Work while the sun shines...

There's a hymn that has the line "Work while the sun shines, work with a will..." I've found myself following that counsel a lot this past year. The tune and words often run through my head. I find that my day's activities are frequently determined by the weather. On days when it is cold and overcast, I will usually hole up in my studio and focus on creative things. But when the sun is shining, I want to be outside in the garden doing anything that needs doing.

The times when I don't have the luxury of letting the weather dictate my day's schedule are when I have chosen to commit myself to some sort of deadline. If it's a creative deadline, then the sun can be shining but I'll be holed up in my studio. If it's a home improvement deadline, then I will end up outside in less than optimum conditions.

This week has been the latter of the two. Why? Because last week, Hubby and I FINALLY found the workshop/shed we've always wanted at an amazing price at Lowe's (ours will look just like the one at left only we'll paint ours yellow to match the house). The clincher for the whole deal was that the price included installation! Woohoo! We don't have to risk our marriage to get the shed (I don't play well with others when it comes to garden projects).

The instructions we received from the installer were that we needed to provide a site that was within 6 inches of level and would have 3 feet clearance on all sides of the footprint of the workshop that is 12'x8'. And the installation will be happening in less than two weeks. So you know what that means... it was time for me to crack the whip on myself and get the site prepped.

I am happy to report that after a week of heaving concrete blocks around in the back garden, the site is now ready to accept a deep layer of pea gravel which will be the foundation of our dream workshop. But that also means that the first week I've been well since my "lovely" Christmas cold has been completely devoid of creative pursuits in the studio--no pretty photos to share.

Wait...

I just realized that I still haven't shared my latest "vintage" botanical print that I created before I got sick.

Originally a photograph of some of our Eureka lemons growing in the garden, I brought the photograph into Photoshop and, using my digital Wacom tablet, turned it into a "vintage" botanical print. Because of the aforementioned deadline, I haven't had a chance to format this and print it up into notecards and other pretty stationery as intended. For now, it's just fun to look at on the computer when I dart in briefly on breaks between forays into the garden to engage in manual labor--manual labor that I LOVE!

Creation of my "Rose Nostalgia Collection"

Since the majority of my roses in the garden were developed or introduced long after the era of the vintage botanical print, I thought it might be a fun idea to take some of the photographs I've shot of my roses in bloom into Photoshop and see if I could create images that looked like vintage botanical prints.

I started out with the "America Rose". It's the one I did all my experimenting with to find the right process for making this idea happen. Thankfully, a Flickr friend of mine (playingwithbrushes) has a wonderful set of free textures on Flickr that she's photographed and scanned from around her farm and home. Included are some old book pages that she's scanned. They're perfect for what I wanted!

After I completed the "America" rose, I really wanted to try my hand at some others. So the next one was the "Blue Ribbon" rose:


And then the "Janice Kellogg" rose:


The latest one I've completed is the "Montezuma" rose:


I'm calling these images my "Rose Nostalgia Collection" and I'm planning on doing one for every rose variety in my garden (except the mystery roses that I can't identify). It's a real treat to transform these photographs and watch them turn into vintage illustrations with the use of the modern technology of Photoshop and my Wacom Cintiq 12" digital tablet.

Because of the state of the world economy,
I have chosen to scale back my emphasis on selling my work
and, instead, to emphasize sharing it for free via the digital image online.
Click here to visit my Flickr page for more images for you to enjoy for free.

Signed fine art reproductions can be made available upon individual request
for the price of shipping to your location anywhere in the world.