Being A Hunter-Gatherer

      While I have not actually had the time to sit down and create art work, I am never without thoughts of what I will create next.  My eyes are looking everywhere in my world for ideas that can be used in my art.  I carry my camera with me and I am taking many, many pictures of wonderful scenes, animals, people in great poses.
      My camera is not fancy, but I did get a new one when my first digital camera became senile and could not focus on anything.  I found the lastest Sony Cybershot and I am not only pleased with the results, but I absolutely love the panoramic picture feature, it is great fun.  When I was first practicing this feature at a cookout we hosted here, and I wanted to take a picture of he entire group, I told everyone to pose, and as I swept my camera slowly from left to right, I went, "woooooooooooooooo" until the picture was done.  It was so funny!!  "Wait a minute, everybody, I have to do this again, ok, look at me.....wooooooooooooooooo!"
      Just last week at one of the sites I worked at, I found some magnificently old trees that were twisted and shaped so wonderfully, and the feature that drew me to them were the holes in them and I could only imagine what beautiful animals that would poke their heads out of these holes!  When walking at another site a couple of weeks ago, I found groups of great mushrooms on the side of the road.  I got down on the ground, cleared out the weeds and grass and took some nice closeups of the mushrooms.  I have taken beautiful pictures of the sky with big puffy clouds. 
      I once tried to save pictures from magazines, they looked nice at the time, but when I looked at them later, (yawn) they did nothing for me.  I get excited with my own work, and it may be that element of love that I am finding.  When I have searched and found something great, I claim it as mine, I feel a connection to the subject, and my pictures have meaning.  I want to turn to my own library first and ideas are flourishing.  I am getting excited to start a painting from a picture I took recently.  I will tell you where I found the picture later in another blog.  I can only tell you that I got excited to create after hearing from my daughter the ribbons I won at the Spencer Fair.  I don't want to say what I won until I see it with my own eyes tomorrow, but I will say that one ribbon gave me goose bumps and made me do a happy dance and got me on the phone to my son's house since he has the print of this painting!!! Keep reading!!! Happy Labor Day to those from the USA. To others around the world, it means we take Monday off from work and enjoy a day of rest from our labor (although there are still plenty of people working).