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Dixie
garden enthusiast
Waikato-New Zealand
painting flowers4 Mar '06 1:55 pm
Liza, your flowers are exquisite.I love the aquilegias--I planted the blue and white ones this year , and am hoping for increase.What are the white flowers- jardin'mai'?
I paint in water-colours.A website of a wonderful artist-specialising in rose paintings, but she also does gorgeous portraits.www.harrison-tustain.com .Have a look at her gallery.Her name is Susan.
Her technique is unusual, in that she works in transparent layers--so many that her paintings become luminous as stained glass.Each layer is 'primed' first with clean water,then painted when it is a stage of just damp.
Dixie |
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Liza
gardening consultant
Waterloo, Belgium
Dixie,4 Mar '06 11:52 pm
...thank you, my good friend, for sharing my artistic feelings! I did visit the site you proposed to me , and I loved the painter's "Graham Thomas" and that lovely baby sitting on the chair! Babies and flowers have so many splendid things in common...
And the flowers you ask are the white Clematis " Madame de Coultre". She blooms end of May until end-June, and again a little bit in Autumn. Her brilliant white flowers are so divinely created , that I cannot have human words to describe them...They make me feel so humble... The Aquilegia's blooms, also make me feel utterly humble...But she self-seeds so easily! Every Spring I transplant many ...new-borns...
Today it is a very cold but sunny day here, and I plan to go out and start pruning all the Clematis. Normally, the Clematis have to be pruned by the end of Winter, here being by the end of February. And not the same pruning for all of them... Wish me luck... |
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Dixie
garden enthusiast
Waikato-New Zealand
Thank you Liza5 Mar '06 5:13 am
I didn`t realise aquilegia self- seeded , so I hope mine will be thinking about it now that it is autumn, as I would dearly love a larger group, I have only two precious plants in dark blue pots-in the fairy garden. I think I will shift them out into the garden .
I have two clematis'Montana'along a fence-- I am busy wondering where I could plant one the same as yours-there is a nursery specialising in clematis in Taranaki.(west coast)'Madame' is exquisite.
We are leaving shortly for a few days` holiday at the beach .The wishing well for the fairy garden is nearly finished. I am going to paint little flowery designs on it.
Dixie. |
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Liza
gardening consultant
Waterloo, Belgium
Wishing well...5 Mar '06 8:11 am
...to you , Dixie! Happy holidays! I wish you the best sunsets by the sea... Aquilegias with their fairy-like flower forms will multiply happily in your Fairy Garden . Keep the Fairy Garden of your heart always alive... |
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bilby1915
valued member
coastal mediterranean climate in southern hemisphere
5 Mar '06 9:22 am
hi Liza,
love your flower photos, especially the aquilegias. Your photos are great (if that is the raw state of them) you would be hard put to find much to better them even with software like photoshop.
i only have a cheap digital camera but have access to software such as Photoshop, Illustrator and also iPhoto.
Graphic designers and cleverer amateur computer heads than me use photoshop (i just tinker with it).
A much more palatable way to get into this is iPhoto from Tiger OSX - operating system number ten (iPhoto is easy peasy tweaking of photos for beginners).
[Hope you don't mind me posting this, but you sound like a beginner to phototweaking, and i have just been exposed to it, so i guess i am brimming with enthusiasm as a newby to it - wanting to share what i have just found out about.]
iPhoto comes free when you buy a Mac and you get free updates as newer versions come out, don't know about other brands of computers.
Anyway, it is THIS easy.
I go outside, take my pics
come inside, attach cord from keyboard to computer, iPhoto automatically opens up and downloads my photos into the iPhoto library
i then look at my photos in EDIT mode (still in iPhoto)
i might CROP out an old plastic pot that is in the frame, and would look better not seen
i might go into EFFECTS where my one photo can be played with in nine ways (sepia, black and white, blur edges, put black circle round edges, fade colours, antique look etc)
i might go into ADJUST where there are levers i can go up and down with e.g the photo looks underexposed, so i will slide the EXPOSURE lever up to a point where it looks better
still in adjust, maybe the nasturiums look TOO orange, so i use the SATURATION slider, and turn that down lower, stop when it looks like it does in reality
still in adjust, maybe it was a really bright day, so i can slide the BRIGHTNESS slider, to turn down the brightness
still in adjust, maybe the photo is slightly fuzzy, i can slide the STRAIGHTNESS slider to make the fuzziness less
there are more slider options (contrast) but i'm sure you get the drift
it is so easy in iphoto
when finished, you hit the EMAIL button in iPhoto, iPhoto resizes the photos for you and puts it in a new email, ready for you to show off to your friends.
If you have a mac and you email me, i can send you screen caps of how to do it.
Sorry i don't have any suggestions for non-mac users. I'm sure there will be others on this forum who can assist in that way.
Just wanted to let you know Liza, using photoshop/iphoto isn't selling out your photos, it's just cleaning them up. I have discovered, the cheaper your camera, the MORE cleaning up you need to do! Even so, i am not terribly happy with my photographic results, oh for an SLR digital!!!!!!! The guy who started this thread, he must have AN AMAZING camera - plus he composes his photos so well - MUST be a professional surely, so good. |
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Liza
gardening consultant
Waterloo, Belgium
Thank you, Quill!5 Mar '06 12:01 pm
I think, you convinced me... But the Bonica little roses and the pink Paeonies are more beautiful in their natural pink colours...Maybe, because I'm so accustomed to their live , garden colours.
But the rest of them, and especially the Clematis and Aquilegias, are a real treat!! The Clematis in particular , has become as beautifully white as it really is when blooming in the garden,almost all the adorable details of the white blooms are there!! The Clematis' details are very clearly seen as well in their natural , whole screen photo of My Pictures File. But here, is something exceptional!! And in a small size! Wow!I thank you SO MUCH!!
Well!! I do want now to search for the same programme as yours. My daughter will teach me, I'm so lucky! Thank you for your time! |
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QuillGordon
valued helper
Sandy, Utah
5 Mar '06 12:15 pm
Your welcome.. I was especially pleased with how the Clematis came alive with mostly just a fade adjustment, beautiful... It's just one more way to enjoy the gardening experience...  |
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Liza
gardening consultant
Waterloo, Belgium
Dear Bilby!5 Mar '06 12:16 pm
Thank you so much for your detailed help! I am really a beginner , but I can become a quick learner! I am so happy -- and lucky!! --to have for a while my daughter with us , who is a visual (digital) effect specialist. She has promised she'll teach me, if I finally decide... After Quill's work on my photos , I am convinced. I'll try to start painting again ....in digital colours! I feel a huge , undescribable joy! |
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bilby1915
valued member
coastal mediterranean climate in southern hemisphere
6 Mar '06 2:16 am
wow Liza, you have it made , a digital effects specialist as your own personal tutor - who could ask for more??? That's marvellous - i look forward to seeing more of your lovely garden photos.
Quill Gordon made your photos look even more beautiful. But only YOU know how much tweaking to do, as you see the real thing as to make the colour comparision. (When obviously Quill couldn't just nip out to your garden to check HOW bright the pinks really are).
Lovely to hear your enthusiasm Liza.
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