Artfully Meandering: My last few days - in reverse

I'm starting with the end...I found the need to take pictures at lunch to settle my brain down and divert it from obssessing. I have been making little lunch drives to clear my head and found a delicious country road with an old bridge. Walking up to the bridge, I found textures that needed to be photographed (they asked me to take their picture). I know this is just a rusty metal thingy, but it gives me ideas based on the metalsmithing class I took this weekend (picture of my project is at the end of this post.) Tree texture. Branch texture. Oooh...my brain is like a night of fireworks with ideas from this post alone.

I usually take pictures of things...objects. Traditional photos. This is my first step in taking pictures of design elements. I LOVE me the arches of this old bridge.

This is a sample of the more traditional photo I would normally take. I gots to try me some more photography based on design elements rather than subject matter.

And the dogwoods are in bloom! (These are definitely dogwoods. I know what these are.) Driving north toward Duncan, SC, there are scads of white and pink dogwoods all over the place. However, most are on private property. Although I did spy out a cemetery that had pink and white dogwoods. I think that will be tomorrow's lunch trip. And the day was spectacularly blue...taking the photos from a different angle is always interesting... the following are my favorites from the 50 photos I snapped at lunch today.

I just love this picture in general. But, it's one of the more traditional photos. I want to start stretching and pushing myself in the photography arena. Even though it's traditional, I still love it...it has elements of texture, color, composition that make me just want to sit on this rock and watch the traffic whiz by and listen to the river whoosh merrily along.

And now for the big treat: the low-tech metalsmithing class I took with Anne E. Mitchell...outstanding! I've been wanting to expand into metalsmithing. However, I wasn't entirely keen on the traditional metalsmithing route. A friend told me about this class and took it with me and it was exactly what I didn't know I was looking for! Anne is a proponent of no waste usage of fine silver in the form of metal clay and fine silver. She fuses, rather than solders (in general, but she does some soldering). She also uses more natural substances like warm vinegar with sea salt instead of pickle for removing fire scale. The first class I took in metal clay wasted a lot of clay by using too much water. She teaches you how to waste NOTHING. And I mean nothing. Not a snip of the wire, not a crumb of the clay. Anyway... I got my wish and expanded my repertoire. Most of the class made their project as the designated bracelet. But we had so much material, I wanted mine to be a necklace. Sorry for the dirty background, but I had to show it off. I'm still learning to work with my camera in various settings.

And of course, the cutie-patootie Molly Dolly. This little stinker is such a hard critter to get pictures of. I have hundreds of pictures of her where she has just turned away from the camera as I'm shooting her photo. Now I have the Canon Digital Rebel and can shoot at leisure and get her adorable, sweet, sassy little face. I love that face. I look at the series of pictures I took and then I go smooch up the real creature.