HAPPY CUSTOMERS

Hi All :)

I hope your Thursday is off to a wonderful start :)

I wanted to pop in and share a photo I received from a recent customer :)

I get emails from a lot of my customers telling me that they are happy with my work, usually it is when they have had a photograph of mine framed and it fits in the space they placed it just how they had imagined it to be (very gratifying :)

And on occasion some customers like to send me photographs of my work in their homes. It really makes me feel so happy that people are enjoying my work :)

This project (image below) was a new venture for me. Originally the customer had purchased my "Colorful Fishing Floats" Throw Pillow Cover (cushion on the back of the chair in the photo) 
from my Etsy Shop :)

Then a couple of weeks later they contacted me to see if I could customize a yard of fabric with the same image on it so they could cover the seat of the rocking chair. At first I thought, "how am I going to do that?" but eventually I worked it out. There is a company called "Spoonflower" who have been around for about 10 years who have lots of beautiful fabrics created by lots of talented Artists. I have thought about put my work onto fabric before but you know how time is, it disappears and one thing leads to another and before you know it, it is another thing that is sitting on the backburner waiting for you to rethink it. So, it was a wonderful opportunity for me to revisit putting my work onto fabric. I was a bit nervous, I have to admit, but after exchanging emails with the company and getting some much needed advice I uploaded the image and drop shipped the fabric to the customer. Then it was nail biting time because I was watching the tracking to see when the fabric would arrive at the customers home.

About a week after I saw the fabric had been delivered I was getting nervous, these customers had been great communicators in the lead up time, so I was just about to send them an email and the photo of the finished Rocking Chair arrived with a lovely, lovely thank you from the Happy Customers :)

What is so awesome about this is now I know I can put my work onto fabric with confidence and am excited about a new avenue for my work but most of all I have Happy Customers who have a one of a kind chair, unique to them & their home :)

Every time I look at this photo it makes me smile and I think it really is a work of art, with the yellow accents too and the Artist in me is very, very Happy :)

(photo shared courtesy of my Happy Customers :)

Hope you enjoyed this little story & image :)

Happiness All Round :)

Have a wonderful Thursday :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.

A FEW ITEMS I HAVE SOLD RECENTLY IN MY ETSY PHOTO SHOP :)

Hi All :)

I hope your Weekend is going well :)

I just wanted to pop in here and share some of the items I have sold in my Etsy Photography Shop recently :)

I feel truly grateful that people appreciate and buy my work :)

2016 has started off really well for me and it feels like a blessing as all the hard work over the past few years might be starting to pay off :)



click on photos to see larger images :)

"St. John's Bridge" - B. & W. - 20" x 30"

"Pretty Peony" - B. & W. - 12" x 18"

"Whispers of Spring" - B. & W. - 8" x 10"

"Blossoms Drops" - B. & W. - 8" x 10"

"Pretty Peony" - B. & W. - 8" x 10"

The 3 photos above were a customized special ordered set - it is always fun to personalize my work to customers special requests :)

"Flowers At Midnight" - Wall Tapestry - 88" x 104"

And the customer was so happy with this Wall Tapestry she sent me a photo of it on her bedroom wall, so sweet :)

"Journey" - Wall Tapestry - 68" x 80"

"Colorful Fishing Floats" - Throw Pillow Cover - 18" x 18"

These customers were so excited with the Pillow Cover (above) that they asked me to customize a yard of fabric for them to cover a chair, I don't usually do this but they have been so sweet and it was a new venture for me :)

So these are some of the items I have sold in my Etsy Shop in the passed month, YAY!!!!! 

I am selling pretty well in my Society 6 Shop as well, YAY!!! there too :)

Thanks to the wonderful customers and all the support from the lovely people who encourage me everyday :)

Have a Wonderful Weekend :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.

HURRICANE WARNING ON THE OREGON COAST

Hi All :)

I hope Spring (Autumn for our S. Hemi Peeps) finds you well :)

2 weeks ago, I went to the Oregon Coast with my two Sons. We stayed in an amazing house on a sand dune right above the beach & looking out at the amazing vastness of the Pacific Ocean :)

We have stayed in this house before and knew it had awesome views with lots of windows facing the West for amazing Sunsets & Ocean viewing :)

What we didn't know was how bad the weather was going to be, rain had been forecast, hey, this is early March in Oregon so no surprises there, but we did not expect the Hurricane Warnings that started to show up the day after we arrived, oops! These are basically unheard of in Oregon. It definitely made for an interesting experience; I have experienced some strong winds in my life but for about 18 hours this was crazy and the rain, just pouring down like tomorrow was going out of fashion and the winds whipped the waves into a frenzy, the windows of the house were literally shaking (thankfully they were not glass) and we were happy to be indoors with a gas fire to keep us warm.

