Kat Eye Studio

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Doing What I Love…

Imagine spending five days in the gorgeous Yorkshire countryside, eating your meals in a tipi around a fire.

Staying in wonderful cabins, that feel like part of the surrounding forest, with the best cabin-mates ever.
Sleeping in a heavenly bed, in a room where the art is the natural world outside the window.
Juliette and Carissa
Meeting the most amazing people from all over the world. We didn’t know each other, but found instant connections. I felt like I had known these wonderful women my whole life.
Tara
Learning to paint from my intuition with the most amazing artist and teacher, Flora Bowley. Learning to go with what’s working, to go bold, to let go of attachment to a specific outcome and see what happens.
Finding my heart, in the midst of it all.
I got back late last night from the Do What You Love retreat, and I’m still processing all that went on. It was so, so wonderful! I will share more over time. Over the next few days I’ll be getting caught up on the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap, adding new participants to the link list. The swap is now at 172 participants – so close to my goal of 200 – thank you all for your help!! I will also be visiting the many people who have linked in to Exploring with a Camera: Visual Contrast in the last few days, you still have a day or two to link in if you would like to share your image. 
I’m full to bursting with all of the positive energy that happens when you get 40+ people together, all doing creative things they love. Who knows what will come out next…

(Linking in to The Creative Exchange and Creative Every Day today.)

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Let’s go Visiting

While I’m out in the Yorkshire countryside, painting up a storm, I thought it would be fun to have you all go visiting a few of the participants we have so far in the Liberate Your Art postcard swap. As of this writing, we have 106 participants! Can I just tell you how excited I am about that? So many opportunities to make more connections with other artists, so much art to be liberated in the world.

To promote those connections, I encourage you to pick 2 or 3 of the links on the list below and visit them over the weekend. See what new things you find and don’t by shy – say hi!

Participant List
How to Feather an Empty Nest
Learning as I Go
Paloma Chaffinch
Fiberworks
Ashley Sisk’s Ramblings and Photos
Jenny Shih
Life @ RuffHaven
kharliebug
Here and Now
Living in a Still Life
Bastelmania
Donna Did It
Left in Front of Right
The Red Tin
Altered Muse Art
Dreams and Whispers
Maddy’s Stitching Corner
Simply Life Photographs
Pointy Pix
Natasha May
The Vintage Artist
Digital Experiments by Carolyn
WJC’s Digital Designs
Creating my Life
icandy
i wanna be me when i grow up
Giddy-Up Let’s Ride
The Creative Identity
Elizabeth GLZ
Jofabi Photo
A New Day, A Different Way
A Rural Journal
Alchemy of Art
eyechai
Picturing the Year
Superdewa
Hounds in Heaven
BleuOiseau Photography
Aquarel Rivers
The Wright Stuff
The Mrs.
Urban Muser
deustchemexicana
{Furi Kuri}Travels
A Little Blue Sky
carola bARTz
Same Day: Thirty Years Apart
Camper
Cottage 960

(Are you in the swap but not on this list yet? Reply to the email you received when you signed up with your link information, and I’ll add you to the list when I return from England. If you’re not signed up yet, go here.)

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Share Your View: Visual Contrast

The Athens flea market is, for some reason, full of chairs. Lots and lots of shops selling piles of chairs. No tables, just chairs. I was drawn to this scene for the contrast of the nicely restored chairs against the graffiti. (Athens is also quite full of graffiti, more of that later.) I’m not sure how I would describe the contrast, but it makes a striking statement to me.

I’m off in England right now, so no sharing from the Flickr pool today, but let’s check in on our Exploring with a Camera theme of Visual Contrast. Have you found contrasts in your archive? How about when you go out with your camera? I’m betting that you are finding more contrasts than you ever expected, so come and share. We already have a number of great images in the link up and Flick pool. Do some exploring of other’s images and see what cool interpretations have been found.

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Balancing Life’s Contrasts

In the Athens flea market, I found this stall with a pile of junk. There were probably lots of treasures in this pile, but it was treated as junk. I photographed it for a while, until it seemed I annoyed the owners. They were trying to pack up and close for the night. It was a fascinating subject, because it was full of so many compositional opportunities. So many contrasts.

As I was looking for images with contrast for the Visual Contrast topic we are studying right now, this one popped out at me. There is a light/dark contrast of the image and the items around it, but there is another contrast that struck me at a deeper level. The religious icon dumped amongst everything else gave me a contrast of revered/abandoned. As if someone had lost their faith, and thrown it in with all of the other junk they were sending away. Kind of sad.

Amazing, isn’t it, what you might take away from the contrasts in one image. As I’ve been studying contrasts, I’ve been seeing how they can show a deeper meaning or message in our photos. I’ve also discovered that I’m studying the balance of contrasts in other ways. Today I’m on Elizabeth Gonzalez’s blog, with a guest post on balancing my artistic and technical pursuits. Elizabeth pointed out to me that the balance of contrasting forces I’ve found in my own life is just like the balance of contrasts we’re studying with Visual Contrast. I didn’t realize it until she pointed it out: You can have opposing forces work together in balance, whether it’s in life or in art.

Please stop by Elizabeth’s blog to read my thoughts on balance. Elizabeth is a talented ceramics and mixed media artist, along with being an engineer like me. When you visit, I hope you will stay around a while and look at the beautiful art she creates.

And oh my gosh – I published and then forgot – it’s the giveaway day!  Here are the two winners:
The Favorite Flowers set goes to Wendy of not caught up.
The Superhero set goes to Patty of Nomadic Notebook.
Wendy and Patty, I’ll be contacting you for your address, so we can get these in the mail. Thanks to everyone for particpating!

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Time to Relax

I’m musing on relaxation today over at Mortal Muses, hop on over there to see the crazy photo where I actually took my camera into the bathtub to capture the shot I had in my head. Oh, the things photographers will do to get a shot! I had to think ahead and move carefully so as not to get my camera wet, but I got the image I wanted. I am quite proud of it.

I took these photos a while ago because I wanted to remember this lovely, large bathtub we have in our apartment in Italy. I’ve been totally spoiled by this tub and will miss it terribly when we move home. I’ve found there is nothing better than a soak in the tub to relax me if I’m stressed or to warm me up on a cold winter’s day. I’m scheming to someday figure out how to have one put in to our house in Oregon. 🙂

A last note: Don’t forget that you can still enter the giveaway today. Tomorrow morning I’ll announce the two winners.

Happy Monday everyone!