Although I do not usually chitchat about weather, I have to say that the rainy weather has been a touch ridiculous. Out of the past three weeks there have been 3 partial-days of sun. This is not Seattle, so I have come to expect a little more warm and sunny spring/summer weather during the month of June. As a result, my yard has been getting out of hand and the wisteria has begun an aggressive creep into the neighbor's yard (yes, I do know that this is the worst of the non-native plants to put in your garden, but I absolutely love the spring blooms and I usually keep it pruned back). My garden has been the source of many reference photographs for drawings, and I use a very low-end digital camera to photograph plants, bugs, and rocks. I have discovered that it actually makes very nice macro shots and with a little practice I can really push the quality of the photos. This is not like a digital SLR where I can manipulate depth of field and all those other good photog tricks (which have become a little hazy since I put my 35 mm in the closet a few years back), but the results are not bad.
Since my drawing has been at an awkward stage for over a week (in other words, it is not at a point to show in-progress images), the next couple of blogs are macro photos of the micro world in my garden.
Geranium:
Daylily:
Nasturtium - this is one of the yellow ones; I have a spectacular little display of red ones that I will post in the next few days. Did Georgia O'Keeffe paint nasturtiums? I do not know, but they certainly have a certain, well, suggestive quality:
Rose (I was photographing the rose for an upcoming drawing...planning ahead, working out the composition...)
This little guy (some sort of small parasitic wasp) was hanging out on the rose bush:
A newly emerged baby grasshopper - he was so delicate and small that this was just a lucky find since he happened to be sitting on a leaf right next to the thorns that I was photographing:
While I am working in the studio, progress has been very slow ~ the usual distractions around the end of the school year (oh, and that whole adinovirous-swine-flu-tummy-bug thing that has kept a rotating schedule of stay-home kids to pamper...such a studio time killer).
More macro photos soon.