You say CLE-MAH-TIS, I say CLE-MAY-TIS

Can I post a flash movie?

Paris, Field Day 2008

Ciel, Field Day 2008

I guess the answer is no, so you’ll have to put up with my photographs instead! LMAO!! These were taken at the girls Field Day, Thursday May 22, I think it was!

First, Paris always looks great in monochrome …

Then, Ciel always begs to be photoshopped!

Nothing earth-shattering, just some fairly routine manipulation but it’s all I have time for these days. You should see how many pictures I still have on the camera!

It’s been a minute ………… or two

Work has been hectic, and I don’t say that in jest … I spent much of my time getting ready for our annual fundraiser, and then our server crashed, taking with it many years worth of data.  The good news was that everything up to about mid-March was recovered. The bad news was that only applied to everyone (alphabetically) up to and including Todd. So, basically, Vasthi and Vikki (moi) were well and truly shafted!

Along with the missing files went all the website pages … we were able to recover most pages, images and .pdf’s from the server folder, but it was in need of an overhaul anyway. And that’s how I spent the last 3 days at work (… and home .. and work .. and home … you get the picture!)

Needless to say, I haven’t had much time to play in PS - I did do some work on some photos, such as this one of Ciel and her best friend Alyssa, on a school field trip.

Then there’s this little wonder of nature - flawless beauty can hide a multitude of sins

(You have to click on that one to see it in all it’s breathtaking glory!)

Then, Paris is one of my favorite subjects, except when she knows I’m taking a photo of her. This time, she did. But it was still OK.

So, I did do just an incy wincy bit of image manipulation, based on that wonderful dandelion, and inspired by the trouble I’m having staying indoors lately. It’s way too nice outside to be inside, but my allergies are through the roof!  I use Ciel to illustrate a point …

I know, it’s rough. It’s not my “style”, but it’s what I was thinking at the moment!

Now, it’s late, and I need sleep.

I got a brand new pair of roller skates

Just figuratively speaking, of course! Not really roller skates, but I DO have a brand spankin’ new graphics tablet! If you’ve never visited Woot!, then get over there, quick smart, before you miss out! They have the most incredible deals on .. well .. stuff! You know, the stuff you really need - like Disney Tinkerbell MixSticks, and Spongebob Squarepants MP3 players, and really, really cheap graphics tablets!

My last graphics tablet was HUGE. It did the job, it worked just fine! I bought it at Aldi for some ridiculously low price, so I wasn’t particularly disappointed when I couldn’t find the pen (is it called a stylus?) I desperately wanted to use my tablet when I started taking Photoshop more seriously, but just had no idea where I put that sucker when I moved to this house! I knew where the gargantuan tablet was, but the pen was nowhere to be found. So, I bit the bullet. And here I am again, on another learning curve - or is it a “revision curve” when you already know how to do something but just need a refresher?

I was just playing today - here’s what I came up with, using a quote from H. G. Wells. Oh, the photos is a 3 year old pic of Ciel.

Oh good grief! Now they’ve gone and changed the photo uploading on me too ……

All I needed was the love you gave

All I needed for another day

I think the Alison Moyet/Yazoo version had more feeling than the Flying Pickets. Though the Flying Pickets were certainly different!, and their version certainly has it’s place in the annals of music history. I always wondered if they were some kind of a comedic version of The Nylons - but there I go reminiscing again ……..

Elvis rules!

There’s a Mexican Elvis show (impersonator) in town this week - the show is called “El Vez” - I’d have loved to have seen it.

I’m not an Elvis Presley fan by a long shot. He never was my “style”, but I could live forever on the songs of Elvis Costello!

Is it worth it
A new winter coat and shoes for the wife
And a bicycle on the boy's birthday
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
By the women and children
Soon we'll be shipbuilding
Well I ask you
The boy said 'DAD THEY'RE GOING TO TAKE ME TO TASK
BUT I'LL BE BACK BY CHRISTMAS'
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people get killed in
The result of this shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
A telegram or a picture postcard
Within weeks they'll be re-opening the shipyards
And notifying the next of kin
Once again
It's all we're skilled in
We will be shipbuilding
WITH ALL THE WILL IN THE WORLD
DIVING FOR DEAR LIFE
WHEN WE COULD BE DIVING FOR PEARLS

From the “Punch the Clock” album (which also had some songs with the incomparable Caron Wheeler on backing vocals), released in 1983

So, here’s my Elvis piece …
Shipbuilding

How many different directions will this take me?

As I was working on yet another creation this afternoon, I was inspired to take some “snapshot” lyrics of some of my favorite songs, and put them on t-shirts.

Here’s the first - I’m sure you recognize Bob Marley’s “One Drop” lyrics! I started with a pic from stock.xchng of a poor exhausted young thang laying on the grass. I took her off the grass and put her, complete with a wing made from a brush, against a beautiful bordering-on-sunset sky. Then I put the writing on her already-sweaty t-shirt (with the help of an old PhotoJojo tutorial - gotta love PhotoJojo!), gave her a Randy Crawford title and here she is!

Some Day I’ll Fly Away

The writing’s on the wall

Ciel tried SO hard to get me to delete Lincoln from this one … she’s heavily into Abraham Lincoln and wasn’t at all pleased that I had put him behind bars!  Not that he’s imprisoned …. my alternative title was “and butterflies are free to fly”, from the old Elton John song “Someone Saved my Life Tonight”.  Anyhoo, I think Abe fits right in there!

This one’s landscape oriented, so you’re have to click on it!

Someone stop me now …

I know that this is overkill, and I do promise in the future not to blog EVERYTHING I create, but I got excited when I found these little pieces I made a while back. They were made into microscope slide pendants - you know, the type where you sandwich an image between 2 microscope slides, then solder around the edge? Yup, those are the ones!

This one truly was my first digital assemblage piece.

You’ll have to click on this one, it’s wide, so I couldn’t do a full sized image. This one actually never made it into a pendant. I like the ’70s feel though. He could be the Marlboro Man in disguise!

Back that thang up

I know I told myself I was going to be working today (I have some grant applications to submit), but this is WAY more fun!

I use this image for my yahoo 360 page, which is well neglected these days. Now I’ve put it better use