Cherry Trio

The light, the comple-mentary colors and the overall composition made me want to share this with all of you. The strong straight branch holding the interestingly curvaceous leaves and a trio of luscious red cherries is what made me post. I love when everything lines up and just works together cohesively making my blogging a lot easier. I also hope it put a little smile on your face thinking about what to do with all the cherries in the future -cobbler, pies, ice cream, jam - ahh, the flavor is just so good. The only problem for us, the birds always beat us to them. We have been known to grab a couple as we pass by on the mower, warmed by the heat of a summer day, just like fresh baked pie - yummmm.

Red Heart

While browsing through my photos for inspiration this charming red heart popped out at me from nowhere. It's on our cherry tree and even though I took this last year and have looked at it many times, it is the first time I noticed the little red heart hanging all by itself. Who knew it was there? I just wonder what I was thinking about this time to make me notice it. No matter what it was, I'm sure glad my muse pointed it out to me!

For the love of Texture

Is this photo the greatest? No. Is the composition the best? No. Is the texture captivating? You bet. I just had to share because it was raining and I couldn't get the best shot at all. What I did get was my whole point for stopping and shooting this picture, all the fabulous textural elements all rolled into one frame. I loved the weathered phone pole, the thick branch, the hanging fruit, the rotting seed leaves, the vibrancy of the great orange berries and the blurriness of the white background. This in my book could keep my creative, artistic side going for a long time. I am so inspired by the different visuals that it will make me stop over and over just to see what I have missed looking at it the first time. So, I hope you are keeping a fresh eye out wherever you go, you never know what's lurking at the side of the road just waiting to be discovered!

Rose Hips

I wanted to share these rose hips with you, especially the left one because I like the way the light reflects off of its surface giving you a chalky effect of color. It took so long for my little roses to produce rose hips and when they did, I must have taken 1,000 photos of them not sure if they would return or not. The color is just so red orange on these and the interesting calyx at the end, sets my creativity into high gear. What could I do with that shape? I could use it as a background, as a monotone maybe, as a repeated pattern in a nice stripe - the possibilities are just endless. As an artist, you have to think about using things that are everyday in a new and exciting way, after all, there is nothing that hasn't been done before. I'm up for the challenge and can't wait to get out my pencil and paper. What kind of idea did you think of?

Ruffles Galore

Some Thesaurus words for "characteristic" - appropriate, differentiating, distinctive, emblematic, essential, fixed, idiosyncratic, inborn, indicative, individualistic, ingrained, innate, marked, native, original, particular, peculiar, proper, regular, representative, singular, special, specific, symbolic, unique.

Well, there is definitely no way to mistake kale for any other vegetable. I just fell in love with all the distinctive ruffled edges and don't even get me started on the great color combinations of this variety. From the palest sage green to the vibrant magenta center, what's not to love about this peculiarity. Add all the wonderful veining that shows on each leaf tipped by the rolling delicate ruffle, oh yeah, I think we have a winner. If only it was a perennial, my yard would have a huge amount of them. I would love to do this in colored pencil but I know my instructions would just be painful, not the intention of a project at all. So, for me, I will just gaze into it one petal at a time wondering if I could actually pull off the drawing. Humm, was that a challenging thought or what?

Word - Characteristic

The word for this week is characteristic.

Its noun meaning: a distinguishing trait, quality or property.

Its adjective meaning: serving to mark individual character such as individual, peculiar, distinctive.

This luscious flower was discovered outside Olive Garden in an urn full of fall specimens. I thought the color was just scrumptious with all its golden yellows turning to the side of warm orange. But oh, the center, that is really what caught my eye. First of all the limeade coloration surrounded with spirals of various textures and specks of yellow flakes. The muse knew what she was doing making me look closely into this flower. Intrigued by the peculiar (loved this definition most) center helped make my decision for this weeks word. Who knew Olive Garden would provide such inspiration, can someone please pass me the bread sticks?

Great Spikes

This little clematis was out in the new garden area of Threads of Time and I just couldn't help snapping the photo. I loved the multi colored spikes against the black trellis. Although it looks quite prickly, the flower is actually nice and soft. This one was newly planted and I can't wait to see how it shapes up next year. Aren't the colors just wonderful. If you were to use that color combination on something, what would it be? I will definitely have to think on that one since I'm not a huge fan of the violet color. But if I could do the chartreuse of the center and the black of the iron, we are now in business. I hope you take the challenge and let everything inspire you, no matter how large, small, young or old - see the creativity and discover its possibilities!