Blog

I placed 3rd in a contest with this photo. I haven't placed this high in any of the contests I've been in I usually get 1-3 votes, so I am so stoked :D

I have been exploring AI for a while now and I am starting to get the hang of it. I have been using several free versions of programs, most notably NightCafe where I made this kitten. I used the text prompt "small orange tabby kitten playing in a flower garden with a blue and green dragonfly overhead." I enhanced it, then evolved it, and came up with the resulting pic.

I then tried to see what would come up when I evolved it even further. I ended up with a kitten with 5 legs and another with an extra muzzle coming out of its chest!! I do need to do a lot more practice evolving pictures.

So I imported the picture into GIMP and upped the saturation of the colors to make it more vivid. The final iteration is thru the link.

They are most likely the same ones I have had feeding off my sunflowers for a couple of weeks. There were three of them this morning. I had gone out to set up to water part of the lawn and a male was sitting up on top of one of the taller sunflowers chirping to beat the band. I suspect he was calling the rest of the flock to let them know that the diner was open. Of course, I didn't have my camera on hand. By the time I got back out of the house with it, it had flown off. So I set up the sprinkler, set my timer, and parked on my deck to stalk the wild Goldfinch. I was only able to get one good picture. They were extra fast and always on the wrong side of the patch. I ended up taking some more bee and sunflower pictures. Still need to process those through GIMP. One thing I do need to do is lock down exactly what kind of goldfinches these are. We have both American and Lesser Goldfinches in the neighborhood and they look different depending on if they are breeding or not and how old they are. Ah well, I will continue to stalk my little goldfinches and learn how to properly ID birds. I have a nice little app called Merlin that lets me ID by their songs and calls so I know what I am looking for.

After years of trying to tempt the assorted little birds in my neighborhood with bird feeders and treats, it simply took planting sunflowers in my garden beds to have them fly in and stay a while. I was able to get some pictures out my front door this morning of a pair of American Goldfinches having breakfast. My sunflowers were already a big hit with the bees and other pollinators in the area.

I need to see about getting up much earlier in the morning before it gets too warm to sit out on the deck with my camera at the ready. The goldfinches aren't the only little birds flying in for fresh sunflower seeds. I have some other finches and possibly swallows who fly in for the other end of my yard and I would love to get some photos of them also.

I have been anxiously waiting for my volunteer sunflowers to start blooming so I could see what is what. My Evening Suns and Autumn Beauties are popping out all over, but no sign of my Moonwalkers until yesterday. It is such a pretty pale yellow that makes a nice counterpoint to the bright yellows and oranges of the other two sunflowers.

I will collect some seeds to give away to friends so they can plant their own. The rest will be left on the stalks to feed the little birds who stick around over the winter. I probably won't have to start seeds in the greenhouse next spring. The sunflowers are doing a good job seeding themselves in my flower gardens.

My flower garden is coming along nicely. Soon I should be seeing flowers blooming throughout it, especially the sunflowers. I probably should have been more ruthless when it came to thinning out the seedlings that popped up on their own from last year's flowers, but I just didn't have the heart. I will know better next spring.

But they will make a nice display when they bloom. I know I should have at least two varieties blooming, Moonwalker and Evening Sun. I had one Autumn Beauty I planted out, but I am not sure if it ever produced seeds.

I leave my sunflowers out over the fall and through the winter to provide food for the birds, hence all the volunteers that came up this spring. I will see about harvesting some for the seeds to package up and give to friends.

I'm looking forward to my Hollyhocks coming into bloom. They will look gorgeous against the backdrop of the sunflowers.

Today I planted the narcissus bulbs a friend gave me. I lined them close to the edges of the bed and in the corners so I have some early flowers along with the Grape Hyacinth in the flower boxes. I still need to get some Snowdrops and Crocuses to have even earlier blooming next spring.

We finally made it to our favorite fishing spot yesterday. Spring Valley Reservoir is located near Troy Idaho. It is a small reservoir that is kept stocked with trout and is a popular spot close to Moscow.

There is an abundance of wildlife there, the most noticeable is the Canada Geese which arrive in the spring to start their families.

While we didn't catch any fish, we still had a wonderful day enjoying the sunshine, nice weather, and the many species of birds that make their home there.

I have carved out a bit of space where I can set up a computer to work on my photography processing and my digital artwork. I used to have a dining area, but now it is my workspace.

My husband picked me up a very nice computer with a big monitor for me to use. It has better graphic capacity than my old one and is a lot faster. I had been working almost exclusively in Linux, I just like it more than Windoze. I had to deal with Windoze at work before I retired and when I got home, Linux was just the ticket as it is a lot less cranky and less susceptible to viruses.

As I mentioned in my last blog, he had to set up a partition so I can dual-boot into Windoze. The Epsom scanner I bought will work on Linux, but only in a very limited way. I had to have WIndoze if I wanted to be able to scan all my old family photos. Between me, my late brother, and Dad, I have a lot of photos and slides to scan.

When I first started playing with digital art programs, I bought a simple Wacom graphics tablet and pen. I started with open-source software: Krita, Inkscape, and My Paint. I had been learning quite a bit from those. Since I picked up the Rebelle software I have been learning a lot more. One thing that is nice about the new software is there are a number of very good artists who have good tutorials on Escape Motion's YouTube channel and on their own channels.

When my Wacom tablet died, I picked up a Huion H620 Pro that is doing the job nicely. It has a bigger work surface than the Wacom did, which makes it easier for me to work on. Coming up with a means to tilt the tablet up has made it even better.

For my photo processing, I use GIMP and RawTherapee, both very good open-source programs. I started shooting my photos in RAW on my Cannon EOS Rebel T3i, a nice camera I have had for a number of years. I have been looking at a paid photo editor that combines what I need from GIMP and RawTherapee and is not Photoshop. I refuse to rent software, I'd much rather buy it and not have to worry about the rent going up. Affinity Photo is out of Europe and I tried the 30-day free trial and am quite impressed with it. I will see about picking it up when the budget allows.

I have been playing with a digital painting program I picked up last fall and I have been enjoying it immensely. I have never been any good at painting in real life, so when I finally got a computer capable of running art programs I jumped at the chance to learn. I picked up an inexpensive Wacom tablet and I started with some of the free paint programs available for Linux (the platform I use) and started exploring. I wasn't too bad with those, but when my hubby came across an offer for a program that allowed for more realistic painting for $10 I jumped for it.

Unfortunately, it was not Linux compatible, but my husband had previously partitioned my art computer so I had Windoze for my scanner. The setup he did just happened to be exactly what was needed to run the software, along with two other programs the company had for $10 each. Both of those are particle system programs that allow me to create some very interesting pieces of art.

The programs are Rebelle 5 Pro, Amberlight, and Flame Painter from Escape Motions which are based in Piestany, Slovakia. I love the internet. It is so cool to connect with people in other countries.

They have since upgraded to Rebelle 6 Pro. I will eventually upgrade to the new version, it has a few new features that look interesting. In the meantime, I will continue learning using version 5 and my Huion tablet and pen.

The completed Hagitude at a Palouse Women Artists show at the Artisans At the Dahmen Barn March 2019.