Study of a Girl… and the Muse

Blinders On, Blinders Off

The blinders came off.. finally!!

I’ve had this feeling over the past months. Something inside wanted to be outside. (it was a good thing, this isn’t a weird sic-fi psycho drama unfolding here or anything!)

I thought it was my inner muse… but even she seemed curious too. We both waited. And waited.
This “feeling” wanted to create images that were different from what I’ve been doing. Not instead of… but in addition to.

“Oh goody!” I was excited. Eagerly awaited these new ideas and vision. Then… nuttin’, honey.
I’m not the most patient sort by nature. But I decided that I would be this time. So I waited. Asked around. Here’s what I heard from:

The Muse: “Hey, I can’t wait to see what it is, either!”
My Intuition: “Oh yeaaahhhh… this is gonna be GOOD!”
God: [smiled]

So I waited. Kept the wheels in motion, making photos, making plans, learning, growing. You know, the usual.

New Wheels Begin to Turn

Then a little at a time, stuff started happening.

I decided to do a show in Truckee. More on that in upcoming posts. [Grinning]
The Arcanum started. My Cohort of photographers want to work on the artistic side of things. Learn to express themselves better through their work, develop new eyes for what they shoot, become artists. It has set my own creativity on a journey that has me singing every day! More on that in upcoming posts too! [Grinning even more]
Then I saw another photographer/artist’s work in a print shop that gave me an idea. It had to do with shooting 360 degrees around a tree (or anything, really)… blending the images as layers in Photoshop… and go from there. I’d never blended layers in Photoshop and had no clue how to do that. But that’s half the fun! Figuring out new techniques and seeing what happens.

I discovered Edit>Auto-Blend Layers in PS CC and gave it a twirl. These two images are where I ended up!
Mind you, there were MANY steps after the basic “Auto-Blend” one to end up here. The cool thing was that there was no road map – and it ended up being a process I’d never experienced before, that ended up with a new kind of art for me. SO. MUCH. FUN!! I just had to share.

Remembering, Emerging

My muse is smiling.
I am smiling.
And that Feeling I’ve had over these past few months is emerging into my work. I find it surprising in wondrous ways; I’m also remembering things I’d almost forgotten that gave me so much unbridled joy earlier in my life. These aren’t the only pieces that are coming out of my “inner listening program” that I’ve been on for months now… in fact, while we were in Washington a whole OTHER new direction took form. And.. you guessed it… that’ll be in another blog post too. SO MUCH TO SHARE WITH YOU!!!

But for now, I wanted to share one cool new thing I’m experimenting with… and send encouragement from here in the trenches that says” “Keep listening, feeling and following the flow of what gives you joy, love, delight.” Your inner muse… and everyone around you… will thank you for it.

Grinning really big.

“Her books took her to faraway lands,Full of faraway stories and faraway plans. She planned to be faraway herself one day.”