Opalescence

Took me all day to pick, arrange, photograph and enhance these. I'm exhausted, but had such fun.

For Nick at the Floral Friday

Shades of grey

Channel splitting can be done by RGB [red-green-blue] or by HSL [hue-saturation-light]. I picked out the -light version- and it looks rather better than simply turning an image negative. No? In the mouse-overs I combined the various shades of the original and the channel into a different pattern, so that the tones stand out.

Petal Play

Little pink dancers by De Gaz, with a touch of poppy petal power. Below the steps I had to take to the endresult.

As soon as I opened this picture, it struck me that the dropped poppy petals had left a ballerina's tutu and wanted to do something to make that obvious.

I cut out the skirt, made it into a transparent layer and put it in place on a Degas sketch.

It didn't really look like what I had in mind: the contrast between the sketch and the poppy petals was too great. Therefor I decided to go for one of his oils rather than a pen drawing, and voila: perfect. As you can see in the mouse-over at the top of the post, the colouring in the painting has some of that very pink in, so I didn't have to do anything at all to the poppy petals to make them fit in.

For Nick at the Floral Friday

Also linked with app-happy-wednesday

DANGER

PAPAVER SOMNIFERA Double Poppy somnifera double Poppy carries sleep twice the size and twice the strength twice the benefit to reap Mystery and danger beckon centres mesmerise our gaze and with their narcotic power turn the day into a haze Will we reach the Emerald City with our poppies in our hair dressed like Ozma with black tresses even though our hair is fair? Forbidden riches soporific medication kills the pain pods in blender add some lemon: tea to help sustain the brain within cell walls of the seedpod lurks this opiumlike wave when released into our system gives the painfree day we crave.

Just to clarify: extracting narcotics from opium poppies is against the law in most countries. We are allowed to grow these plants for horticultural purposes in the UK. In no way am I suggesting you make this tea. Don't want anyone to end up in goal. This was just a WWW yarn to spin for fun. [WWW= Wicked Witch of the West]

For Nick at the Floral Friday

Also linked with app-happy-wednesday

Wild Geraniums

All wild geraniums I find in my garden with one pelargonium/geranium creeping in for colour balance. These are some of the many types of wild geranium that have sprung up in my garden over the years. I interspersed some of the little globules of the rose called 'Raubritter', because the geraniums tend to be predominently blueish and make the photo a bit somber.

outside table

TABLES

My favourite rose is at its best at present. Margaret Merril, a lovely ivory white, or rather whipped cream.
The breeder was Jack Harkness, now no longer with us. He 'designed' some wonderful roses. Another one I particularly like is called "Bridge of Sighs" and is a lovely orange climber.

My find this week has been the use of tables inside posts. This means that the text is easier to read when I change the background colour. I find light coloured lettering on black very hard on the eyes but images look better on black. The best of both worlds? The physical find has been a strangly shaped blue vase: it is round from the front, but narrow from the sides. Makes for interesting pictures and I have been playing with it ever since I got it home. The glaze has cracked uniformly, either deliberately or by accident. Whatever, it looks beautiful. 'Craquelé' or 'Craquelure' always appeals to me, unless it is on my face :-) Count yourselves lucky that I'm only showing about 2% of the number of pictures I took of this combination :-) The rose is so pretty: not too many petals and very photogenic, both at the full-blown stage and in tight bud. The scent is unbelievable. It is a very tall bush rose and this year there are about a dozen flowers on it. My pearl of wisdom for today: MAY ALL YOUR WEEDS BE WILDFLOWERS