You can read about the Hurricane Winds Here; 

I went outside onto an upstairs balcony, a couple of times, very briefly, to take some photos of the very high waves but nearly got blown away; trying to hold my camera steady with a zoom lens was challenging but I tried :)

So, as fuzzy as some of these images are I wanted to share them with you because they have their own beauty. :)

The following day the waves were still high but lovely blue skies appeared; there was some flooding and some of the local coastal rivers were close to or at flood stage, we drove thru a few big pools of standing water along some coastal roads. Still not really quite believing what we had experienced.

Click on photos to see larger images :)

The Pacific Ocean, by early afternoon (1pm) the winds had picked up and the High Tide was churning - the sky was grey and the drizzle turned to rain. (Next 3 photos are early afternoon too)

I couldn't resist adding a little colour to this photo (and a few following ones) to see if I could show the brewing storm in a different light.

The Pacific Ocean at 3pm - The sky was so dark it was hard to see the horizon - the waves were powerful and swirling, it was amazing to hear their thunderous crashing.

1pm March 9th

1pm March 10th - 

It was amazing the transformation within those 24 hours

Same shot (Above and Below) 24 hrs. apart - Mother Nature is so awesome.

Again pretty much the same shot taken 24 hrs apart - the Ocean is beautiful, majestic, frightening and reassuring all at the same time. (High Tide both shots)

Looking out at the calmer Ocean at High Tide and the Blue Sky, if we hadn't lived it we would not have believed it had been so incredibly rainy and gale force winds less than 6 hours before and howling ALL night.

But as the camera was pointed South, there were still glimmers of those rain clouds moving inland towards the coastal range.

I have to admit I was just so excited to be by the Ocean again; it has been the longest time ever for me between trips to the Ocean, I had missed it so much. I'm a Water Girl, I need to see the Ocean and be by it on a regular basis or I dry up, lol :)

Well, I guess I got more water than I had bargained for but it was thrilling to be at the coast to experience this storm, call me crazy but I felt a kind of refreshed sense of renewal after it but I am also the kind of girl who likes to open the windows and breathe in deeply during a thunderstorm :)

Hope you enjoy my photos :)

Happy Wednesday :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.

WINNER OF BLOG GIVEAWAY

Hi All :)

Happy Saturday :)

I just wanted to say a BIG "THANK YOU" to all the lovelies who took time to browse thru my Etsy Shop and enter my Blog Giveaway :)

The winner is; Meeling from The Hairy Peach Blog

Congrats to you Meeling (I will be in touch soon :)

I truly appreciate everyone who entered and the lovely things you say about my work, it truly makes a Girl Very Happy and that makes it so awesome to be back blogging :)

I just wanted to share the photograph I have been working on this week :)

Will be in my Etsy Shop soon :)

Thanks again :)

Happy Weekend :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.

SPRING GIVEAWAY

Hi All :)

I hope you are all doing well on this special Leap Year Day :)

So, getting back into blogging has made me realise I haven't done a Giveaway in FOREVER.........definitely time to rectify that :)

As we are starting to get some Spring like weather here in the Pac. Northwest and the Daffodils and Crocus are in bloom in my garden, I thought why not do a Spring Giveaway :)

Here it is;

Choose One Photograph from my Etsy Shop That's it! YAY!! (Depending on the image format you will receive either an 11" x 14" or 11" x 16" photo (Value $50.00 including shipping :) Giveaway is only open to U.S.A. residents at this time. One Entry per person. Giveaway will finish on March 4th 2016 at Midnight P.S.T. :)

(don't forget to leave a way for me to contact you should you win! :)

So, really simple, go to my Etsy Shop, 

PhotosByChipperfield

Choose the Photograph you would like to have if you win the Giveaway (doesn't have to be a Spring Blossom Photo :), leave the link to the photo from my Etsy Shop in the comments and tell me why you chose that image :)

Have Fun :)

Here are a few Spring Photos in my Etsy Shop you might like :)

"A MOMENT IN TIME"

"COOL BLOSSOMS"

"SPRING BLOSSOMS"

"COOL MAGNOLIAS"

"GLOWING MAGNOLIA"

Hope you enjoy browsing thru my Etsy Photography Shop :)

Don't forget to enter the Giveaway :)

Have a Lovely Day :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.

BEING GRATEFUL

Hi All :)

I hope I find you all well and your Wednesday is going well :)

So, a few weeks ago in my blog post I started to tell you a bit about our failed move to San Diego. :( 
I thought I would hold off talking too much about it this week, as I can only handle so much of it, so I am sure you could possibly feel the same way. ;)

I will get back to it but I truly have to process it too ;(  I don't want to sound too whiny so...............................pausing for now :)

But if you read that week's blog post you know that my 2015 SUCKED!!!!!

