Keep your eyes wide open for inspiration!

Look for a beautiful sunset.  Feast your eyes on the perfection of flowers – the perfection of their colors and of their conformation. Did you realize that none of the colors in nature clash with each other?

See the world through the camera’s lens and you will be inspired by the beauty that you have chosen to record.  It will also help you to focus on your subject with clarity. This will give you an appreciation for form.

Keep your ears open for inspiration!

Listen to a John Phillip Sousa march: then listen for the sound of the birds singing on a new Spring day.

Hear the 23^rd Psalm word for word.  Sit back and hear a Beethoven Symphony in your heart and WONDER that he was deaf.  It brings me to tears and I think you will experience joy.  Feel that experience; let it soak into your inner being; let it imprint on you.  When you need inspiration you can call up the memory of how you felt during those moments.

Posy with Music

There are so many ways to be inspired and I will be blogging more about them.  For now please enjoy these and make them part of your inspiration journey.

Judy

www.quilligraphy.com

www.etsy.com/shop/judyorcutt

www.pinterest.com/quilligraphy

www.facebook.com/quilligraphy1

So recently,  my friend, Sally, and I got together to try a new technique using pressed flowers.  This was a new process that we learned through the world wide pressed flower guild.  Kate Chu  of http://www.pressedflowerart.com  was the teacher who created the video that we watched to learn this.

So we gathered our materials.  We needed card stock, aluminum foil, alcohol inks, spray adhesive, black shoe polish and a spray sealer.  And of course, pressed flowers.  We needed to choose flowers or leaves that were sturdy.  Many pressed flowers are very delicate and do not hold up to any manipulation.  Both of us used ferns.

We glued our ferns onto the card stock and then put the aluminum foil over that and started to smooth out any air bubbles or irregular areas.  We kept working that until it was very flat.  Then we added some shoe polish and rubbed that into the design created by the ferns.  After that we used the colored alcohol inks to create a back ground.

The images at left are what this looked like in the beginning stages.

The next step was to add the alcohol inks and create a background.

These images show what the final products looked like.

It was fun and the results were quite different.  Quite a few members of the guild were doing this also and we all shared pictures and compared notes.

What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

One of my most rewarding volunteer stints has been being on the curriculum committee for OLLI (Osher Life Long Learning Institute) at Penn State York.  I have served in this capacity since the inception of OLLI 5 years ago.

There is a huge amount of work that goes into planning and presenting the presentations that OLLI gives.  We have a 10 week schedule twice a year and in that time frame have offered as many as 70 presentations per 10 weeks.  Also we have bus trips and various social activities.  Some of the presentations are a one time effort but we have 6 week series also.  All of these presenters must be contacted by curriculum committee members and then we must entice them to fill out forms  (the hardest part of this job).

Currently we are working a year in advance.  It is a fun job as finding new presenters is always a challenge and their willingness to teach us at no compensation is always rewarding.  Many are repeat presenters as it is so exhilirating to them to teach people who want to learn and who are very interested in the topics.

OLLI has given this community a forum for senior members who want to be active.  Our roster has grown rapidly and we who volunteer for OLLI have great pride in the organization.  There are many volunteer opportunities besides the curriculum committee.
Come and find out about OLLI.  Check the website to find out more.   olli.yk.psu.edu

Art promotions will include me joining the King’s Courtyard Collective Gallery at 124 E. King Street in March.  This is a collaberative effort by about 10 artists to provide an art experience in York, PA.  I am very excited about this.  The artists who are already involved have “approved” me and I have “approved” them.  A very nice group of people who are excellent artists.  You can get an idea about it at

www.facebook.com/KingsCourtyardCollectiveGallery?fref=ts

This particular block of King Street is becoming the place to be for art.  There are several other addresses in the block that are art only. Here is one of my botanic collages on canvas that will be available for purchase at the collective.

Art production has involved me attending a class at York Art Association in Abstract Collage.  I want to learn new techniques.  My collage work in the past has been on canvas and has involved botanic material.  This is on paper and involves layers of paint.  It kind of evolves as you go along.  I will be at the 4th session this week and so far I have some interesting parts of the large paper work.  I do not know if the total work will be pleasing to me but I can see where I could frame smaller sections of it.

OK and for movies…gosh, there have been a lot of good ones.  “Les Mis” is one of my favorites.  But I also liked “Silver Linings Playbook” and then there was “Lincoln”.  The carpeting shown in the oval office and in another room of the White House was woven by
Family Heirloom Weavers of York.  Many other York references too as Thaddeus Stevens was living in York and of course we are pretty close to Gettysburg.

So my January has been quite productive and enjoyable.  Minimal snow is always a plus, too.

