Friday, January 22, 2010

Winter to Spring


La Primavera

Well, I've leapt from winter to spring in my Photoshop experiments.






This rendition of a photo of my daughter,


taken in the kitchen on the floor


after a family dinner in Montreal,
(this was the appetizer)


where she was doing Martha Grahamesque, wine-induced poses,
(a picture of Martha going in for the smoked salmon)



inspired me to do a riff on Botticelli's famous painting of Spring today.



14 comments:

  1. Oh my, what a trip !

    I could go for some Spring right about now... thanks Sis !

    And some sleep... so I'm off to get some, yours is about the only blog I'll leave a comment on today... I'm slipping...

    The daughter is lovely... especially after your loving treatment...

    Looks like Photoshop could be fun... maybe someday I'll learn some...

    ReplyDelete
  2. There's hardly a place, that I do love more, that do mean more to me, than a kitchen.

    Nice work and proof of it being worth - much joy for your future "photoshop seasons".

    Just in time, to wish you all a wonderful weekend. p.s.: seems indeed as if "being an artist" is well kept in your family.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BrOwen,
    I am honoured to have received your only virtual visit of the day! There was a (false)hint of spring in the air today, which put a spring in my step; especially as I was actually able to get out for a walk, under sunshine and blue skies, bundled up like a formerly-known-as-Eskimo. Soon you will be sailing into the sun, cher frère. Courage!

    Oddly, my WV is "favour." As in "would you do me a ..." (spelled the Canadian way)
    Bises.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ah yes, Robert, truly the kitchen is the heart of the home. It is so hard to tear one's self away from the table, especially when sitting in good company. Or any company at all, for that matter, for ours is a rather lonely life here. When my daughter is home, we dance in the kitchen, in spite of there being not much space. And sometimes Pierre joins in as well, taking one of us in his arms. I have danced with my daughter ever since she was an infant in my arms. I danced with her when she was in my womb. She could have been a dancer if she chose, but she does it just for private pleasure, and chooses to work at a job that provides a real income. Unlike what her mother ever did.

    A beautiful weekend to you and yours, Robert.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hmmm, and if there's any salmon left, you know where to send it ! Would go nicely with a little white wine, and there's plenty of that around here...

    ;-)


    WV is "blagur" as in "one who blogs" or "one who jokes"... is "blague" in canadian-french "a joke" ?

    ReplyDelete
  6. BrOwen, Oui, un joke est une blague en bon français canadien. Des fois, c'est une farce, but then it tends to get the stuffing knocked out of it.

    As for the smoked salmon, man it went down a treat. I had as much salmon on my own plate as we normally have to share with 4 other people! Sadly, none left. Can I have some wine anyway?

    ReplyDelete
  7. I KNOW I left a comment here yesterday but it appears to have wafted into cyber space!

    What a beautiful daughter you have, you're not Mrs Brown by any chance? I must get cracking on Photoshop...to be honest I have reisisted it as part of me feels to tinker with a photo is cheating but the thinking part of me realises that it can certainly be used to inhance/re-create already wonderful shots.
    Now, any of that salmon left? (I'm sure the wine went ages ago...)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Saj, I'm not Mrs. Brown but I went to school with her lovely daughter who was my best friend for many years, including the one when Herman and his hermits were singing about her to her mum!

    To Photoshop or not to Photoshop, eh Saj. It's a tool. It's fun. It's addictive. It's time-consuming. It's like when Dylan went electric and all the folk "purists" had a hissy fit.
    I'm no photographer, so I can play with my pictures to please myself. Go ahead, Saj, cross over to the darkroom of Photoshopping!

    Sorry, but I think Owen got the last scrap of salmon. He was licking all the plates and crawling around for crumbs under the table the last time I saw him.

    ReplyDelete
  9. What ?! No Salmon left !? Oh boy, I can't believe you ate it all ! I looked under every chair, and not a scrap to be found ! Must be scottish folks here...

    Well, we'll still keep some wine for you, if you can get over here... any travel plans in your future ?

    And speaking of Dylan going electric as you just did, I couldn't help but make the connection with... :

    "Oh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble,
    Ancient footprints are everywhere.
    You can almost think that you're seein' double
    On a cold, dark night on the Spanish Stairs.
    Got to hurry on back to my hotel room,
    Where I've got me a date with Botticelli's niece.
    She promised that she'd be right there with me
    When I paint my masterpiece."

    __________________

    And my WV is "hadsort", as in, "I hadsort of hoped to find some salmon under the table, but no such luck !"

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wowen! You sure had my little grey cells firing overtime with that quote! I'm going, "Dylan? Botticelli's neice? What??" and so I checked out YouTube and, of course, I knew it from The Band. But I no way remembered the lyrics. I remember the first time I heard Big Pink, though. And on UTube I also found out that the Grateful Dead did a version so, of course, that's where you'd know it from, yes? I suppose you know this musicvid of Jerry singing it:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JntmWtqi9U&feature=related

    Maybe if you work up a rendition I'll just have to come over to France to hear it! Right now, though, the only travel plans we have are to pay another visit to Vancouver in March or so.

    Hey, I had a dream about you this morning. It was crazy, and it wasn't really you at all (kind of a cross between Bill Nighy and David Bowie), and I was too shy to even speak to you, and there were masses of people around (probably all your blogpals), and dancing and a swimming pool...Reminds me of another Dylan quote that I love, "I'll let you be in my dream if you'll let me be in yours."

    BTW--Have you, by any chance, been eating cake and getting sung to lately? (she asks, waving her fork hopefully in the air)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wow, you said a mouthful there... I on the other hand couldn't speak for days there because my mouth was so full of cake and all the trimmings... of course... but the cake's all gone now (he said regretfully, poking at the last crumbs on the table...)

    Well, sure, I did see the Grateful Dead do "Masterpiece" more than once, but I knew even back then that it was a Dylan tune, one of several that the Dead or the Jerry Garcia Band covered fairly regularly... That's a pretty wobbly video there, but he sure gets around on that acoustic guitar ! What a shame he had to go so soon. How lucky though we were to have seen him at all...

    So, you've been dreaming strange dreams eh ? Sounds suspicious, vaguely mysterious, you'll have to tell us what you've been having for a nightcap of late... But I'm always happy to do dream appearances, they're easy to organize and require little preparation... Let me know if this continues though ! Or just step into the tunnel between the next pair of facing mirrors you can find, and we'll get together there for a chat...

    :-)

    WV is "sprop", when I appear on dream stages, I bring a number of sprops to help illustrate my points and to prop me up...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Well I guess that's fair. No salmon leftovers for you, no cake crumbs for me.

    I look forward to your next impromptu dream appearance and can't wait to see what sort of sprops you'll bring along.

    :-D

    ReplyDelete
  13. Beautiful daughter ~ beautiful photograph.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thank you, Driftwood. You know this mother's heart well.

    ReplyDelete