Ashland, Oregon.

GOOD MORNING :)

As many of you know my Hubby and I recently took a road trip to visit a few places in Southern Oregon. One of the places we stay was Ashland, Oregon. It is truly a beautiful little town and in a lovely location nestled in the foothills of the Siskiyou and Cascade Mountain Ranges. We had been there once before, briefly, stopped to have dinner while on a road trip to California. We promised ourselves a return trip, so four years later here we are. The weather was perfect, the first real Summer days we have experienced this year, it was long over due. :)


Photo credit Graham Lewis

Our primary reason for staying in Ashland was to go to a play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

For years people have told me how wonderful the Festival is but being a bit of a theatre snob, thinking that nothing in a back water in Oregon could come close to my precious West End I made excuses not to make the 5 hours drive to Ashland. But I couldn't have been more wrong. We went to see "The Merchant of Venice" on the Elizabethan Stage. It is an open air venue and as the sun set it truly became a magical experience. I was completely captivated by it all. I now can't wait to go back and see more.

Have a Magical Day :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.

P.S. Don't die of shock people, no photos by me (He! He!)

Beautiful Koi! :)

Last Week, part of our trip took us to Southern Oregon. It was the first week in forever the sun actually graced our State, YAY!

We stayed at a lovely Inn for a couple of nights, the Ashland Creek Inn in the Edinburgh Suite it was beautiful and relaxing and comfortable, 3 things I really need on a vaca! (yep, I need more things than that but this was a great start :) If you are ever in need of a place to stay in Ashland Oregon, I highly recommend this Inn :)

They had a beautiful Koi pond in the pretty garden and I took a LOT of photos of these guys just cruising around, what a life! The light on the pond was so awesome and I was mesmerized completely.

Hope you enjoy these guys as much as I did :)

Have a Wonderful Monday :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.

FRIDAY FLOWERS! :)

Happy Friday Everyone! :)

Well, I have been on a little adventure (more about that next week :) but being home for a day already it feels like I didn't leave, it might have something to do with that mound of laundry :(

Oh well, to distract from that, let me share with you this week's Friday Flowers!

Of course, it had to happen one day, that I would get to share my Beloved Poppies with you! YAY!

So, here they are :)

(How many ways can you photograph Poppies?!?! :)

I hope you enjoy them!

Good Morning Poppy :)

First Poppy Too!

First Poppy.

Unfortunately, most of my Poppies this year ended up looking like this :( The weather has not been conducive to a long flowering season. I wasn't able to get a shot of a group of Poppies as they were beaten down by the constant rain :( So, I added a group photo from last year for you all to enjoy!

I really hope you enjoyed my Friday Flowers!

Have a Wonderful Weekend. :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.

Before and After! :)

Last Week I posted some new Photos here on my Blog that I recently listed for sale in my

Etsy Photography Shop


I asked you if you were interested in seeing the Before and After photos and there was an unanimous "YES" :)


So, here they are and I will try to explain a little of the process too :)


Once Upon A Petal


Before :)





As you can see this is not a very inspiring photo in its original form, shot on my Art table, scribbles and all, the Petal is beautiful though and I wanted to enhance that, so with a little colour changing and a contrast adjustment the whole feel of the photo changed to be something, I think, was workable.


After :)

Harvest Flower

Before :)

Here again, I took two Photos that were not very stunning separately but tog. they really worked as a wonderfully colourful Art piece.

After :)

I took a "Canvas" and placed the Flower picture on it as one layer, then placed the lace curtain with the rain drops glistening on the screen door over the top of that, these two photos were taken with different cameras and I wanted to use the different formats to "frame" each piece. By adding a little orange colour to the overall piece the Autumnal appearance started to glow. I am really excited with the way this worked.

Fireside Lady in Repose

Before :)

After :)

Again I used the Lace Curtain over the Fireside Lady. I really didn't do anything else to these two images except layer them one on top of the other. I love the veil of mystery and the way the fire looks like it makes the rain drops glisten.

Day Trip

Before :)

After :)

Again, didn't do very much to this piece, except to change the edges with a soft colour :)


Black and White Tree

Before :)

After :)

Black and White - Box Elder

Before :)

After :)

Beautiful White Lilac

Before :)

After :)

The last three B. & W. images were just altered very simple by using the grey scale process. :)

I really hope you enjoyed today's adventure into the Before and After process and the fun creative ways to use photos that may not look anything by themselves.

I hope I have inspired you to look at some of your own photos that you might have disregarded to create a beautiful work of Art. Please let me know and if you have any questions you can contact me HERE :)

A few other pieces of Biz to address :)

Sarah Ridgley posted a great photo today on her blog Gypsy Ridgley of the Vintage Jewelry she won in my May Giveaway :)

Some special Thanks to Steve at Photo Grunt Blog for posting one of my Photos "Time Remembered" in his blog post :)

Also, Thanks to Adventures in Clay for including my photo Rock Dove to her Dazzling Iridescence Treasury :)

And, Monicaj for including my photo Beautiful Balcony in her Beautiful Lounging Treasury :)

And Lastly, Thanks to Joieux for including my photo San Fran Sean Lions in her Calm Treasury :)

Hope your Day is going well :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.

FRIDAY FLOWERS! :)

Happy Friday everyone!

Before I show you this Week's Friday Flowers I wanted to share with you a couple of Treasuries in Etsy East that others have kindly added my Photography to. The First Treasury is The Sweet Smell Of Lilac and the second is America the Beautiful if you have a minute please go check these out as they are truly beautiful Treasuries, well put tog. and just lovely to look at :)

And now to this week's Friday Flowers! :)

As most of you know it has been raining here in the NW now for what seems like a Century, a slight exaggeration, we haven't started building an Ark just yet but the Flowers have taken a true beating over the past few weeks but in between the hail and the thunder and the rain I did manage a few shots :)

I hope you enjoy them :)

I love the colours of this Columbine, it is also covered in Cottonwood seeds that were everywhere for a while, my poor allergy ridden Hubby can attest to that!

Here is the first Rose to bloom in my Garden this year :)

I love the shape of these Columbine petals :)

Second Rose to bloom in my Garden :) (avec une Amie)

Snowball Bush :) I just love the beautiful colour of baby pink :)

Campanula, Love the shape of these :)

These were the only Irises to survive the rain and even these have a lot of rain damage but the colours just pop and made me very Happy :)

Lavender, I love the smell and the shape and the colour, esp. next to the Yellow Roses :)

These were actually planted to save the Roses from being eaten by the Deer, even thought we live in suburbia there are a lot of open spaces around us and the Deer took a great liking to my Roses. It was wonderful to see the Deer so close up (being a city girl, you know) and the kids were so excited too. I was torn between keeping the Roses for flowering or feeding the Deer, after a few years, I wanted Roses and so I planted the Lavender.

Over 20 years ago, at a previous home, I planted a hand full of marigold seeds and they have reseeded every year since. This is one of the first batch of this year. They pretty much dominate the garden all summer and they have visited a few neighbouring gardens too :) I love their bright colours and their resilience. I love that they have a history all their own and the continuity is very satisfying and exciting. Like old Friends coming to visit every year. :)

I really hope you enjoyed my Friday Flowers in between rain storms :)

Have a Wonderful Weekend. :)

Happy Painting/Creating! :) T.