I did not know it even exists and here I am part of the group being nominated for the versatile blogger award.
The Versatile Blogger Award
The rules for the nomination are s follows:
1) Display badge on your blog
2) Write a post and link back to the blogger who nominated you.
3) Nominate 15 other bloggers and inform them via comment in their site; this will take some doing so update later but here is the ones I already can nominate:
Other names will be posted here as I find their blogs
4) State 7 interesting things about myself:
1) I am young in mind but not so young in body but it is mind over body… 🙂
2) I love art in any shape and form: painting, drawing, photography, architecture, music, doodle on the iPad, or on a piece of toilet paper. It doesn’t matter. If it is art to me, I like it.
3) I am a mathematician and scientist in addition to artist so I have blown over many researchers who say that this is impossible.. obviously not… so back to the drawing board scientists!
4) I have absolute hearing–you can set your instrument by my hearing–but I have no voice to sing… not even in the shower… forget that.
5) I have a nice hat–everyone seems to want it. 🙂 Forget that. It is MINE.
6) My favorite color is black. It brings out the beauty from elsewhere since black itself is not beautiful. So if you see a person in black who is beautiful. you know that it is not the color of his.her dress.
7) I am looking forward to heading to the Galapagos Islands for a photo trip this fall. I want to hug a giant turtle (it is illegal so not sure I can get away with it)…
Just recently I had a family issue that I am still trying to come to terms within myself. One way to do it is to run to the edge of the planet (if it were flat) and scream as loud as I can. Neither can I scream nor is there an edge to the planet so that is not the solution. Friends can only go so far because they are supporting you through fire and ice (if they are friends) and so it is not educational to just rely on friends. It is more valuable to rely on one’s enemies if one wants a true opinion since they hate you and hence you know they will tell you the opposite of the truth and thus you are educated.
As far as I know I have no true enemies to ask. So what does an artist do with a pain that cannot be shared with enemies to learn the truth? She paints about it of course. Here in my painting and I will tell you more about it after if you are interested:
Beauty is in the eye of the believer
The painting depicts an amazing rock whose photo was provided to me by my generous photographer colleague Linda Segerson of FineArtAmerica. In looking at the rock, to me it seemed it had 2 eyes and one open mouth that was complaining. I also loved the color of the rock. It just fit perfectly with the topic I had brewing in me now for days.
Atop the branch of Coral tree over the rock is a gorgeous male finch in full spring mating plumage. What could be nicer than a bird with such beautiful clothing? Yet to the rock, the bird is a nuisance and is ugly. So who is right? The bird or the rock? And can we blame the tree for having a branch grown right over the rock?
These are important questions to face since the bird thinks it is doing no harm; to him it is life as usual and simply wants to attract a female. To him he is beautiful. The rock also thinks that it is beautiful and that its beauty will be taken away by the droppings of the bird. But will it? And the tree branch is also beautiful and what does it have to do with it?
So at this point, if you are still reading this long entry, you are wondering what point I am trying to make: it doesn’t matter how much help you provide, if they don’t want it, your help becomes a nuisance. This is hard to swallow. Indeed, I have been crying over this now for 2 days and my pleas are falling on def ears. And they will continue to fall on def ears until those ears grow up and they will face the same problems. Until then the world will just keep on being unfair. And that is life. So enjoy it while you can!
I am a big dreamer. I always dream quite vivid and colorful dreams. I am told that such is rare since most people dream in black and white and few have vivid dreams. I am not supposed to remember my dreams except if I by accident wake up for something before I finished my REM (Rapid Eye Movement) dreaming period, which happens more often than I like.
Sometimes though the dream fragment I wake up for is beautiful and I stay awake and continue where I wish the dream to go–sort of day dream but at night. This painting came out of such a dreaming. My friend sent me a link to a video where they showed the horses and their treatment that the British Royalty uses. the video was awesome. You could see the horses run free, trot in the water with a rider, etc.
On this picture there is no rider…
An unbridled horse walking along the golden sunrise of the beach.
Here in my dream the horse was in the very shallow water taking a morning stroll on the golden sunrise, which still has a bit of grayness to it as I saw it on the video, which would be typical for England I suppose; definitely not for California.
