Summer

This has been – and still is – a summer with heat every day.  Luckily, the nights cool off from 100F to 72F, and the humidity is low.  That is the only good news is that life is bearable.  But, with fires burning everywhere in California, the sky is not blue but yellowish, and the light that comes in has a orangish glow.  Ash is dropping out of the sky.

I haven’t been doing too much of anything for the past several weeks for a lot of reasons, but lately I’ve been struck with the urge to look at some of my pictures differently in post:  I don’t care what they “should” look like, I want them to “express” what I want them to look like!  And this heat is the perfect example of expression.

Taken with a Cosina CX-2, panorama of 9 images, stitched together and cropped in PS6 using Agfa Vista 200 film.

Heat

We’ve been spared the blazing fires so far this summer.  Up north, further east, flames are rocketing through dried out forests and neighborhoods.  I think two fires were caused by arsonists.  Still, our temperatures have been nearly impossible – many days over 100F – and the air conditioner is the only thing that keeps heat exhaustion from become deadlier than it already is.

This is from the first roll of film out of a new-to-me Cosina CX-2.

And the Show Goes On

July is nearly over, and it has been a rather lumpy month.  I spent about a week in Reno with one of my favorite people in the world – Stef, an old room mate from college – and came home with a stomach bug that got better and then didn’t.  She got the same thing and got better, but I’ve been malingering.  It’s really damned dull to not have loads of zip and then hellishly hot weather to add into the mix.  So wah, wah, wah.

Let’s move on to other things!

We had a tie-dye birthday party (and used the bbq sauce from the last entry on the meat, which was quite tasty, I will say) and made a bunch of old hippy type stuff.  I’ll post about that at another time when I get some photos together.  As a group, we’re pretty talented.

And I’ve been doing some watercolors, too; I haven’t done anything pretty much since returning from Reno 3 weeks ago.  Today I just put it on my agenda and decided to do simple representations of trees.  A few weeks earlier I did windows.  And since I am not especially sure what else to say, here ya go, I then I am off for a walk with the esposo and the dogs.

 

Window in the Wood

Another window, this time set into a log building.  The logs were fun to paint – just broad swooshes with a brush, and then some detail.  (I think I could use a few more wider dark swooshes in the upper 1/2 of the windows for the logs.)  Here, as in yesterday’s painting, detail is important, but still needs simplification to express the window and the logs.  Overall, I am rather pleased with this picture.  My palette was very limited – burnt umber, burnt sienna, and ultramarine blue.  Oh, I threw in some zoisite (DS) because I love its granualtion!