So, I wanted to share with you a simple process I go thru every day that makes getting out of bed in the morning a whole hell of a lot better (noticed I didn't say "bounce" out of bed, as I can't remember the last time I did that, except when I needed to go a pee urgently, lol :)

Anyway, lying in bed, after I wake, is a troubling time for me, as each part of my body wakes I become aware of the pains and challenges going on in my body and sigh, I think, well here we go again, another day of dragging thru life. It would be so much easier to just pull the covers up over my head and go F... it I ain't moving, I'm just going to lie here and feel sorry for myself all day. But that is just plain selfish (don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of days when I wasn't physically able to get out of bed, so that is where I stayed) but there are other people to consider not just me, so after a while I give myself a little pep talk in the form of Being Grateful. :)

 Of course it would be so much easier to stay in bed than getting up and pushing myself thru each day, so much easier to feel sorry for myself than to be grateful but I count this as a good exercise for my mind, it might not be earth shattering, but I do believe that there is a slight paradigm shift and a motivating message to my body that it is worth it to push thru and try and live as best a life as I can that day. :)

So, I tell myself 10 things I am grateful for, they don't have to be big things, they shouldn't be the same things as yesterday, although of course there is a constant theme to this. :)

My number One gratitude statement is; I am thankful I woke up this morning :)

Simple but so important, right?!?! :)

Followed closely by being exceptionally grateful for a loving family :)

Being grateful is not a new concept, I know, but being consistent with it, is what makes it worthwhile and strengthens my resolve. :)

I try not to be grateful for superficial things in my 10 morning Gratitude statements but I will include being incredibly grateful for a roof over my head, I never take that for granted.  

One of the things I am very grateful for is still being able to be creative and I love to share my photos/artwork for you to enjoy :)

Here is something I have been working on recently :)


My Children found this Feather one year while we were on vacation at the beach, they kindly presented it to me and it has been a part of my art space for a long time now. It has been used for drawing lessons, writing and even to move paint around a surface (notice there are a couple of tips that have ink on them :) A few Summers ago, I decided to work on an outdoor still life photography project, the Feather was a part of that :) This year I finally had some time to work on creating the images I wanted from that shoot :)

Hope you enjoy these :)


Click on photos to see larger images :)

Have a Lovely Wednesday :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.

Nature Photography Challenge :)

Hi All :)

Happy Valentine's Day :)

I recently did a Nature Photography Challenge on FB. 

I don't usually do things like that but in 2016 I am trying to embrace a few things outside my comfort zone :)

This was the premise; 

Post Nature Photos, one a day for 7 days, tag the person who nominated you to participate and then tag someone else to join in :) Simple :)

I guess I do not like to feel pressured to do something & also as a "Professional" Photographer I feel I have to come up with something special to fit this "label" that is attached to taking photos for a "Living" (well, if I made a living out of photography by itself that would be one things but I don't ............lol :)

Anyway, I thought I would give it a go, especially as it was amount friends on Facebook :)

Here are the photos I shared :)

DAY ONE - Icicles hanging from a Maple tree in my garden - January 2016.

DAY TWO - Sunset from our street - (I have never seen a cloud formation quite like this :) 

- March 2015.

DAY THREE - White Pelicans on the Salton Sea - California - November. 2014

DAY FOUR - Beautiful Silhouette of a tree against a California Sunset - Poway Park 2014. 

DAY FIVE - A beautiful Wave at Cardiff Beach, California  - August 2015.

DAY SIX - Gorgeous full bloom Magnolias - West Linn, Oregon - March 2015.

DAY SEVEN - A twilight shot of the lovely Willamette Falls, Oregon - March 2015.

I hope you enjoy these & I hope it inspires you to look at the amazing world around us from a different perspective - just for a moment - and hold on to it forever :)

I Hope everyone is having a Wonderful Weekend :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.

HAPPY (BELATED) NEW YEAR :)

Hi All :)

HAPPY BELATED NEW YEAR :)

Long time no see, sorry about that, I have missed so much in the blogging world but Life has been CRAZY, the kind of CRAZY, where I didn't even get to send Christmas cards out (which I have NEVER, EVER not done before in my whole life, even if I was down with bronchitis or a CFS/Fibro relapse leading up to a Christmas, NEVER!!!

The kind of CRAZY where I only managed to produce 4 blog posts in 2015, WHAT!!!!!