But this stroll along the beach alone has more meaning to it than the beauty of the colors. It represents the importance of freedom, of rest, of relaxation, of reflecting on one’s own past, present and thinking about the future. It is a happy scene but I feel there is some caution in there somewhere. Enjoy the present!
This picture can be purchased in print by clicking on the link here and as digital download by clicking on the link here.
Enjoy!
Montery Bay, Carmel, and many areas around–like Pebble Beach–are well known. Most people visit Point Lobos National park but end up visiting only one side. That side is huge by any standards. The rocks in the water are mini mountains; the waves are giants, and the water is crashing so loud you can barely speak. Marine life is abound. But there is another side! It is totally calm; the water is covered by a foamy layer of algae floating. In fact, if you look close enough at the shoreline, it is really a line of caves! I have never seen anything like this before.
You can purchase a print of this photo by clicking here or a digital download and other items by clicking here.
The trip to the “other side” is a hike of various roads turning left and right with no name so in following the map of the park it is still a great puzzle where you may end up. The hike is not a hard one in terms of steepness but the terrain is rough from the rocks and the many branches that have fallen and its unevenness. Not very easy to find your footing and the place is full of poison oak.. something to definitely avoid touching by accident as you try to grab anything in site for your balance.
So when we finally got a first look of the “other side” I felt a huge relief, thinking “well, we are already there”.. no.. another 15-20 minutes… but the view was definitely worth it.
The other side at Point Lobos National Park
The view here shows you the water and what appears to be a “rounded” shoreline.. those are all caves; hundreds of them. A most amazing sight! Since we went at the time of the year when the June Gloom was expected, that is what you see being lifted for about 15 minutes mid-day. The trees here are covered with lichen and everything is very soft and cushiony; probably years of accumulated lichen and pine tree leaves several feet high that create a carpet that one can barely stand on without falling over. A most amazing place. It also put nature in perspective for me. Nature is huge and we are so tiny yet we have such a huge impact on it. It is an eye opened to go there!
I photographed a wedding on Saturday. When I first met the couple they seemed shy, did not care much for photography, and they were not sure at all how this was going to work out since they really did not want to be photographed–they did not consider themselves photogenic or just simply did not like the intrusion of a 3rd person into their private lives. They hired me though well before the wedding–nearly a year before.
So when the rehearsal and the wedding the day after came, I was shocked to see what fun people they were. They loved to play, act funny, laugh and have a good time–no alcohol either which made it even more special. Needless to say they are both amazing on photos and I had one of the best weddings I had every experienced! The warmth of the family, them making us part of the family (I had 2 other photographers with me, as I always do.
The couple imitating poses for their upcoming first dance
The photo I am posting here is an interesting one since it carries a lot of emotions and fun yet you don’t even see their faces. It is one of my favorite photos! I am going through a phase of my art style that is taking me toward the colors of the old masters, like Rembrandt. So the colors and the mood are that of Rembrandt. This picture is not for sale of course, but just to show all of those of you who are shy of photography, that even a photo of the back of you can become a piece of art! 🙂 I hope you enjoy the photo!
I used to live in Northern California while getting my master’s at Stanford University and also worked full time. I lived there for 5 years. The place was in San Mateo, which is about a one-hour or so drive from Half Moon Bay. I seldom had the time to drive there but I did drive part of the way quite often. The view is aw inspiring!
First you see these amazing waves of thick ocean layer curling around the mountains as if to dress it in a veil giving it a huge hug. Whatever your imagination may be, mine was of a big squeeze of love. There was also a lake as you passed and I remember driving there many times to look back east to see the pink and clue setting skies opposite of the sun settling on the west. In this painting you see me looking toward the west. You see the mountains where the ocean layer gets stuck, beyond which is Half Moon Bay and its gorgeous beach by the Pacific Ocean. But to me to most exciting part of heading toward half Moon Bay was to go when the mountain was hugged by a big layer of white fluff. So here is my memory of that white stuff painted on my iPad using the Inspire Pro app and a precision stylus.
Mountains by Half Moon Bay are hugged by white fluff of ocean layer in the Bay area.
