I've been playing a bit here, on this sunny Canada Day morning.
Yesterday was the last day of work for me at school. True to form - I'm sick. It would seem that every time we come up to a school holiday for the past two years I take the opportunity to grab whatever airborne bugs are out there and offer them a home in my upper respiratory system! I've had no voice since Tuesday, and now have a cough as well.
The last few weeks have been exceptionally busy with school ending for both boys and for me, and all the other things that seem to happen at this time of year. Soccer ended (temporarily - it starts again in the fall). Each of the boys and I all had different end-of-school activities (mostly field trips of one kind and another).
We had lovely company for a few days, with DH's sister and brother in law coming from Oman. It was pretty special for us for them to come at this particular time of year and be part of all our different celebrations. They live so far away these days that we rarely get to share our milestones with them. We not only got to do the big, important things (like see Youngest complete Elementary School), but little day to day things (like eating together, playing cards, hiking, visiting). All in all, a really sweet time.
This morning found me up with nothing in particular on my agenda for the first time in a very long time. I sat down with my little water colour set and played with painting a couple of special things that we've received as gifts over last year. The table runner is indigo dyed (from Japan originally) given us by my Mom-in-Law last year at Christmas. It seemed the perfect backdrop for the Koran stand that Sister-and-Brother-in-Law gave us last year when they visited from Oman.
I've wanted to try to paint or draw the stand for a long time, as it has such wonderful texture. Each of the individual tool marks show on the carved part of the stand. I love being able to see the actions of the artist in the art! I had a drawing teacher once, years ago, who said we should only take photos of things no one would believe if they saw them in drawing form...and I have to say, that stuck with me. There are many times that I take photos for reference for drawing only to sit down and discover that the photos cannot be interpreted that way. There are places both for photos to record what we can not draw, and a place for drawing to record all the rest of what we see. Sometimes the actions of the artist would obscure the art - then it is always better to simply take a picture.
The second half of the experiment was to try to use Gimp to edit my photo for posting. I'm new to Gimp, but wanted to give it a whirl after all I've been reading about it. It's open source, which seems to be the direction that I'm heading with all the programs in my life. I missed using PhotoImpact10 (simply because I've used it for years and it's like second nature to me anymore), but it's not available in the form it used to be - maybe it's becoming obsolete? Hmmm. Gotta try to stay current, whether it's easy or not!
Here's to summer, here's to family, here's to time to play and learn.
Happy Canada Day, everyone!
Lisa
Yesterday was the last day of work for me at school. True to form - I'm sick. It would seem that every time we come up to a school holiday for the past two years I take the opportunity to grab whatever airborne bugs are out there and offer them a home in my upper respiratory system! I've had no voice since Tuesday, and now have a cough as well.
The last few weeks have been exceptionally busy with school ending for both boys and for me, and all the other things that seem to happen at this time of year. Soccer ended (temporarily - it starts again in the fall). Each of the boys and I all had different end-of-school activities (mostly field trips of one kind and another).
We had lovely company for a few days, with DH's sister and brother in law coming from Oman. It was pretty special for us for them to come at this particular time of year and be part of all our different celebrations. They live so far away these days that we rarely get to share our milestones with them. We not only got to do the big, important things (like see Youngest complete Elementary School), but little day to day things (like eating together, playing cards, hiking, visiting). All in all, a really sweet time.
This morning found me up with nothing in particular on my agenda for the first time in a very long time. I sat down with my little water colour set and played with painting a couple of special things that we've received as gifts over last year. The table runner is indigo dyed (from Japan originally) given us by my Mom-in-Law last year at Christmas. It seemed the perfect backdrop for the Koran stand that Sister-and-Brother-in-Law gave us last year when they visited from Oman. I've wanted to try to paint or draw the stand for a long time, as it has such wonderful texture. Each of the individual tool marks show on the carved part of the stand. I love being able to see the actions of the artist in the art! I had a drawing teacher once, years ago, who said we should only take photos of things no one would believe if they saw them in drawing form...and I have to say, that stuck with me. There are many times that I take photos for reference for drawing only to sit down and discover that the photos cannot be interpreted that way. There are places both for photos to record what we can not draw, and a place for drawing to record all the rest of what we see. Sometimes the actions of the artist would obscure the art - then it is always better to simply take a picture.
The second half of the experiment was to try to use Gimp to edit my photo for posting. I'm new to Gimp, but wanted to give it a whirl after all I've been reading about it. It's open source, which seems to be the direction that I'm heading with all the programs in my life. I missed using PhotoImpact10 (simply because I've used it for years and it's like second nature to me anymore), but it's not available in the form it used to be - maybe it's becoming obsolete? Hmmm. Gotta try to stay current, whether it's easy or not!
Here's to summer, here's to family, here's to time to play and learn.
Happy Canada Day, everyone!
Lisa
1 comment:
Beautiful Koran stand & equally beautiful interpretation of it!
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