It's been the kind of CRAZY year that I am seriously thinking about leaving my Christmas tree in the corner where it is, all dressed up and just unplugging the lights, leaving the ornaments in place and putting a sheet over it until next year, before you all panic, it is an artificial tree, lol :)

But CRAZY nearly had me defeated at several points, not good :(

I'm not the kind of Girl to be down for the count for long and it has been a long, long time but I'm back to my beloved blog and my lovely Blogger Buddies :) 
Even if it is the beginning of February 2016 already, WHAT!!!!
(Not sure where January went) :(

 And if you are interested I will tell you the tale of my CRAZY 2015 - I will try not to bore you with too much of the dross and it will most probably be in parts (oh joy, I hear you all groan, lots of narrative, lol :)

I promise I will include some pretty photos to break the monotony of my bitching :)

If this was a Tardis (I know it is the wrong type of phone box, I am a Brit, after all, I should know, lol :) I would beam (I know, it's a different show too, lol :) myself to a land where I had a personal assistant or better still, a Fairy Godmother or both and could get on and do everything I would like to do, possibly creating artwork again, rather than the boring things I have to deal with right now :(

Now, where would that land be??? 

Well, for now I "beamed" myself back to Oregon :)

This is what I posted about the start of the adventure in January 2015 :)

2015 was very challenging. :(

As I was in Oregon most of the organisational work on our house fell to me. I am a great planner and love to be organised :) I felt confident I could get the task done. So, with my notepad in hand I got planning, scheduling, calling people, etc., But there were definitely too many people involved in this move for it to go smoothly. 

To start with it was a corporate move; we were reassured that the assigned moving co. would work with us and it would all go smoothly and we had an ever so bubbly relocation "Expert" to help us navigate any problems, unfortunately, neither the Moving Co.'s go to person nor the bubbly relocation "Expert" had any idea of what our lives were like or how my health impacts our daily lives and how this was going to be a HUGE physical challenge for me, regardless of how much I tried to explain, they feigned understanding but it was just empty words. 

Anyway, based on how the real estate market seems to operate in our part of America, we decided to put our home on the market at the beginning of the "Selling" season which is Spring time. With the first week in April as our target time to list our home. Our real estate agent brought in a "Stager" to advise on how to "stage" our house for sale. Well, I spent nearly 2 hours going around our home and her telling me that I needed to paint everything neutral, I needed to neutralise the carpets, I needed to take down all the family photos, declutter areas, lose the personal items, basically turn our home into a show home. Seriously, I'm an Artist my walls are yellow & red & blue; I have red carpet & blue carpet in places, & tons of original artwork & photography on the walls, it all seemed like a load of nonsense to me. We LIVE in our house for goodness sake. But to sell a house in America that seems to be what it takes; it would have cost a fortune to do everything she and the realtor wanted us to do. Seriously, you would think that our house was a complete messy ramshackle hut the way they were talking :(

 1st clue  that we had the wrong realtor but did we realise it at the time, NOPE. :(  

Because my health is unpredictable, at best, I really do need to be extremely careful where I use my energy everyday. With so many people involved in our relocation, even my meticulous organising went out the window in a hurry.

People would show up unannounced to give me a bid on a job (oh we were in the area, GREAT (read "great" as sarcastically as you can), people would show up, out of the blue, to do work that couldn't be done that day because someone else had to do another job the next day BEFORE these peeps could do their work. You get the picture, like the guys who were scheduled to refinish the hardwood floors wanted to go hunting or something, so were going to put the final coat of varnish on the floor the next day, I told them we had agreed to get the job done that day and it needed to be done as the painters were coming in the next day, talk about an unhappy camper, (him not me) he grumpily agreed to finish the work that day but I watched as he and his buddy just slopped the last finishing coat on to the hardwood floors that were just sanded and no completely cleared of sawdust, yet again GREAT!!!!!. He also got the jab in that I should bring a check for the full amount with me when I came back to the house. (I was staying in a nearby hotel (sounds WAY more glamorous than it was) while these "workers" were doing the jobs on our Home. 

I'm just going to say here, that if I never have to organise people to work on my home ever again it will be too soon ;(

We had decided, because of the work that needed to be done to our house, that we would move everything into storage first. A word of advice to anyone thinking of selling a house, NEVER, EVER move everything out of your house to try and sell it, people will think you are desperate and will make low ball offers and that is exactly what happened to us. :(

But I digress................. I'm thinking you guys most probably have read enough so far, so here are a few new photos in my Etsy shop for you to enjoy :)

"SUMMER CALM"

"CATHEDRAL ARCHES"

"RED, RED AUTUMN"

"MYSTICAL BLUE WINTER"

"ST. JOHN'S BRIDGE"

"CRATER LAKE"

I Hope everyone has a wonderful Weekend :)

Here's to reconnecting :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.