To purchase the print in any size or type, please visit my artist website and to purchase a digital download, please visit my main website (both underlined here for your quick access).
I often wondered what hummingbirds eat. We all know (I think) that they love Bird of Paradise flower nectar but Bird of Paradise are pretty seasonal. I have long periods of no flowers at all on my many large bushes. But my hummers are thriving so one day I spent the entire day in the yard, just watching them. I have at least 3 couples at all times and often more and when the chicks arrive, it is a hummingbird paradise.
It seems to me that hummers have very specific color preferences for flowers albeit sometimes, when there is nothing else available they will go for other things. But in general they tend to favor the ones with red, orange, pink, purple, so all in the red family and also yellow. They seldom ever go for white or blue, or very very dark purple. I found that interesting. So I planted additional flowers and trees in my yard (which is not large so it is packed now) with bottle brush trees, and a pink wonder called “Mignonette” that is not native to California and I ordered it from the East Coast. It was supposed to be small and hard to go.. well.. no.. not in California… it is weedy beyond control. It shows up everywhere, even in cracks of cement, pots that never get watered, and in general everywhere, They have cute little mini pink floweretts so my hummers love it. There is also a heather type that I have in two colors, one is red and the other is white on top and red on the bottom. Plus many orange and yellow flowers as season allows.
I have photographed hummingbirds many times and often with great success but it is always a crop since when they come close, they fly with like 200 miles per hour and impossible to react fast enough. So photos are always cropped and are too small for large wall prints. But then I am a painter. So I decided last night to paint a hummingbird using one of my photos as inspiration to get the colors right–I have many kinds of hummers and they all look quite different. This painting is done entirely with the palette knife (digital of course), which I have used only in some backgrounds but not usually for the subject. I wanted to see what it would look like. So here it is. Now you may purchase the print of this at my usual artist website (click on the words underlined) and make sure you click on the picture on that website to get to see the textures coming through. You may also purchase a download, you can visit my photography website (click on the underlined words) and purchase a download.
This is digitally painted by hand on my computer. I use the Wacom Intuos 4 tablet and pen and several different kinds of software to get the painting look like the “real” painted version on canvas. Since I was a painter in oil and other medium canvas for 30 years, I understand what an oil paint should look like and I those skills to my digital paintings.
Digital paintings have many advantages over paintings on canvas or paper. The most important of these advantages of digital over “real” is that since digital was created digitally, it will look on canvas or paper once printed exactly as you see it on the monitor and not flat! It is a frequent complaint of buyers after purchasing a print of an oil or acrylic paint on canvas, since on your monitor you see the digitally photographed version of that oil or acrylic paint.
Digital photography of highly textured items like oil or acrylic paint removes all textures and makes them appear flat. You don’t get this problem with digital art. You get exactly what you see! It is also green art–meaning it uses nontoxic materials and doesn’t kill trees in the making!
And here is what it looks like in small:
Digital oil paint with palette knife of a hummingbird feeding on a flower in my yard
My yard is not big but a good size as far as California yards go. It is filled with flowers, a few fruit trees, many HUGE Bird of Paradise bushes, etc., to the point that you cannot even see the ground. I am told by some (particularly my gardener) that it is too full and difficult to get though it but I like the jungle look and also like that the ground is so covered that weed has little chance to grow…
Little did I know that some plants that find it hard to grow elsewhere LOVE my yard so much that they pop up everywhere, taking the weed classification of equivalence to dandelion! One of these is the giant Calla Lily! Its stems can easily be up to 6 feet tall. To collect a stem, one does not cut but pull (I learned this from the gardener) so that way one gets to the bottom of the flower. I simply have no vases tall enough to hold a Calla Lily like that without falling over and if I placed them on the table, they reach the ceiling of my house… clearly floor vase is needed!
With that all said and done, they are actually very beautiful and hardy albeit much softer than the Calla Lily types you see in flower stores for sale. The leaves are huge and simple green–no spots–and the flowers.. well.. you can sink an entire wedding bouquet into a single one sometimes. So they are clearly NOT for weddings but can look great in the corner in a tall vase.
