Grace

How Funny Can You Be Eating Spinach?

Sunrise

I couldn't sleep this morning

so I went out to photograph the sunrise.

Then I drank a cup of coffee and read my bible.  

And just now as I'm typing this, I hear the pitter-patter of feet upstairs

so I'm off to love my day!

♥  Hope you love yours too.  ♥

Fixations

I'm still drawn to photographing our rain boots.  I don't know what it is about them!  

My amazing friend and photographer, Roxann gave me this idea to pop the boots.  I think I love it.

{Hi Roxy!! ♥}

Maybe I'm loving rain boots right now because they are supposed to get dirty.

We don't have to worry about them.

We slip 'em on, kick 'em off and never think a thing about them.

I'm also kinda obsessed with this:

She takes my breath away.  

Sometimes I look at her and I just know with certainty that God is going to do great things through her.  It makes my breath catch in my throat...this holy God of wonders we serve.

Recently I've also become preoccupied with the sky.  I love clouds.  

I think I know why.  My ultimate fixation, Jesus, is mentioned in connection with clouds in the bible a time or two...
I watch for Him...is that silly?  Maybe.  But that's okay.  Child-like faith is okay.  After all, as it is written in Matthew 24:42 Jesus himself said "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come". 

At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.  Mark 13:26

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 1 Thessalonians 4:17

“Look, he is coming with the clouds,” and “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him”; and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.” So shall it be! Amen. Revelation 1:7

Saturday Morning Art...

...and the photos that got 'shopped.  

We have a bright, beautiful breakfast nook, with two walls of it being windows.  This is where we eat almost every meal and do almost all of our art projects.  I love it because it's so sunny and open, and you can see the birds and our garden out the windows.  But, it is a photographic nightmare if you are a novice, ignorant of all photography knowledge, and haven't the time or courage to pick up a book about it.  

(If you are me).

I don't know how to shoot photos that have a ton of backlight.  So anytime I have pictures of the children doing arts and crafts, I have photos that need some kind of help.  

Following are some photos I took this morning (everything on auto settings) of the kids painting on butcher paper, and the fixes I used in Photoshop Elements 7.0.

This is my typical, blasted-out photo.  I take this photo all the time in the kitchen nook.

 I knew I wouldn't have much luck making this photo look natural or rebuilding the right side of Sophie's face, so I decided to stylize it a bit and enhance the 'shopped look. I warmed it and sharpened it and burned the edges.  This is the result:

This is my classic silly Sophie face.  It makes me laugh!  That wrinkled nose is reason enough for living.  

Not too terrible on the lighting, but too cool, too gray, not enough skin tone.

So I warmed it and sharpened it.  The result is subtle and I'm not happy with it.  The color reminded me a little of a '70's action in the Pioneer Woman action set.  

So I went back to the original and did a "Seventies" action from the downloadable actions from Pioneer Woman and then added her "Dim The Lights" action at 50% opacity.  I thought the result was very cute.  I love how it darkened her eyes and added a greenish tint overall:

The next two photos of Tristan have pretty subtle changes.  I wasn't even that unhappy with the SOOC shots, but wanted to play around a bit.

So I warmed and lightened the whole photo and then burned the edges.  It makes it so much cozier.

Same here--a sweet SOOC.

But a little warming, lightening and burning just enhances it the right amount for me:

I love love love this next photo!  Sophie's profile, her lashes, her little nose, the shape of her mouth.  Even the blue paint stuck in her hair that I clone-stamped out of the first two photos because I thought it was distracting.  But here, I love it.  I knew it only needed a slight 'shopping.  

So again with the warming and sharpening.  Look how the sharpening made her eyes just sparkle and her ringlets shine.

This next photo is another classic of mine.  Blasted-out from the back, the face is dark and the rest of the photo is gray and grainy.  

A little warming, of course, but what else? I don't even know how else to save this.

Again, if I can't make it look natural, I 'd rather stylize it to a point that it doesn't matter what the original was like.  So I went back to the original and added Pioneer Woman's "Soft and Faded" action.  The result is a sweet, vintage look that I love.  See?  I meant to do that.  

Now my little Grace.  How much do you love it?!  But too cool, too blah for such a precious expression.

Warmed.  The result is my favorite, because the face stays soft, portrait-like.  It really is perfect:

But just for playin' around's sake, I tried Pioneer Woman's "Fresh Color" action.  The details are all sharpened and I like what it did to her eyes, but overall the effect was too hard for my taste.  I probably could have done a few things in this case, like reduce the opacity or use the magnetic lasso to select only the eyes for this effect.  Something to do the next time the twins are napping.

The black and white is nice too.

 The following three photos are SOOC.  Love them all, and that makes sense, as they are all taken from the opposite direction (windows behind me...duh).

Prayer

Whisper a prayer into your hands.

Then blow on it just like a dandelion

and watch it float right up to heaven.

For when prayers go up,

we know grace rains down.

And while you may not always receive the blessing you were expecting,

just keep looking through the eyes of love,

and the joy of the Lord will always be found.

* I tweaked a Yiddish proverb from "prayers go up and blessings come down" to "For when prayers go up, we know grace rains down".