Watercolor Pumpkins

I love pumpkins and with fall on the way, I decided to give watercoloring a few a try. I quickly made these three on my lunch break. I'm not exactly sure about where the proper shading is supposed to go, but I love the curly stems and little dots.

On a side note - I usually take my photos at night and I'm having difficulty take a good quality photo without harsh shadows from the overhead lights on my paintings. I need to figure out a better solution.

Macro Monday: Los Gatos Creek Trail

During an evening walk in the Los Gatos Creek Trail, I stumbled across this pretty little Statice plant along the edge of the trail. I love the papery texture of the flowers.

Hearst Castle: Travel Photography

While in Cambria we visited Hearst Castle. The grounds had beautiful flowers and gardens, all of which will be great inspiration.

Cambria Pines Nursery: Garden Photography

Even the Cambria Pines Nursery is too darn cute not to take more garden photos at. They have adorable displays within the nursery and amazing flower beds around the perimeter. We were only here for about 15 minutes, so I had to be quick with my snapshots. I decided to stay away from my usual macro type shots, as those require time and patience without a tripod to ensure you get crisp photos.

I'm definitely making the birdbath display in my future garden!

Cambria Pines Lodge: Garden Photography

In addition to taking macro photos in the Cambria Pines Lodge gardens with my medium camera, I also took more compostie photos of the gardens. I worked to include diagonal and curving lines, pattern and not trying to include everything in the shot. I did take some landscape photos to capture an entire garden section, but with stark light and shadow areas they need some touch up in Photoshop. 

I love these gardens - I definitely want to go back and spend more time taking photos here.

Macro Monday: Cambria Pines Lodge Flowers

I recently stayed at the Cambria Pines Lodge and they have an assortment of beautiful, tucked away gardens. I spent a bit of time with my medium camera going around taking photos only to find out that the dials had been moved and all the photos were blown out. It was such a bright day that I had thought I just couldn't see the screen properly. Note to self - always check the setting before starting a photo shoot!

After properly adjusting the camera settings, I went around with lightning speed to try to capture some photos worth keeping. These are a few of the macro photos I took. I did not have a tripod on me, so I took many more photos than were in crisp focus.

Rose Garden: Macro Photography

Considering I did not use a tripod with my medium camera, this is actually quite in focus. Though it isn't a super close up shot either.

San Jose Rose Garden: Landscape Photography

I've been lucky enough to be able volunteer at the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden with Friends of San Jose Rose Garden. Not only do I get to deadhead the roses to my heart's content, but I can take as many photos of the roses as I like. It's a huge garden, with a plethora of different rose varieties. I usually prefer macro photography when it comes to flowers, but I'm working on expanding my horizons to include more of the surrounding setting too. This will be a great reference photo for a future paining.

Truckee Flowers: Macro Photography

Whenever I'm out and about, one of my favorite hobbies is to take snapshot of flowers. I'm collecting all these snapshots and hoping to eventually use them in a painting.