Their white is VERY white so hard to photograph without much reflection of the light. Their pollen is extremely long and yellow, very dominant in looks. They are bulbs but quite irregular in share–nearly tuberose type but not quite. In general they are a nuisance but a beautiful one at that. So I painted one long time ago–on the computer of course, digitally by hand. But that was in 2009-2010 and since then my digital painting has seriously improved. So here is a painting update I have created last night in a highly impressionistic style.
An impressionistic painting of a white giant Calla Lily
What is important to note is the pollen area. If you visit my artist website this flower by clicking on the word “Calla Lily” here, and click on the picture itself, it will bring up details of the textures in full size of a small area, so click on the pollen part. You will be amazed at what digital painting is capable of today! If you prefer to purchase a digital download, you should click here.
I photographed–actually 3 years ago–a blade of grass that had some morning drops of rain on it. I took one of these drops and turned it into gold color, enlarged it, and placed another one like it on that grass piss there is a small one on it that is natural and some regular drops on top that I did not turn gold color–perhaps I should have! Perhaps I will too in another moment of time when I find where the original of this photo is from 3 years ago.
In Southern California rain seldom falls and when it does, since we are in a desert here basically, it just runs straight down into the ocean. After a big downpour, within 5 minutes it can look here like it never rained. So when I see the smallest sign of possible rain, don’t even think of trying to find me at home… I will be outdoors, smelling in the fresh scent of heavenly rain and turning every rock and leaf to find life awakening from the golden rain.
So here is a photo–I have a series of this–of my version of Golden Dew, which you can purchase in print if you click on the word GOLD in caps; it looks best on metal:
Rare rain in Southern California captured on a blade of grass in an artistic way.
Have you seen Southern California skies? They are blue. Yep. Blue… Clouds? You mean the cute fluffs or the angry storm clouds? What’s that will a SoCal person tell you. We rarely have clouds here and that is the norm. Oh yeah, we do get ocean layer, which is like being inside a giant dark brownish smogish layer of fog but nice clouds? Perhaps 5-10 times a year and to catch those you need to be at the beach since we have so many mountains and hills in the way. I have many times missed such beautiful sunsets in SoCal–mind you in the San Diego area they are luckier than in the Los Angeles area; San Diego does get its fair share of beautiful clouds a lot more than we do in the Los Angeles area.
So what does an artist do when no clouds show up? She paints them. And what do green artists paint them on? Why iPad of course!
So here is my latest iPad painting of Capo Beach, which is near Aliso Viejo and is in southern Orange County. I was there a few months ago photographing a model and though there was no spectacular sunset, the beach is actually nice there.. so here it is, as I wish it looked like on that day! iPad painting by the way is done with a stylus for fine tip painting, it is harder to paint on iPad than on canvas or “real” medium because the screen is smaller so you see only parts rather than the whole in one piece while working. It also has to be then enlarged on the computer to make it into print size and resolution. I used the app InspirePro to point this.
All of my iPad paintings have been enlarged in size and resolution to print beautifully and of you click here you can purchase this painting as print or if you click here you can also purchase a digital download of the same. Here is the painting in small:
iPad painting of a beautiful sunset on Capo Beach, California
Sometimes, we photographers are so blind! What is in front of us we don’t see… we only see what we want to see. Perhaps this is true for you as well. My eyes seem to be trained to have amazing peripheral vision and the slightest movement of a bird of fly will capture my attention but I can have a tiger about to jump at me sitting in front of me and I will probably bump into it and fall over it and it will (hopefully) walk away thinking I am already dead…
Take a look at this case and point: a photo with beautiful rain drops, which is unique since it never rains in California.. right? Right.. so it rained this morning.. just a bit… and I had to go and capture the rain drop… the fact that a whole world of interesting creatures is in front of me (probably for the same reason) is completely invisible to me.. I am hunting for rain drops… I am HUNTING for raindrops… and miss a much more exciting subject that is literally posing for me: a cricket… how often do you have the chance to capture a motionless cricket for 30 minutes? Never before and probably never again. But.. I do have some nice raindrops!?!?
rain drops and an invisible cricket on a daisy after rain
Have you seen fractals lately? Most people think of fractals as repeating patterns after Mandelbrot but they need not appear so even if on a large scale–if you see the whole piece–they are like that. Here is a fractal art I just created that took my computer an entire night to crunch out with mathematics that looks nothing like a fractal.
