Three postcards for a Swap-bot group swap. Ready to hit the mailbox today.

All the same. I had wanted to do three different ones but life got in the way and I was in danger of running past the send date.

For the Same Day Postcard swap on Swap-Bot – I actually remembered to capture this one before posting it

One of the layers contains a CC Licensed image, Falling With Grace” from Flickr user Memotions. The quote  is from Josh Billings:

“It is not all bad, this getting old, ripening. After the fruit has got its growth it should juice up and mellow. God forbid I should live long enough to ferment and rot and fall to the ground in a squash”

Limited to one print – only this small low res image retained

This is what kept me busy for much of this weekend. Click to see it at Flickr – my certificate for this year’s Sanday Trowie Festival.

I had fun with this.

The Flickr page describes the project so I won’t repeat that here.

I have just printed them off and guillotined them and they will be presented this afternoon at the Arts Festival and Farmers’ Market.

Playing with some ideas ready for the ATC swap for PS3 “Water”

The image came from play, and the quotation from a search for Water quotes.

Between earth and earth’s atmosphere, the amount of water remains constant; there is never a drop more, never a drop less. This is a story of circular infinity, of a planet birthing itself.

- Linda Hogan, “Northern Lights,” Autumn 1990

I will most likely print this as a postcard an enclose with my swaps – it doesn’t feel right for an ATC and I think it would lose something by cropping to ATC dimensions.

Image created in PS and further edited in PSP.

We had a day on mainland Orkney this week – we had to do some shopping and take the pup to the vet’s. It left us sufficient time to visit Stromness for the first time. We visited the Pier Arts Centre and an artists collective.

There were photographs.

This is one of them

I wrote the visit up at Woolgathering, perhaps it should have been here. Anyway, if you’d like to call in at the woolly place, there are a couple of postcards on offer in that post.

Just to note that I am still here. A web project is taking up all my free time, and is likely to do so for a long time to come. We have achieved a molehill, but still face a mountain. However, the site is now live, such as it is.

Huge chunks of my time are just vanishing. Every now and again, I find myself taking the dog out for a pre-bedtime toilet visit and realising that it is the first time that I have crossed the threshold all day. Fortunately for the dog, I am not the only available escort!

I remain way behind on my correspondence but, fear not, size is not the only attribute that I share with the elephant. If you are owed correspondence from me, one day you will greatly surprised to see that I have lived up to my commitment. I do not forget. I just have many competing goals, a limited mental energy, and a very finite postal budget.

If you would like to see just what is keeping me out of my studio, here it is, the Sanday Community Website. Be kind in your constructive feedback – my life and soul are disappearing into this project. I cannot even find time to knit!

Three postcards ready to go for the Swap-Bot Quotecard12 swap, due 31st May.

“Minds are like parachutes” quote from Tommy Dewar, of the Scots whisky distillers family. I have long wondered where that one came from.

Digital image of boy with toy parachute enhanced in Photoshop. Clip art, grad fills, and text. Postcard assembled in MS Publisher.

Very quick and very dirty – and quite abashed that I have so little time and energy to give to these ventures.

Two to go to the US of A and one to NZ.

I have done very little work recently (i.e. the last six months or so) – I have had no time to go near my journals or to take time and care over anything that I have been committed to. My workroom is in such a state that I cannot even reach my desk (hence the digital postcards!) I find it all rather depressing. I would like to be making my small a art again. At this rate, the dark days will return before I have made any use of the light!

So much to catch up on, so little energy – and being hounded, harassed, and stalked into the bargain. Feeling *glum.* Don’t be surprised if I take Fairhand down and disappear.

On the positive side – I have my pair of ATCs for the PS3 “Air” swap pretty much sorted already (I knitted them!) “All” I have to do now is to sort out some backgrounds or mounts for them.

She’s getting on a bit and it is starting to show at times.

But not always!

I find it very difficult to get a decent shot of Suzie, my camera does not cope well with her dark face – so I am pleased with today’s shot of her on the sofa. Sometimes when I look at her I think that maybe I don’t have all that many photo opportunities left. Then again, when she is tearing around the garden, I think maybe she will be with us forever.

I have been trying to photograph starlings. I regard this shot as the one that got away and can only begin to imagine how good it would have been if I had got the shutter speed right!

I stopped at Black Rock jetty on my way to spinning group.

Love this texture shot!

(bigger at Flickr)