I'm creating food photography with my digital class right now, and I am asking them to pursue several choices for the type of food photo they present. While attractive food photos work well to increase your visual pleasure with food, they may not offer everything they could.

For me, this image tells a story of food already savored, mixed into a combination of textures and flavors that are meant to enhance one another. It isn't a particularly difficult task to metaphor that statement into a visual interpretation, where the mixture and variety of color, variety of directions of movement of the shapes both small and larger,  the linear etched areas in the background, and even the large shape of the fork, tied to the rest of the image through the debris on its surface all adding to that metaphor for taste.

Finally, the division of the image diagonally, with the almost entirely devoured upper left side and the not quite completely consumed lower right side, offer a slight leap in time to two different points in the consumption of a meal.

I haven't posted any drawings for a while, so here's one. As most of my journal work, it came to me slowly in a time released mood of temporal flux. As I lie in bed, preparing to sleep or read or draw or sing or something other that I can't foresee, I often find the sketchbook to be the most cathartic object I own. I have twenty or so of them, full of drawings... and I will always treasure them.

White Stripes

This morning, as most mornings, there were a number of gorgeous sights to behold as I drive to school. Of course, this time of year puts the sunrises and sunsets in my grasp, so a lot of the spectacular images I see are of that type.

As I pulled over to take a couple of pictures, I noticed that the clouds actually were rising as the sun was, so it took quite a while for the sun to get up over these rising clouds. This certainly qualified as a unique situation, so I had to take numerous shots. From my vantage point, this is the one I like most because of it color saturation and the light line visible from the sun horizontally in both directions.

Research as an educator is an important element for me on an almost every day basis, and recently while I was digging for some new perspectives I discovered an artist who was innovating some new ideas around pinhole cameras. With some further investigation I found a way to produce a new type of pinhole camera, so I made one. The image I've posted here is the fourth I made with the new camera. I like the "pattern" effect.

Foamhead

I've been interested in a variety of printmaking forms and such since attending the MAEA Fall Conference at Haystack in September, and did Halloween cards for my grandsons using slices of foam rubber as ink-holding surfaces. I was surprised at the results and how the foam deformed, distributed ink to the paper, and generally functioned in the press.

While probably not a technique I will pursue a great deal further (or maybe I will), I did capture an image of one of the pieces leaning back against a piece of styrofoam while sitting on the edge of a plywood board. It seemed to me an abstraction of a face.

The formality of the composition and the effect of the shadows to create a three dimensional space is interesting to me, as are the combinations of symmetrical balance, unity, and the textures in the three elements. This image has a strange "presence", or being, that I enjoy.

Jackson's "Jack-O-Lantern"

Halloween!...

Jackson's Jack-O-Lantern

What fun doing the carving!

What fun watching the boys eyes light up!

Putting in the Candle and lighting it up!

Free candy (the boys don't realize yet).

Trick or Treat!

Grandsons' Weekend

Another weekend to spend with those two "characters", and they are able to spend every minute busily digging into something. Pillows become Jackson's "medium" and his constructions include everything from restaurants to houses. We have so much fun together! I just think these double exposure photos work well to describe the movement and motion of playing with these guys and with the many ideas they have to keep active.

Fall Workers

Here are a couple of my advisees from last Wednesday with the fall foliage in the background, and I thought they recovered from the "Nick" photobomb pretty well! I always enjoy time with my advisees, and these guys just seemed so happy to be outside and able to enjoy the fall day. It was a beautiful day!

Fall and the Colors Came Quick

Fall color arrived suddenly this year 

as we had a very dry summer 

that many felt would diminish the fall colors.

This did not happen as the colors

were as bright as they ever have been,

but went quickly to shades of brown.

I like this tree in yellow leaves

spreading out in a last gesture towards

the background branches already bare.

Fall, leaves, color, the beauty

of Mother Nature and the miracle

of all of our life cycles.

Early Morning Across Mud Creek

Having the days shorten is a change for me that allows me to actually see some sunrises. During the summer I have to get up early (4) to capture that kind of light. This morning I did it on the way to school!