My only addition to this fractal was is adding the background color since the fractal itself is programmed to be generated on transparent background. Enjoy math!!!
Have you ever felt so happy that you wanted to dance in your happiness? I often feel that way and when I was a child I used to listen to classical music and choreographed my own ballet and danced for it. This is probably why I am still very much attracted to ballet and find many opportunities to go see it and also to paint or draw dancers. Here you see a ballerina drawn with white pastel on black paper digitally of course.
I believe I noted before that digital arts have many advantages over arts in oil or acrylic on canvas or board. The most important of these advantages of digital over “real” is that since they were already created digitally, they will look perfect printed on canvas; they will print exactly as you see them on your monitor and not flat! It is a frequent complaint of buyers of “real” art after purchasing a print on canvas that the art is “flat” and void of texture. This is natural since on your monitor you only see the digitally photographed version of that art and not the actual art itself. Digital photography of highly textured items like oil or acrylic paint removes textures and makes them appear flat but not so with art created digitally to start with. Real art textures on digital photograph show up as shadow–which is nothing but a dark color but of the same height, hence no texture.
Art created digitally originally does not have this problem since its texture is created digitally to imitate real texture. It this will provide you in print with exactly what you see on your monitor!
Digital art is also green art–meaning it uses nontoxic materials and doesn’t kill trees in the making!
Have you been to the Canyons lately? Check out this Nat Geo published photo
I visited the Antelope Canyons some time ago; it was a dream come true. I received as a gift from my husband and all day (8 hours) hiking package with a Navajo Tour Guide to go through 5 of the canyons open at that time with my camera and photograph as I please.
Many people are familiar with Peter Lik, a famous photographer whose art on the same subject I admired so with that in mind (and as a contest of sort) I attacked the canyon with full force. The guide is used to tourists and preferred to point out spots to stand to photograph from but I rejected and so he asked why and I told him that imagine me as Peter Lik; does he also give directions to Peter Lik on what to photograph and from what angle? Hence from that point on I was able to capture whatever I wished. I was standing in holes big enough for one mouse (don;t ask me how) and walked on the vertical walls of the canyons and climbed over boulders twice my size… I had sore muscles after that for days…
In any case, one of the pictures I took that day has become a National Geographic published photo so the trouble was definitely worth it! This photo is available for sale as a print and also as a digital download, just click on the links underlying the words.
The print is here for your enjoyment:
Antelope Canyon National Geographic published photo
An iPad Painting using all my skills (not from photograph) and the app Inspire Pro.
Dawn is a time of the day that a night owl like me never sees. Plus I live on the West Coast behind a mountain range that separates me from ever seeing a sunrise like this. I am used to seeing sunsets–albeit in Southern California sunsets are usually quite plain; we rarely if ever get “clouds” other than ocean layer type clouds, which turn things gloomy and dark rather than allow for nice colors to come through. It does, but very seldom.
The sunrise you see here is purely from my imagination. People often tell me that iPad or iPhone or other digital touchscreen artists paint over photos.. well.. no… I don’t and while many I ma sure do, those who actually know how to paint, need not do that.
Another common observation I get from those interested in purchasing art is that “well.. it is just digital.. it will look totally flat and horrible printed”. My answer is pretty simple: actually no! First of all, if you purchase a print online of an oil paint, you are purchasing a print from a photo of an oil paint! The photo takes all definition and depth out of oil and acrylic paintings and their textures since they were not optimized for printing on canvas but for painting on canvas.
Digital art, by contrast, is created specifically for print so whatever texture I put there (and on iPad art that will not be possible but on my computer art it is strongly visible) will be there when it is printed.
To purchase this art, you have three options:
1) Purchase a print from http://angela-stanton.artistwebsites.com/featured/dawn-angela-a-stanton.html
2) Purchase a print or a digital download from http://www.stantonphotostudios.com/paintings/h60d01de4#h60d01de4
3) contact me by email at angela@stantonphotostudios.com if you would like an odd size or gel atop the print.
Thank you and see you soon!
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