Gallery

I am in an art gallery! I am the new "Emerging Artist" with the Art on Mountain Gallery in Fort Collins. http://www.artonmountain.com/ I will be showing with them for the next 3 months, and might become a permanent member after that. It is pretty exciting. I went down for their monthly meeting, and hung my work in the front alcove by the windows. I left right after work and got home after 10pm. Long day but totally worth it! The other artists helped me hang my pieces and write out my price tags. I snuck a picture of one when they weren't looking. Yay!

Cooking

Matt and I have been doing lots of cooking lately. We had sandwiches with wheat hoagies, Italian sausage, marinara sauce, mozzarella, sauteed peppers and onion. Here is Matt flipping the peppers and onions in his fancy way.

Ink

It has been very cold and windy here lately, and gets dark early before I get off work. Which means I have been spending time inside working on my hobbies. I just finished up a commissioned drawing for a friend to give her sister for Christmas. It is the sister's black Lab. I like doing commissions, even though they feel like actual work as opposed to just drawing for fun. Here is my ink bottle next to the drawing. It was dark in the room with just my Ott light on.

Sushi

Matt and I went down to Fort Collins on Saturday to bring some of my work to a gallery I might be able to start exhibiting in. We went to Suehiro for a delicious sushi lunch. I was trying to take the photo quickly and I don't think I got the best one I could have, but at least I am starting to get brave enough to pull out my camera in public. Just on a side note, that night we all had a fantastic Italian dinner at my folks house with recipes from the Carmine's restaurant cookbook. I had a great time seeing Becky and Aaron and look forward to visiting them in a month!

Swings

There is a playground very close to my grandparents' house. When we were little kids, we would go down there to run off all the food we just ate while the grown-ups talked. Even though we are now grown up, it is still fun to go down to the playground. Right before we left on Friday, we took the dogs and went to the playground. I took some photos of Roxanne and Aaron jumping off of the swings. I might have to post some of the others too, I got some great ones.

Thanksgiving

I got a lot of wonderful pictures from Thanksgiving! Shane playing with Barley, Jack and Grandma, everyone drinking and eating and catching up. This year was the biggest, loudest and most full Thanksgiving I can remember, and it was great. I will put the rest of my photos on Flickr, but for Thanksgiving, I want to post my photo of the thing I am most grateful for. My big family! (Oh, and I took this with a timer on my camera. Its why I am always standing on the right side of all our family photos...so I can set up the camera and run back.)

Barley

Becky and Aaron are here! That means they brought their new little doggy, Barley. She was a rescue dog that has spent the better part of her life in shelters and foster homes, even though she is a very nice dog. She was having a blast playing with Daisy and meeting all the new people. And she liked my camera.

Cat

I had to do a cool picture of Stash because I have only done pictures of her sneezing or with things on top of her. She is a pretty cute little thing.

Tuna

My boyfriend is the best cook in the world! I bought some tuna chops and couldn't decide how to cook them. I usually just season and sear them, but he doesn't like large amounts of plain raw fish the same way I do. He coated them in cajun seasoning, seared them and put them on a bed of scallions, red pepper and mandarin oranges. The spicy and sweet went together so well, and I still got my large amount of raw fish. Yum!

Fog

It's Sunday but I can't take any pictures outside! We have had this weird, cold dense fog hanging over town for two days. This photo is outside my apartment. You can hardly see the gym or the apartment across the street.

Cabelas

I went to Cabela's on Saturday with Matt and his parents. It was a very nice trip, even though the weather was cold and foggy. I love all the great outdoorsy stuff they have there, and all the food and cooking accessories. The most impressive thing, however, are all the stuffed game animals all over the store. They have everything from elk and antelope to an African elephant. They have a huge display with all sorts of North American animals on a mountain. I got photo of all the animals, frozen in time.

Landscape

I tried to take a bunch of pictures to make a panoramic photo. Unfortunately, it was really cold and my camera didn't want to focus. So I ended up just getting a couple of pics of Cheyenne from a hill overlooking the north side of town, but not enough in a row to make a panorama. I will get that soon though! But for now, here is Cheyenne in the evening.

New York

Ok, here is an interesting one. This is basically a few photos from our trip to New York transposed over each other. And I didn't do it in Photoshop. It took me awhile to get the adjustments right, but I set up my camera on an tripod in front of my computer. I put it in the manual setting and slowed down the shutter speed as much as I could, and closed the aperture to as small as possible. Then, I went to facebook and pulled up Rox's photo album from our trip. I clicked the camera and scrolled through the photos while letting the camera take the picture with a 15 second shutterspeed. So, it is basically a photo of photos on a computer monitor. It is harder than it looks. The result was these crazy ghosted images of Rox and Times Square. Cool, huh? I got this idea from a photo blog I was reading and wanted to try it. What do you think?

Daisy

I know I have lots of animal and pet pictures, but they practically beg me to take pictures of them. Daisy, in particular. She has such a goofy, expressive face. When I went out to my parents' house for dinner last night, Daisy was so excited she could hardly contain herself. She even whacked me in the face with one of her giant, clumsy paws. That wore off pretty soon though, and then she was doing all she could to stay awake.

Lights

I got some cool lights from Matt's mom for Christmas last year and have them hanging in my room. It gives it a nice soft ambiance. I took a picture of them tonight. I think the lights look cool in a dark room.