Best:

Judy

Making pressed flower bookmarks is fun and quite easy.  Above are the basic instructions.  You can make them and take them to a copy center where they can laminate them for you.

Figure out how many bookmarks you can fit on the rice paper, leaving enough space between for cutting to the final size.  Then lay out your pressed flowers and anything else you might want to add.  Tack them down with minimal glue (you can use Elmer’s or any paper adhesive glue).  They are now ready to be laminated.  Or if you don’t want to laminate them you can put clear contact paper over the work.  Be very sure where you want to lay that paper as the flowers will want to jump up; so it is good to start at one end and roll it over eliminating any air bubbles.  Punch a hole near the top and add a tassel and VOILA!

Here is a finished bookmark.                                   And here is a sheet that I use before laminating.

You can see these bookmarks at www.etsy.com/shop/judyorcutt

Please visit me at www.quilligraphy.com  and LIKE me on FaceBook www.facebook.com/quilligraphy1  where you can enter a contest for $20.00 worth of QuilliGraphy art work.

My best:

Judy

Allow yourself to be creative in 2013.  Grab a camera and see the world through the lens.  Soon you will realize that you are isolating segmented areas to take photographs.

Then look at the background of that segmented area through the lens.  Does that background detract from your subject?  If so, try a different angle or zoom in and
eliminate some of the background.  Try photographing that subject from the back
or from the side.  Also from a lower level or a higher level than you used for the initial
shot.

Be aware of your light sources.   It is not good to shoot directly into the sun, unless you
want the effect of that and generally if so, you need to offset the sun from the subject.
I really like to play with this.  Sometimes just tipping the angle of the camera a bit can
create a very interesting composition.

Speaking of composition, remember the “rule of thirds”.  Draw imaginary lines on your viewfinder.  2 parallel horizontal lines and 2 parallel vertical lines will divide your field into 9 blocks.  The intersections of the lines are the spots that you want your subject to appear.  For example, you don’t want your person to be smack in the middle of the photo-if you place that person on one of the intersecting lines you are composing a more
appealing photograph.

Siesta Key

These are a few things you can do to make your photographs more interesting.
Try it—you will LIKE it !

Happy shooting:

Judy
visit me at www.quilligraphy.com to see pressed flower and calligraphy designs where I use these same principles.

The 2013 Pressed Flower calligraphy calendar shows lovely selections to make each month a beautiful one for you.
I press all my flowers. They are from my garden, my friends gardens, from paths along the way and SOMETIMES they may be from secret sources. I make my own colored calligraphy ink using gouache, water and gum arabic.
I use Sumi ink for the black. The calligraphy is done with a dip pen generally with Brausse nibs.
Her we go:
January: is from a sprig of roses that when I turned them upside down, they formed a tree! Also holly and some verbena and Queen Anne’s Lace. A winter delight.
February: is from a botanic collage I made. It is on canvas and has an old paper quote (Within youself) along with music, coreopsis, mushrooms, and money plant.
March: March has hellebores-one of my favorites. They are also known as Lenten Roses. They begin to bloom in late January or maybe February. By March they are usually up and about. They come in a purply color, a greenish color and a black. I have all 3. They are perennials.
April: April is from a botanic collage. It has music, buttercups, red salvia and lots of background color mixed in the the gel medium I use to adhere the botanic material to the canvas.
May: Hydrangea, Queen Anne’s Lace, dianthus, and one of my favorites = nigella. Nigella is also called “love in a mist”. It has wonderful flowers, pods and leaf things going on.
June: I wrote this poem as fireflies always just blow me away. I am so excited to see the first ones appear in June. I used tomato blossoms to make the fireflies and corns silk and ferns are in there too.
July: On a background of music, a ribbon of red, white, and blue surrounds the verbena, gypsophilia, crown vetch, roses, four-leaf clover, bergamot, American Cranberry viburnum, lobelia and hydragea make up the red, white, and blue flowers.
August: is from a botanical collage that contains lavender, nigella, hydrangea, gallardia and lots of blue and yellow in the background.
September: A sunny day collage! The sun is a daisy, blue salvia, thyme, lavender and others bring this to life.
October: shows leaves, leaves, leaves in a botanic collage titled “A Walk in the Woods”. It has music, maples, oaks, passion vine tndrils, birch, Bradford pear and many other leaves.
November: this is froma wonderful collage of BIG mushrooms, and paper towels, and daisies, and numerous other flowers. The mushrooms were very tall and I cut them in cross sections and pressed them. It took a long time as they had a lot of moisture. They didn’t smell very good either !
December: is on a music background-is it a Christmas carol??? The tree is made form verbena, red salvia, buttercups, and ferns.

