Grotto of the Redemption

Snapshots from a tour of the Grotto, West Bend, Iowa.

Sunset at Black Hawk State Park

Sunset snaps over Black Hawk Lake from Black Hawk State Park, Iowa.

Iowa skies

Experiments with black and white

Some more shots of Ada Hayden

7 shots of Ada Hayden

Again, mucking around with filters. Not surprisingly, using a yellow + blue combo along with a polarizer is better than using a green filter in order to get a greenish effect.

Cloudless sunset

Cloudless skies are not the best conditions for photographing sunsets. That said, with a heavy dose of CPL, this is the best I could do :(

Charcoal and chalk

First attempt at making a sketch with charcoal and chalk. Ran out of patience towards the end and messed up. Notes to self -

1) Need a better way to "make" colored paper than simply paint it. Might try colored washes
2) Got the facial expressions okay, especially for the girl on left. Messed up the one on right somewhat
3) Should stop if I run out of patience rather than ruin the entire picture *biggest lesson learnt here*
4) Need to observe what women wear a bit more carefully. Kind of clueless about sketching the dresses

update !!

Lifting 165 lbs over your head can cause some damage if something goes wrong. But at least the splint looks cool :)

'dem boats

The original version I painted looks much better than this snap. Poor light :(

back to pencils

'nother daily dose of sketching ...

Eh?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8662822.stm

untitled ...

Away from the easel for a while, but here's a recent pic anyway. Getting better, but still need a lot of improvement. This picture has too many flaws as well.

blah! again

Just can't seem to get the pastels right :(

blah!

Blah! poor attempt, but still, just for the records ...

Relationship with Deborah

Hilarious -

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-six-flags-ride-based-on-relationship-with-debo,17223/

Who is this fool? - Part 2

Results from an experiment with impressionism. The task turned out to be more difficult than I had anticipated. Thus far, I had made fun of inaccurate abstract modern art. Turns out it is more difficult than it looks. I am using pastels after more than a decade. So I thought a good way to get back would be to make a human portrait. Decided to try an impressionist style of coloring - basically thick strokes, no fine features, the figure should look un-realistic and blurred, yet it should convey the impression of the personality and one should roughly be able to make out the person. It is much harder than I thought, and the lesson learnt was to respect art a bit more ... and use pastels for such work on a bigger scale. This small 6 inch by 7-7.5 inch size is too small to use thick blurred strokes while still bringing out some accuracy.

Who is this fool? - Part 1

The butterlies of Reimann Gardens

Butterflies of Reimann Gardens. Reimann Gardens is maintained by Iowa State University. Fore more info, here's a link - http://www.reimangardens.iastate.edu/

PhD vs marriage

A little gem from PhD comics -

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1296

'nother sketch

Trying to sketch without a outline beforehand ... and flopping miserably.