Cropping and thinking about some art

I have been doing a LOT of laying around on the sofa due to the fact that I have bronchitis AND sinusitis AND an ear infection AND an eye infection...my heads been on shut down though i think i have finally turned the corner ...thanks to a zpak and some eyedrops...

anyway since i feel slightly better than sludge today i have been doing alot of surfing and looking at art websites and blogs today...dont you love laptops...it occured to me that the views out our windows would make great black and white pencil drawings ...but make them long and narrow...i have a thing for long narrow shapes....and i love the skeletal shapes of the trees right now...

so these are snapshots of what i can see from the sofa in the den...and the amazing difference some cropping can make to a ho hum picture...remember cropping is always a good thing to do with any art work to hone in on area of an otherwise boring picture...you can even make a view finder to find the best area to crop...small piece of paper with a small hole(square or rectangular) cut it in and held at arms length....so since i have not done a jot of art in days now i decided to make this my post...

River view before cropping and after cropping...think the second is more interesting due to the format...did i say its raining up a storm and 50% chance of snow tonite!!

this is the orginal picture

by moving to the right or left you can change the view and angle so totally out the windows...almost like the window is a view finder itself...kinda cool...

cropping...these were all cropped...pics were taking by moving slightly to the right or left....

of course iphoto wont give me up the original of this one...except SIDEWAYS....sigh..these would be great done vertically skinny without the pampas grass...or humm maybe with the grass anchoring them? I wonder how many times i have taken pictures of these trees...

these are some more views out the same window ...all from different angles and of course uncropped...it really is surprising to me how much the view changes depending on where you sit in our house and the weather and the time of the year...a friend of mine called them our ever changing paintings....

a view from a chair i rarely sit in but I do love the way the sycamores cross each other in the window

and the same view cropped

Requiem for three great trees

As some of you know we had a wild storm Monday...I painted this picture to remember three of the biggest and mightiest that are meeting thier sad fate with the chain saw right now...I guess they will keep us warm this winter but these enormous trees shouldnt be firewood...so which way do you like it better?

So do you like it vertically or horizontally? I painted it horizontally and threw some salt on the watery background....leaves l-r sycamore, white oak, water oak(70 feet easy and uprooted from the ground!)


This is a picture of posing bad kitty before the storm ...he was enjoying lollying on the back deck till the howling winds and rain hit....this cat has more poses in him than a paid model! and since hes an outside cat there is always a great view of him on the deck to watch his antics...