“Overgrown Window” … from Lois Bryan Photograph and Digital Art
Well, hey. Here I am again!!!!! I won’t annoy you with long, boring reasons why I disappeared again. There really is no good reason!! Just another sad case of Chronic Blog-Abandonitis! I’m fine, we’re fine. No Covid, no scary bouts of depression, the house didn’t burn down … no nothing! Just puttering along, focusing creative energies (what there may be of them) on visual artsy-fartsy stuff instead of the written (typed?) word. And as previously, my apologies for being such an inconsistent poop … and another promise to try to be here more regularly … again!!! (Fingers crossed!).
I’m starting this post out, though, on a slightly different note. Sharing very cool news!!
On a soft June evening, just as the sun dips below the western horizon, here in the Mid-Atlantic area of the US … if you’re very lucky … you may see magic. The wind must be calm, the day will have to have been clear and warm, the frogs in the ponds must be singing their best songs … if all these conditions are met … the world will light up.
Ok, so. Da Virus. No dancing around it … even though we’re currently out of isolation … it still exists and none of us really knows what’s around the next corner. Ug.
We’ve all got our coping mechanisms … ignore the whole mess, wallow in all the news about it, worry yourself to death, etc. Mine seems to be following The Guidelines but ignoring the news, playing cheerful music, watching happy movies and creating colorful art. I’ve been painting lots of flowers. The flowers are sort of an indulgence, actually. They don’t exactly sell off the shelves, but they are such fun to create … and they’re so flippin’ cheerful!! Read more ›
Three pots, two bowls and a plate … a colorful collection of hand-made pottery items in the sunlight of an autumn day. Found at one of the intriguing old buildings at Old Bedford Village, in Bedford PA, one of my favorite spots for spending the day and getting some snaps. The image was hand-painted, digitally, and very loosely inspired by one of my own photos which I took there a few years ago. Read more ›
A tall and mighty sunflower, bursting with golden blooms, shoots straight and strong … right up to heaven. I don’t know what more inspiring and joyful way to spend the afternoon than standing in a field of these beauties. Read more ›
Good heavens, what a MESS it is in here!! What’s all this … stuff?? Cobwebs?? Ooo that means spiders … and goop … and dust … ACHOO!!
Well, anyway. (Blithely sweeping my arms, rolling my eyes and practicing my ever-steller ignore-it talents.)
Lots going on in the world, right? Good night Miss Agnes. Hope everyone is hanging in there, healthy and all?? All is well here … though you’d be right to think I’d taken a header into the black hole since I haven’t written since what was it, December? Good grief!!! By way of explanation (not excuse) I did come down with a roaring case of Da Crud (not diagnosed as anything more sinister … but one never knows, DO one?). That was in mid February … took quite a while to get back up and running. But all’s well now. Seems like once my head gets out of the habit of writing, it doesn’t want to go back without a shove.
I don’t make a habit of highlighting my older images … my eyesight or tastes have changed (evolved I hope?) over the years … but this old pic is an exception, mostly because of the story. And since this blog is all about … uh mostly about … the stories behind the images, here comes an oldie. My hope is that I hadn’t spotlighted this image here previously (remember, this blog’s been going on for a lot of years, the poor hijacked thing) but even so, I don’t think the image is here. And even if it is, I’ve just refreshed it according to my ever-evolving tastes. Or maybe it’s the cataracts? Anyway.
A jolly snowman holding a “Merry Christmas” message sits expectantly at the table by the tree. Beside him wait a plate of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies and a Christmas glass to be filled with cold milk. Santa’s arrival later in the evening is an exciting event not only for small children, but you know, all the toys come alive when he visits, too. Read more ›
Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays, is a day to celebrate our blessings and give thanks. A day for our loved ones to gather … to feast on everyone’s favorite dishes … and to hold our memories close. At a time when the temperatures outside begin to drop, the symbols of the season, the sight of the fire in the fireplace, and the orange pumpkins and the rusty dried grasses and colorful leaves with which we’ve decorated the mantle and the table … warm and comfort us. Read more ›
I can’t believe my last post was about Christmas already!! What?? What was I thinking????
Honestly!! I’m not “that” person … you know, the one who starts humming Jingle Bells in July and has all their Christmas Shopping (should I say Holiday shopping?) done by Halloween. Not me at all. It’s just that for various reasons we already celebrated our Thanksgiving (which here in the US isn’t actually until next week), plus I admit it, I am also getting some pics ready for anyone who’s looking around for their Christmas / Holiday cards for this season. (Yes, I’m a business-person.)
