New Post. Photomontage.

Hello World.
At the end of my last post, I said I did not want to let the gap between posts be as long as the last one had been. I regret making such a hasty statement now. I'm not going into all the strange, tedious or unpleasant things that have gone on.

I will just mention one GOOD thing. A few weeks ago, I started to paint again, after a gap of about 30 years. I'm currently exploring oil paint sticks and loving them. I've also started to use "Brusho" (Trademark) powdered pigments, these are water soluble and absolutely wonderful. They are highly concentrated pigments, they can be diluted to very light shades for pen and wash work. (See demos of them on YouTube). Search for "Basic Brusho techniques". If you can already paint, I recommend the Cally Lawson tutorials on Brusho.

I do have two or three other art projects I'm wanting to get involved with as well. I don't think it would be good for me to get working on too many new techniques at once. So the other things will have to wait a while.

However, my next post after this one, (carefully avoiding remarks about how long that will be) is going to be some examples of my oil paint work.

Anyway, now to this post, they are all photomontages. I've been working on this technique for some years, in a casual way. A little while ago, I decided to see just what I could do with it, if I really applied myself.

As always, I will only comment on an image if it seems to need it. Off we go...

Bamboo Sunset.

The next two images are from a photo I took a few years ago, at Heacham in Norfolk. Anne and I have stayed there several times. It's a lovely area by the coast. The skies are simply incredible and a boon to artists and photographers.  The images show two interpretations of St Mary's Church Bell tower. They were taken from the nearby, famous, Norfolk Lavender farm and gardens, with my trusty 1200mm lens.

St. Marys Bell Tower 1.

St. Marys Bell Tower 2.

Drowning City.

The image below is one of my favourites.

Ghost Horse.

Light Show.

The next image was originally taken with the 1200mm telephoto lens.

Foundations.

Hymns Ancient & Modern.

Pagan Temple.

Anomaly.

Quantum Portal .

Now something for all you Superman fans out there in Cyberspace.

Kryptonite.

I'm sure some readers of this blog will remember the Marvel Comic superhero Doctor Strange. He was always my personal favourite. In fact he still is, I recently bought two hardback collections of Dr Strange on eBay. One of the god-like characters was called, "The Watcher" as far as I remember. I've not found him in my new books yet. The image below, has a yellow face looking on impassively, on the right hand side of the picture. It's my interpretation of The Watcher.

 The Watcher.

Ice Storm on Pluto.

Landscape Sculptures.

I indulged myself in a little bit of whimsy with the title of the next image. When it was finished, it reminded me of an acrylic painting. Thus, the title was born. Ho, ho, ho. How terribly jocular. *Sigh*

The Church of St. Acrylic.

The following work was the first of my new photomontage works. At the time, I was genuinely surprised that it turned out so well.

Silent Dragon.

This next one started out as a photo that Anne took in Skiathos. I asked if I could use it, of course she said yes. Thank you Anne.

Rainbow Feather.

Summer Ruins.

The Final Magic.

The following, very abstract image, is a combination of four photographs. 

First, they were combined as two sets of two photos, resulting in two images. These were recombined again, resulting in one single image. The colour balance was adjusted, then the levels and contrast, before finally merging them all into the final image. I'm still very much in love with this one.

Timeslip.

For the final picture, I decided to indulge in a little silliness.

What Are You Looking At?

I hope you all enjoyed at least some of these images. As I said, the next post in this blog will be examples of my oil stick work.

Be nice to each other.

Gordon.

Macro Natural History photographs.

Hello world.

Here is the promised macro images post I promised. In 17 hours, I shall be in hospital, having a full left knee replacement. Think good thoughts for me please, thank you.

I'm only going to add the minimum of text to these images, due to time constraints on me. If anyone wants to know more about the subject(s) in one, or more of the following insects or plants, try the internet search function. There is a world of info out there on most of these things. In the last blog post, I think I said they would all be ones taken this year. Once I started to sort out the photos, I realised that I hadn't taken many this year, on account of me not being able to walk very well. I decided that I would show things from the last three years, which I thought had some visual merit.

The first is a beautiful moth, the Canary Shouldered Thorn.

Canary Shouldered Thorn.

Canary Shouldered Thorn detail.

Another pretty moth below, I was pleased with this photo.

Small Magpie Moth.

I didn't expect to see the moth below but a neighbour brought a live one to me in his sandwich box. (Thanks Peter). This moth is one of the bigger UK ones, with a wingspan of  65-90 mm

Poplar Hawk Moth.

A lovely butterfly now, the Comma. So called because it has a whitish comma shape on the underside of each wing, (not shown here).

Comma.

Two shots of a Green Shield bug next. Shield bugs go through several changes before they become adult, even then, the Green Shield bug has a winter and summer colouring. These changes are called "Instars". Bellow are two photos of the Green Shield bug. the first is an adult in the summer, the second and adult in the winter.

Green Shield bug (summer).

Green Shield bug (winter).

For good measure, I thought I'd show a detail of the Hawthorn Shield Bug. Note that the black mark on each side of the red patch, are NOT it's eyes. they are a defence mechanism. It's real eyes are the two small parts at the end of it's "snout".

Hawthorn Shield Bug.

Green Dock Beetles mating.

I was unable to identify the following fly. I need more experience with Diptera (True Flies). There are a huge number of them in the family. I can only identify

a few. Should anyone happen to know this one, please leave me a note in the comments of this blog.

Detail of a fly.

The next is a woodlouse. I did some research into them about two years ago. I became quite fond of them. They are harmless to humans and don't carry diseases. Even better, they eat things like dry rot. This is a nice photo of one type:

Painted Woodlouse.

