so much less expensive. The food was superb, service always came with a smile (as there was very little English being spoken) and the fresh air and blue skies just sublime.
So, congratulations again to the happy couple and thanks for the invitation - it was a blast :-)
It's hard to believe that the days are drawing closer and soon the warm and sunny days will be behind us. It's not a thought I cherish as I'm definitely a warm weather person, and would prefer 90+F to anything much less.
Heat or chill though, I am always in favour of a road trip with my Camera! Last weekend we headed into New York City, this weekend we hit the road and headed to the North Fork of Long Island. I happily admit that it's my favourite part of Long Island. A little further away than the Hamptons but I think it's much prettier, more rural and less cluttered with holiday makers and the City's wannabees! There are lots of farms, vineyards and tiny beaches and plenty of things to see.
We topped our day off with dinner in Greenport at a place called Scrimshaws. I'm pleased to report that it was a stellar experience topped off with a great bottle of red from Bedell's, a local winery.
Sunshine, good food, great wine, a table at the water's edge and wonderful company, it does not get much better than that - I am just keeping my fingers crossed for an Indian Summer!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, many plants in my garden have been well and truly munched on this year and in deference to the many "useful" bugs that come to visit and my large four-pawed furry family, I am loathe to spray insecticide anywhere!
This means my usual crop of perfect blossom pictures is somewhat lacking. But thanks to a little tweaking in Photoshop I can still contrive an image that is pleasing (at least to me) even if it's just of half eaten blooms!
The "before" shot is up top. Straight out of the camera and not too appealing. The "artsy" version is below - after importing the image into Camera Raw, tweaking here and there, back into Photoshop and layering a few times with different blending modes and then the addition of one of my new photo textures.
I like the end result, but I'm biased. What do you think?
One of the things I love about Northern Summers is the plethora of Cone Flowers (Echinacea purpurea)that adorn my garden. I fell in love with them when I first lived in Delaware some 8 years ago and the relationship has not dimmed. Sadly this year something seems to be "munching" on them in a serious way, but because we also seem to have a lot of BEES in the garden this year I am loathe to spray to kill the hungry critters. A gardening dilemma for sure! However, this case, the Bees win!
In between snapping happy pics of pre-munched flowers and taking care of my Digital Magic Class 2 students I have been beavering away behind the scenes, working on more digital projects, artwork for exhibitions and putting together some new and cool digital brushes, textures and overlays that are part of "another" project that I hope to unveil soon!
Nothing like a laid back Summer with PLENTY to do!
OH and don't forget I will be teaching at Art N Soul in Portland in October. If you are planning on being up that way I suggest you take a look at the class line up, it's pretty awesome!
We took to the LIE toady in search of a little photo fodder in the big City - continuing the obsession with snapping pictures of stuff at Flea Markets, instead of buying more things we do not need! And we were not disappointed. First stop was Hell's Kitchen Flea Market down at 39th and 9th Ave. A positive wealth of eye candy but a number of vendors who were really quite unpleasant about the taking of photographs! Shame! Next stop was Green Flea up on Columbus and 77th where the photo mojo continued.
All in all I garnered a couple of hundred snaps that may or may not prove to be of earth shattering consequence but the sunshine and walking was delightful, regardless.
On the way home we decided to stop off for a nibble and drink and after much deliberation and Urban Spooning on the iGadget decided to head to 230 Fifth, one of New York's most well know roof top bars. We arrived at 4:30 and were promptly seated and presented with a Breakfast/Brunch menu - at 4:30??
"Yes" said the waiter - "We serve Brunch till 5pm on the weekend"
We proceeded to peruse the menu and after a while I looked at DH and said "it's too late for waffles and eggs, lets ask them for the dinner menu"
An extremely thin, black clad lass was busy nearby distributing slim red menus onto all the nearby tables so I asked if we could have one. Right at the top of the menu it said 4pm to 4am dinner menu.
So...I said to said to thin black clad lass, "can we order off this menu?"
"No", she said in some vaguely north eastern European accent - with an apparent attendant snotty glare.
"Why not?" I asked "It says here 4pm menu?"
"Because it's the veekend and ve serve brunch until 5 o'clock"
"But.." says me...."it does not say that on the menu, it says 4pm"
"You havf to vait" she says...
"Wait? why do we have to wait 15 minutes? Surely you can take the order and then at 5pm they can just cook it?"
"No" she says .........and blah blah blah we go through the whole mind numbing routine again.
Eventually the Manager comes across to our table.
"Some problem here I presume" he says
And we go through the whole rigmarole again;
And "Oh by the way, I'll be writing a review of your restaurant on my blog"
"Well then" he say's "show me your press credentials"
"I don't have any" I say, "I write for my own private blog, and does it matter?"
He huffs and puffs and explains his Breakfast Schedule one more time - in case I had not understood it the first and second time, by which it's 10 minutes until 5 o'clock at which point I just say to him...
"Can you not just take our order and perhaps hide it in a dark corner for the next 7 minutes until it's really 5pm and you can get the kitchen to cook it?"
Odd thought which he contemplates for another minute or two and eventually says "OK, I will take your order and do my best"
"Really? Thank you!"
Amazingly, the food arrived about 4 minutes later, despite the fact that the kitchen apparently underwent massive changes between 4:59 and 5:00.
Neither our initial waiter nor the seemingly aloof and snarky girl would have anything further to do with us.
I guess we had crossed the boundaries of customer subservience.
Would I go there again? Maybe... the location was great, the food, when it came was nice but I am done to death with supercilious waitstaff who expect to be tipped for the pleasure of treating their customers in such a laissez faire manner.