Beets

I am sad I have never eaten beets before in my life. They are good for you and very tasty. I got a few from my boss' garden this year and have been buying them at the Farmer's Market ever since. My favorite way to cook them is to wrap them in foil and bake them like a potato, with a little butter and salt. Matt and I made a dinner of deer tenderloin, garlic red potatoes and beets.

Dove

I went out to my parents' house today to feed the critters while they were at the Bronco game. I walked around with the dogs even though it was pretty chilly and snowy outside. I saw this dove (not sure what kind, mourning? collared?) out braving the elements as well. It didn't seem to like the cold breeze too much either.

Winter Market

Rachel and I went to a Winter Farmer's Market in Fort Collins on Saturday. It was great... there was still some produce, but a lot more locally made specialties. I ended up with some cheese, smoked salmon dip, beets and a baguette. Rachel bought, among other things, some of this locally made cider. I love farmer's markets! It was packed, with lots of free samples.

Chimney

I had to stay home for a couple hours on Friday while someone came to clean our chimney. It was weird...they brought in a huge hose and sucked everything out of the stove and chimney. I don't have anything else too interesting to include in my description. :-)

Things on my cat

When I was in a little boutique in Fort Collins recently, a found a photo book called, "Things on My Cat." The premise was that someone put objects on their cat and took pictures of it. It was everything from clothes, to food, to inanimate objects. The cats never seemed offended. Here is my tribute to "Things on My Cat." In retrospect, I should have picked something a little lighter. Stash was offended.

Wooden Fish

Its a cold snowy day so I am taking an inside photo. These are some wooden fish on a stringer hanging on my wall. I have always liked how they look. Kind of like mounted fish, but without ever being alive. It is tough to take a decent inside photo without using a flash, but I don't like the washed out facebook-y feel that a lot of flash photos have. My goal...to learn more about lighting!

Winter

Winter is finally here. Bah! It finally got cold with some snow and ice. I am actually pretty ready for it now, with the lovely fall we had. I wanted to get a picture to show how much the town changed in one day. I got this photo out a window in my office building.

Drawring

I am working on an ink drawing of an antelope. They are such odd looking creatures and are fun to draw. I am doing a combination of drawing in black and brown ink with bright washes. I always draw from my own pictures, so I have my laptop next to me.

Green chile

Hi! Even though we went to a wonderful, big brunch with my folks and Roxanne after church today, I made a big pot of green chili (chile?) tonight. It is great to freeze and eat anytime in all kinds of ways. Chile rellenos are one of my favorite dishes. I had a few bags of roasted chiles from the Farmer's Market, so I spent a good part of the evening washing, cleaning and chopping chiles. I took a pic of my pile of green chiles after I washed all the black/burned skins off and was preparing to remove the seeds. We ate bowls of it with some montery jack cheese, sour cream and tortillas. Yum!

FoCo

The weather was gorgeous and unseasonably warm on Saturday. It was in the 70s! In Wyoming! In November! Matt and I decided to go down to Fort Collins and do some shopping around to enjoy the weather. In Old Town, we saw this kid playing buckets. He was actually very good, so I snapped a picture of him as some people strolled by. That is one thing I like about towns with a younger attitude than Cheyenne...street performers and artists are common and don't seem out of place at all. Oh, and I spent some time at Jax toying with the idea of buying a digital SLR.

Haircut

I got my hair did! I took a couple hours on Friday to get my hair cut, dyed and highlighted. Even though I said I wanted to grow my hair out and to be able to put it in a pony tail (I always seem to find hairdressers who just do what they want to) I ended up with this short cut. I really like it even though my neck feels naked. I had a hard time taking a picture of my hair while trying to hold up my big Powershot IS X 10. Matt came through the room trying to figure out what I was doing and I think he looks rather suspicious.

Crunchy Leaves

I went to the park the other night and the dead leaves were ankle deep and oh-so-crunchy. I got some great shots of the setting sun and the fall colors, but this ended up being my favorite shot. I am learning that one of the easiest way to get cool photos is by getting them from a different angle than eye-level. You just can't be embarrassed to lay on your belly in the park to take pictures of the ground. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) embarrassment is something that doesn't come easily to me  anymore.
:-)

Ghost Kitty

I have been trying to play with the settings of my camera to see what I can do. I went outside and tried a nighttime long exposure but it didn't work. So, I set up my camera with a 15 second shutterspeed in the kitchen and made all the light adjustments. I tossed some cat treats in the middle of the floor and let the camera take the picture. It resulted in these creepy ghost kitty pictures. I see possibilities of some fun photos in the future with this technique.

Election Day

It's Election Day!! Did you vote? I sure hope so. I went down to the local elementary school and cast my ballot today, and had the volunteer tell me she remembered me from the primaries.  I love politics. I was invited to an election party tonight at a trendy bar/restaurant in town by the candidate I have been working for. It was great fun, with free food, drinks and opportunities to rub elbows with all the local movers and shakers. Unfortunately, he and most of the other local democrats did not do too well. It is tough being on the losing side of the race. However, I had a great time working on the campaign. Regardless of who deserved to win, my heart goes out to all those who had to take a loss tonight.

Almost Gone

Hi, I still can't resist the fall leaves, even though they are all but gone. Can any one remember a nicer fall than this? I have barely had to pull a coat out of my closet. This was taken with a large aperture and a zoom, which is what makes the subject clear and the background fuzzy. It's my new favorite trick, if you can't tell.