The next creature is quite a pest. It's larvae killed all our newly bought Heuchera plats last year. They eat the roots off them.

Vine Weevil.

A detail of it's head.

I've tried for some years to get a photo of one of these. Every time I got near one it jumped away. This year, I finally managed. 

Common Field Grasshopper.

I should have put the following photo with the other lepidoptera, I forgot it.

Small Cabbage White Butterfly caterpillar.

Some of you will be pleased to discover that I've finished with insects in this post, it's now all plants.

Scarlet Waxcap fungi.

A Larch Fircone with a

Mycena stipata agg., 

toadstool growing from it. 

Silverleaf Fungus on decaying beech log.

A couple of lichens now. I've been fascinated with them for many years. To me, they look like alien plants. It's a very difficult area of study, I can only recognise and identify a few lichens as yet.

 

Cladonia floerkeana.

Pixie Cup Lichen.

One of the many mosses now. When my wife saw it, she commented that huge numbers of people will have walked passed these without ever seeing how attractive they are.

Ripe seedheads of the Elegant Bristle Moss.

The last three images are of garden plants.

An Ice Plant or Mesembryanthemum seedpod.

Below is a macro shot of an empty Fritillary seed pod. I counted all the flat seeds which it were in it, it held 99. Nature is amazing at package design.

Empty Fritillary seed pod.

Now for the last image. I though I should end with a big splash of colour.  Isn't nature wonderful?

Detail of a mature Zinnia flower.

I have no idea how long it will take for me to recover from the forth coming operation. I do all my blogging up two flights of stairs on my more powerful graphics PC. Two flights of stairs is a LOT after a knee replacement. I'll try not to let it be as long a gap as it was after the first op. So, don't think I've given up posting, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Be kind to each other. Gordon.

Photography, photomontage and digital art..

Hello world.

It is over four months since my last post. I really didn't mean such a long gap between posts, sorry. Many things have happened in those four months;  a holiday, then two lots of major internal work on the house. I also had the first of  two full knee replacements. I'm having the second one done at the end of October. Expect a break after the NEXT post. I shall make the effort to put one up before the operation. I  think it will be a selection of my favorite macro photography photos taken this year. The operation takes a long time to recover from and takes a tremendous amount of mental and physical stamina out of you but it has been worth it. It proved to be a life changing, life enhancing event for me. Following the operation, I seem to have fallen into a hiatus, it has taken me some time to pull out of.

So, on with this new post. Sometime ago, I thought I'd have a go at a self portrait. I created  several, some I was more pleased with than others. A lot of artists do this, some have been accurate drawings or paintings, some abstract, or even tongue-in-cheek ones. I decided to start this post with one mine. My dear friend Roger, (hello Roger) does not like the white areas in this one. I explained that they're supposed to represent places where the paper has been torn out.

Self Portrait #3.

Here are two more "portraits" but not of me!

The Queen of Dreams.

Rock Troll.

Six photos now. I came across this spiders web, it was too good to miss. The colours and composition were perfect. Nature has a knack of doing that.

Spiders Web.

St John's Wort.

I took the image below with a powerful telephoto lens, It's reflections of  people passing a large window. They looked as if they were dancing. Sometimes you just happen to be there at the right time, in the right frame of mind and the magic of inspiration happens.

Street Dancers.

The following is of part of a modern building. It works well as an abstract image.

Building Detail.

The next shot was just begging to be taken. I wonder how many hundreds of people have passed it, or walked over it and didn't notice it.

Greek Horse.

I was on my way to somewhere, I forget where, when I spotted this scaffolding. It has a very sculptural feel to it. 

Construction #2.

Now for the abstract images. I won't comment on these unless I feel that one, or more need it.

Evening Sky.

Mozambique.

Fallen Angel.

The next one is a computer modified photo-montage. It's title, "The Mill is Your Chapel", is a rather bitter, sarcastic condemnation of the British Mill owners in the past. I seem to think I talked about this before.  Basically, I'm having a dig at the great textile mill owners in England in the 18th and 19th Century. A great many of them were members of the Methodist chapel. Without going into the complexities of it all, here is the thrust of my title and the piece of art.In the 1800s conditions were very harsh for mill workers. They generally worked in terrible conditions, with little or no safety, for long hours and very low wages. Also, children from five or six years old were set to work in mills for anything from 12 to 16 hours a day, the were often very badly treated, part starved and paid very little. Often children would be found in the road having falling asleep whilst walking from the mill to their homes. On the other side of the coin, a lot of Methodist preachers at the time were giving sermons to the workers from the pulpit about putting up with their situation as, "The Lord would reward them in heaven." The mill owners and ministers at this time, were, of course living very rich lives with plenty of good food and drink and an easy, comfortable life. I'm sorry this was a long explanation, but I could not see a way of talking about why I called the next image what I did.

The image represents the chaos in the mills. You might need to study it before you seem the actual building in the work.

The Mill is Your Chapel.

On to lighter subjects after that.

City Bypass.

 Flying Fish.

Mushroom Spore Prints.

The polyptych below was inspired by Andy Warhol's screen prints. I did screen printing for a while, I really enjoyed it. It can be time consuming, demanding and fiddly, but when you get it right, the results are worth the effort. The subject is an extreme close-up of a halftone photo of a strawberry, from a magazine cover. 

Strawberry.

I Told You Before!

Volume in Context.

Solar Flare Telemetry,

The Shadow Lands,

I'm disappointed that it's taken so long to get this post out. I hope all my readers have enjoyed it and perhaps even liked, some of the work.

Be careful  and be good to each other.

Gordon.