So these are the images. Each month has its own page. It comes in a CD case and you flip the front so that it
makes a display stand and VOILA—you have a lovely calendar. ENJOY!

These are available at http://www.etsy.com/shop/judyorcutt    or call me at 888-871-8027 or e-mail me at judy@quilligraphy.com
You can see other QuilliGraphy designs at www.quilligraphy.com
The calendars are 18.50 with free shipping.

My Best for this new year to you..May each month be as beautiful as the image in front of you.

Judy

January has a scene of an old truck on a farm in Manchester.  I like this old truck!
February is a view of Rosenmiller Farm in York Township with the lovely lake in the front.
March is a scene taken in Lancaster county looking through to York county on the river.
April shot was taken at 8 PM on an April evening.  It is the Colonial Courthouse.
May was near Holtwood Dam.  I call it an Amish rest stop.
June was of ranunculus flowers.  Their color is so intense and they last a long time.
July is of the flags at Prospect Hill cemetery.  So many-what a reminder of our soldiers!
August is of the noble York county tomato.  Waited for all through the winter.
September was at the Indian Steps Museum and of a Heritage Festival.
October shows a scene of the lovely pumpkins seen at produce markets.
November is of the intense skies with beautiful winter sunsets.
December is a long exposure of Christmas tree lights.

I hope you enjoy this calendar.  Remember you can order it on www.etsy.com/shop/judyorcutt  or e-mail me at judy@quilligraphy.com  or call me at
717-815-0022.

OK, so I made it up to Glens Falls the first day which is at the southern end of Lake George.  I stayed at a very nice MOM/POP motel called the “Town and County” Inn.  I like to stay at local business places because I believe in supporting local economy and the owners are very gracious.  They directed me to a good place for breakfast the next day and after having breakfast, something told me to go back to the room & check it.  I did, but everything seemed to be fine.  So on I went.  Later to find that I had left my cell phone plugged into the wall….

I got to Fort Ticonderoga and  I visited it.  An ancestor of mine had been in the battle during 1776 there.  Captain James Orcutt.  I felt the vibrations in the ground.  Also there was a glorious garden called the “King’s Garden” and I took many photographs there as it was so beautiful.

I stayed in Plattsburg that night and the next morning I did a side trip to Ausable Chasm in the Adirondacks and then headed to Sarancac Lake and Lake Placid.  These routes were state roads and very scenic.  I stayed in Lake Placid and found it to be an exciting village as well as a scenic
delight.  When I go on these trips, I generally take samples of my work along and make calls on the local shops and galleries.  Lake Placid was a good place to do this.

I left here and headed on a State Route 86 through the Adirondacks to Paul Smiths.  The name intrigued me and I wanted to see it.  It is a college that specializeds in forestry and hotel management and now has a 4 year degree program.     Not much is there except beautiful trails and roads and vistas and a college !

I continued  north on State Route 30 until I came to the Eisenhower Locks on the St. Lawrence River.  At Cornwall I crossed the bridge into Canada.  My trip through customs was not so pleasant.  The customs agent simply could not understand why I was coming to Canada for an afternoon and then returning.  I guess he thought I was exercising my pharmacy license !

I drove down the river on the Canadian side and returned as soon as I could at Prescott.
Again my trip through customs was not so good.  I was glad to be back in the US where I did not have to be questioned as if I were a criminal.  Guess I must look like one!

I stayed in Morristown which is a nice little town in the Thousand Island area.  I ate at a
town diner where the specialty of the day was a mac & 3 cheese dish-it was quite good.

The weather on that Saturday became quite nasty and I headed down to Lake Ontario-got a glimpse of it  before I picked up Interstate 81 and headed down to Lake Cayuga in the Finger Lakes.  By then it had cleared up some but I came on down to Binghamton to stay overnight and then on home the next day.

I took lots of pictures and had the type of adventure that I love to do-just flying by the seat of my pants and going where the wind takes me.

Try it !  It is so liberating and so exciting.  Even if you just do it overnight, you will get the feeling of adventure.

When you are taking a picture that has action, it helps to get down to the subject so you are closer to the level of the action.  I did this with the birds so that the shot shows them closer to their level instead of shooting it down on them.

I really like to take silhouettes.  They add interest and perspective to the photograph.  They give it warmth and action too.

This photo has good color saturation.  You have to keep waiting and taking photos every few minutes to catch the best color.

An important rule to remember-is the “rule of thirds”.  Following that rule has the horizon line in either the upper third or lower third of the picture-never in the center.

And finally, I really liked the way the sun gave the gulf a golden path to the beach.

All of these photographs were taken in January at Siesta Key, Florida.  My heart is still there !

Which of these photos do you like the best??   Let me know and thanks.

Judy