Showing posts with label learning curve. Show all posts
Showing posts with label learning curve. Show all posts

Monday, March 15, 2021

This is Humbling . . . And Good for Me


At least I assume trying to learn something new that requires attention and hand-eye coordination is good for a person of my age (78! how did that happen?)


These three were done attempting to follow a video tutorial. (She makes it look so easy.) They are still unfinished, awaiting the final touches of white ink (I've ordered a pen) but I don't hold out much hope--I know I over-worked them, especially the one on the right (Night Sky, ha! Big Mess.) But that's how I learn, evidently, by making mistakes.

I also learned about the importance of taking time to let the paint dry (or half-dry, depending on what you're doing.) That was the idea in the tutorial behind working on three pictures at one time--a little here, then move on to the next.


The next day I did an exercise from  Watercolor Success in Four Steps. This went slightly better though I should have taken more time with my preliminary sketch. And while I was waiting for the various stages to dry, I washed some more windows. Multitasking!


Along with yesterday's rainy landscape, I'd like to paint these daffodils. . . someday . . . 


 

Saturday, September 26, 2009

The Last Refuge . . .

. . . of an inept photographer is Photoshop . . . or in my case, the Special Effects thingie on Picasa, the free for the down-loading program I use to deal with my pictures.

Day before yesterday I took my new camera for a walk along the top of the pasture and into the woods. It was early and the fog hadn't yet burned off so I hoped for lots of great shots in this misty, mysterious world.

I took close ups of flowers in the pasture and of mushrooms, leaves, lichen, and bark along the trail running through the woods.



Imagine my surprise when I downloaded 149 pictures to find that most of them were black! Fiddling with the light level thingie on Picasa showed that there were images -- but I had evidently done or not done some vital thing at the beginning of the walk.

No, I haven't read the manual through yet.

Yes, I should have been checking my monitor to see what the shots were like. (Unbelievable that I didn't!)

Yes, I'm waiting for Cory, my technical adviser to tell me where I went wrong.

Meanwhile, I play with special effects.
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