Seeds in the Breeze

Still with the Thistles – the closer you look, the more detail you see. These Thistle seeds on a cobweb stayed just steady enough in a lull in the breeze to allow me to capture their minute tendrils.

Thistle seeds

thistle seeds

Going to Seed

Thistles – another irresistible subject for photography!

These photos were taken on my Canon 550D with a Canon 70-300mm IS USM lens. However, it is also important for me to keep developing my skills with iPhone photography or iPhonography as it is often my phone camera that I have with me when out walking.

With so much to see, I wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity, yet at the same time, it is not practical to always have heavy camera slung over your shoulder.

thistle

Thistles

Woolly Fences

This is not the first photograph I have posted of sheep wool caught on a fence but I find it strangely attractive, at least in the sense that whenever I see it, I have the urge to take a photograph. I suspect the slimy green drapery is the result of the stream in the woods behind the fence being in spate at another time of year, or perhaps it, too, came off the sheep’s back.

Woolly Fence

Pattern in Wood

The fascinating patterns in the wood of this tree stump are, I am sure, partly the result of it spending some significant time in the sea. It would be easy to mistake them for some kind of animal markings or camouflage and claw marks!

patterns in wood

patterns in wood

Stumped

This large tree stump made it look like the tree had been growing straight out of the sand on Swansea beach.

Swansea harbour wall

tree stump

Drawing in the style of . . .

My project work earlier this year with the Josef Herman Art Foundation Cymru involved using iPads for drawing. I was interested in using the iPad again on the art walk I went on recently but on this occasion challenged myself to use a much broader “pencil”.

I had asked some of the children on the Josef Herman project to do this in order to emulate Herman’s style more closely. For myself,  I thought that it might help me to find a way of working with the iPad that I felt was more suited to the characteristics of  the implement.

However, I think I would have to do a lot more in this way to achieve a better degree of comfort with the iPad as a tool for drawing. As I will be returning it to its owner very soon, this is not likely to happen. It’s a good job that real paper and pencil / charcoal is lot cheaper!

cranes iPad drawing

 

cranes iPad drawing

sketch

An Alternative Viewpoint

Last weekend I went on a art walk with Sarah Abbott from the Mission Gallery in Swansea. We went down to the dunes at the eastern end of Swansea Bay with sketch books and cameras, etc.

Sometimes the places you know best are those that are hardest to “see”. I have done a fair amount of photography in the bay but I have not produced a StillWalks video there. Taking a look at a place with someone else can be helpful in that the interaction of perception can prompt a fresh way of seeing the familiar.

Swansea Bay Cranes

Swansea Bay Cranes