Wanderlust 2021 - weeks five to eight - Ephemera

Week five was the start of the Ephemera topic, which I was really looking forward to.  I used an old photograph of my Granny with her sisters as the focal point and really enjoyed creating the background.  I asked Chris to give me a colour (I would normally go for blues and greens or other cold colours) and he chose red (a bit of pink and orange also made an appearance).  

Week six was split into several different ideas.  One was to use collage as the focus.  I decided to do this in my cardboard art journal.  I love the drippy paint effect and the way you can see the collage pieces.

I then did the 'collage as texture' and stuck my collage elements in place.  I liked this as it was, so took a photo of it as by the time I finished, you wouldn't be able to see it.

Here's the finished page.  You can see some bits of the collage if you look closely, but it is pretty much hidden.

Week seven was focusing on photos and making ephemera your own by adding scribbles and marks to it.  I did this on a piece of music paper and then scanned it in to the computer and printed it out, so that I can keep the original.    I did  this with some garden entry tickets I had kept and one featured on this spread. The colour scheme would be taken from the ephemera used. The photos again feature my granny, but in the right hand photo, she is with her children - my Mum is on the right of the photo.

Week eight was a bit more of a challenge. It was about focusing on your ideas and plans and then making a pile of ephemera including some material that had been stitched into.  Most of the ephemera was stuck down under another piece so that the maker was the only person who knew exactly what was in the pile. With my current 'circles' obsession, they appeared all over these pages.  I used an acrylic paint pen to draw the 'stitched' details, but there is real stitching on the material on the left hand page.

I am still loving the course, enjoying some weeks more than others, but giving everything a go!  It is giving me a lot to think about.

New Art work

We went to an Art sale at the weekend, featuring local glass artists, photographers and print makers.  Needless to say, we came home with some new additions to our collection of pictures.

 We both loved the seed head and branches by photographer Jane Wright - they are so atmospheric and just jumped out at us.

We also saw some of Alison Read's work (it was her house and we were able to see her studio which was fantastic!).  Chris loved this dog woodcut print...

 ...whereas I was after cat prints...like 'Furball' here...

 ...and I thought that this one looks a bit like Scruffy (so, of course, it had to come home with us!)

Right, all we need to do is to get them framed and then decide where they are going.  We are thinking of having a mini-gallery in the hall...

Sort of Easter-y?

Here you see an attempt to create an artistic-looking photograph (which I'm not sure is entirely successful).  On my travels to other blogs, I am often struck by the professionalism of the photography.  I am of the 'point and click' school of photography, and if you start talking to me about shutter speeds and ISO, my eyes glaze and I drift away...  So, I have always wanted to be able to take lovely photos, but without all the 'geeky' stuff (apologies to real photographers out there).  I have recently upgraded to a very easy 'point and click' camera which does everything for me, short of choosing the view, and I am happy with the quality of the images.  This picture shows a primrose, part of a glass candlestick, a beheaded tulip (thank you Mr/Mrs Snail/Slug) and a lovely little Easter decoration which I bought at the National Centre for Craft and Design. 
I think this is about as artistic as I'm able to get, but it is sort of Easter-y, isn't it?

Fabulous Fireworks!

As we live near the local football ground, we are treated to a free show of the City Council's Firework 'Spectacular' each year around 5th November, and this year, it was held last night. I like to try to challenge myself and my camera and see whether I can capture any of the explosion of colour.

I was really pleased with these photos - for a little 'point and click' digital camera, I think it has done a really good job.

All I have done to the photos is to crop them down using Photoshop; other than that, they are as the camera took them.

These last two really show the explosion of the fireworks and the bright colours.

I particularly like the red firework to the right of this image and I think it is quite amazing that photography can capture and hold that split second. Fireworks are one of the most ephemeral of things - they last for such a short time, but we can now relive the moment. Where would we be without photography?