Tiny Story: Perhaps

Perhaps you’ll find me, buried beneath the autumn leaves. Perhaps you’ll touch a hand to my cold cheek. Admire my glass-marble eyes. Perhaps I’ll let you go. Or perhaps I’ll reach for your warm life with my creaking fingers. Perhaps I’ll stroke the blood from your veins. Perhaps you’ll become glass and marble too. Perhaps.

Poetry: Le Fey

the wildflowers sing, their voices like honey.
their wings fluttering in the breeze.
brushing apart waves of cerulean sky.
i hear them in the quietness between words.
calling me.
their song glittering the void.
painting it honeydew.

if i were to let them glitter me away.
my voice would join theirs.
i would flutter and wave too.
like honeydew.
i would call you.
would you answer me too?
become honey and glitter dew?

Tiny Story: Elastic

Elastic Sundays yawn into nothing. What I would give to find stars in the grass again. To melt into sherbet-sparkle afternoons. Wrap my soul in shimmer-song. Stars embedded in dreams. Nothing is lost.

Digital Art: Make A Wish

Learning to paint, part 2. I used a photo reference for the shape and shading of the flowers, but everything else was yanked from my imagination.

This time I used completely different colours to the flower in the photo. I also added two more, and a twilight sky that dreamed its way into my mind as I painted.

The painting I ended up with is nothing like the reference photo…and I like it that way. Even when following YouTube tutorials, I make sure to add my own variations and personal touches to the art. It wouldn’t feel like it was mine otherwise.

Digital Art: Learning to Paint

I’m learning to paint with digital acrylic using reference images to guide me. I’m hoping this will give me a feel for shapes and shading. I don’t reproduce the photo exactly – I choose my own colours and add some personal touches to make the piece “mine”.

My reference photo for this was of a blue flower. I decided to keep the petals blue, but I chose different colours for the pollen.

I didn’t paint to the original photo’s background either. I kind of just pulled a background out of my imagination and painted that instead 😅

I like the result, though I don’t feel as if I’ve gained skills with shading etc. Perhaps my instincts have absorbed something from this exercise though. I’ll keep painting, and time will tell.

Tiny Story: No

That time you asked for an orange, and they gave you a pear. That time you sang your brightest, but blurred into the rest of the galaxy. They never said no. No was in raindrops. In every frost-scraped breath. Every elastic promise. No was no was no.

Photography: Yes, Another Bokeh Tree

This is a photograph. I promise. I took this with a defocused lens, a flower stalk, some gold sequins and black muslin cloth.

Photographs that look like paintings intrigue me. I like that I can create abstract art with my camera, as well as my iPad.

Digital Art: Not Another Bokeh Tree

I couldn’t help myself. I love bokeh. This was drawn in Procreate, entirely with the bokeh brush with the exception of the tree’s trunk.

And no, I still have downloaded the new brush set yet. It keeps slipping my mind. There’s so much to do with the classic set alone…

Tiny Story: Writers Block

She wanted to continue, but she couldn’t tame the words. They hid in the wilderness, in that tropical night, tempting her with an aurora of chirps and coos. She followed the calls, only for  them to blink out. A blank page remained, swirling with moonlight.

The Flighty Fairy Changed Her Mind

What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?

A pink dahlia flower is reflected in a water drop. I took this photo with my DSLR camera and macro lens.

Ah, yes. The art of changing my mind. I’m familiar with it.

One of my biggest and artsiest mind changes had to do with photography. I got my first “real” photography camera in 2016, and all I wanted to do was take nice pictures.

I had fun, but I ultimately decided the medium was limited when it came to creative expression. Photography, I thought, was a way to showcase nature’s artwork, not produce my own.

I put the camera away and went back to creative writing.

Then, last year, I picked it up again.

This time it was different.

Because, you see, I’ve changed my mind.

Photography was never limited. It was my own mind that was limited. Photography is a great tool for creative expression, and I’d been limiting my own experience by boxing in expectations.

I learned how to really use my camera, and a whole new world of creativity opened up to me.

I can do so much more with my camera now.

I can take moody photographs:

A lone water drop clings to a flower stalk. I took this one during the golden hour.

I can create dreamy abstracts:

These abstract images were taken by either deliberately defocusing the camera lens or using wide apertures to focus on a very small area of the image.

I can even take photos that look like paintings:

This is another defocused photo. I used a flower stalk, blue sequins and a sparkly sweater.

The possibilities are endless.