Anywho. Let’s take a step back and think about Thanksgiving which is one holiday I do love.
A tiny Maltese pup, dressed in his finest Christmas sweater, sits in front of the Christmas tree. As if he himself were one of the gaily wrapped packages arranged under the tree’s boughs, he is (momentarily) motionless, seemingly waiting for the magic of the morning to begin. But his eyes are fixed on something that we will never see … something we can’t understand. His sharp little doggie eyes and his sensitive nose and ears … they know. They understand the magic that is hovering … just out of reach of us ordinary human beings.
The glowing bright vision that we can’t see … though if we’re lucky we can feel its presence … is the magic of the Christmas Star … the magic of Christmas. Read more ›
I can’t believe it’s been another four months … FOUR MONTHS! … since I’ve noodled around in here. But nope, no apologies, no explanations other than those I’ve already made in previous posts. And no more promises to be here regularly. At this point I’m pretty well convinced that life will do its thing and, though I’ll try to swim against the current, I’m not going to beat myself up for going with the flow. Hey! For once I actually created a metaphor that wasn’t mixed!!!
So what’s new with me and my artsy-fartsy stuff? Lots, actually. In fact that’s one reason I haven’t been exercising my writing skills … I’ve been doing fun visual stuff instead. I’m going to include a couple of new pieces here which will sort of tie in to the time of year and season.
As always, a click into the images will take you over to my website where the pics will be visible at a better resolution and with a smaller watermark. And again, not to stir up any hornets’ nests, but yeah I do put watermarks on my online stuff. But be aware that if you are sufficiently wildly in love with anything and want to make a purchase, the watermarks won’t be on your wall art … or your tote bag or your coffee mug or anything else. Promise!!
What I’m going to add today are a couple of autumn landscapes. Though it’s now mid-November, which is still fall, the brilliant colors we love have mostly turned to taupe. Other than the occasional snow-storm, we can pretty much count on taupe and shades of gray and brown from now until spring. So let’s take a minute to glory in the magic some of us enjoyed within the past few weeks.
You know, I’m just going to come right out and say it. I’ve been a lazy bum about cleaning up my poor blog and updating it and keeping it going. Bad Lois. Look all you want, there’s not a good excuse to be found. There are still a couple of things I need to do to the overall appearance … things that bug me, but probably no one else even notices. And the sad thing is, I’ve even got the how-to’s of the fixes right in my e-mail’s in-box (cripes … unless I lost them!!!) So. Guess what? I’m not going to fix them tonight, either!!! Nor am I going to go back and replace the lost posts. At least, not any time soon. I will, however, still try to add in the images that disappeared on those older posts that remain.
I think the task of doing all of the above was just a wee bit daunting. Boy, I hate admitting it, but I think it’s true. And rather than knuckle down and tackle the whole big deal, I just put it off until I had “time.” Yeah right. Well … see how well that worked out. It’s now July and my last post was in March. Sigh.
But here I am again … and I’ve decided to just pick up where I left off, hoping that the momentum of getting back in here and writing and adding little stories about my images (because that is what this is all about!) will get me moving in a more productive direction again. And who knows, I may still get around to adding back in my lost posts!!
I am still creating images … doing my photography thing … then still having fun creating digitally painted images from the snaps. Here’s one I did in May of this year (2019).
As far as good intentions go, I guess I’m as good as or as guilty as the next person on their way down the primrose path. I mean … by this time, over a month after my “Under Construction” post, I’d fully expected to have added back the bulk of the old photos that disappeared, and to have re-created most if not all of the posts lost during The Hack.
But … sigh … I got distracted.
Instead of knuckling down (you youngsters ever hear that expression?), I’ve been playing. Artistically, I admit, but playing.
So … here are a couple of my latest plays. They’re springtime related … who doesn’t love and long for flowers in the last-gaspy days of winter and the teasing and capricious weather of early spring? All are non-photo based … meaning, freehand sketched and painted in Corel Painter with a Wacom tablet and the art pen using pastel brushes … and all but one were created during the past couple of weeks.
If you have a link to the previous site, you may or may not be greeted by an Asian page. My old blog has been completely eliminated, but the Asian page may still show up for some of us. Or there may even be a link-over to here. I guess it depends on a lot of different factors … all of which are beyond my feeble understandings of this stuff!!
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