Yellow Wonderland

Brittlebush is blooming!

Brittlebush  Encelia farinosa is a desert shrub related to the sunflower.








 













































 
        


Lately, it seems no one can resist heading for the hills to enjoy the color yellow.   And, who could blame them?

See more yellow all over the world at Mellow Yellow Monday.

Ruby Tuesday - Pyracantha

For Ruby Tuesday, I have something red from our garden to share. Pyracantha, also known as Firethorn, is a large evergreen shrub in the rose family that produces attractive berries in the fall.
Here are the berries ripening in September, October and November:

Pyracantha is drought-tolerant and used in landscaping all around Tucson.
Ours grew quickly to the size of a small tree.
A little hermit thrush was helping itself to berries the other day, but most of our backyard birds don't seem interested in the fruit.
The complementary colors of red berries and green leaves do look festive this time of year. Happy Holidays!
For more Ruby Tuesday posts featuring the color red, visit Work of the Poet hosted by Mary T.

Mellow Yellow in the Garden

Greetings from Tucson, Arizona! This is my first Mellow Yellow Monday post. Here is a bit of what's happening in my Sonoran Desert garden. In each of these pictures you will find a little or a lot of the color yellow.

Bee on Turpentine Bush

Brittle Bush blossoms reaching out

A fallen Vitex leaf resting on gravel

"Citrus Blend" Lantana still blooming

Goldfinch in the sun

Oleander leaf laced with shadows

Yellow Bells keep on giving :)

To see other posts featuring the color yellow, check out Mellow Yellow Monday. Thanks to the Drowsey Monkey for hosting this beautiful meme.

Color Them Happy

These backyard birds have a new feeder.

The old feeder, even without the hopper, seemed too small to accommodate doves comfortably.
So, I built a platform feeder from scraps of wood and screen. I'm no carpenter, and it looks pretty crude...but it works! I am thrilled that the birds appear to get along with each other and dine in peace and harmony.
In the three weeks the new feeder has been up we've only noticed four species of birds using it: Mourning Doves, White-winged Doves, House Finches and House Sparrows. All very common for this area, but after sampling their colors with Photoshop's eyedropper tool, I see these "ordinary" birds in a new light.

Here are just a few of the colors lifted from the Mourning Dove:
A Baby House Finch:
Adult Male House Finch:

House Sparrow:

Male and Female Lesser Goldfinches:
Our little goldfinches have a new feeder too. We noticed that sometimes the cloth thistle seed sock gets holes in it and the seeds spill out. Now we have a plastic tube feeder up too, so the finches have seeds available while the sock is being mended.

Thank you for letting me share these little backyard wonders of nature with you.

Classical Art Color Match

Have you ever wondered what some of your travel photos or favorite portraits would look like colored with the palette of famous paintings?

I learned about this cool photo editing technique to change the color scheme of photos from unfocusedbrain.com.

The process is simple. Load your original photo and artwork reference image into Photoshop*, then use "Match Color" under image adjustments. The artist's color palette is instantly applied to the photo and then you get to tweak 'Luminance' and 'Color Intensity.'

These are some of the results after playing around with this technique for a couple of weeks. Not all photos and paintings "work" together. This project takes a lot of experimenting, but it is fun! And, there is a practical side to playing around like this. If you want to make a painting, it could be helpful to do explorations on the computer first before committing to expensive art materials.

In these examples I used famous paintings of the masters, but the colors from any photo can be used. That opens up a lot of creative possibilities.

Sunflowers with color palette of Claude Monet's Poplars on the Bents of the Epte 1891

Creek with color palette of Paul Cezanne's View of l'Estaque and the Château d'If 1885

Tree with color palette of Raphael's School of Athens 1510

Bunny with color palette of Raphael's School of Athens 1510

Canyon Rock Face with color palette of Albrect Durer's Self-Portrait 1500

Gary's Visitor with color palette of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks 1942

Track with color palette of Paul Gauguin's Woman Holding a Fruit 1893

Track with color palette of Andre Derain's Boats in Port of Collioure 1905

Cat with color palette of Pablo Picasso's The Weeping Woman 1937

Cat with color palette of Vincent Van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night 1888

Bench with color palette of Paul Cezanne's View of l'Estaque and the Château d'If 1885

Bench with color palette of Vincent Van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night 1888

Click on any photo to see it larger.

*I used Photoshop CS2, but there might be some free web-based programs that can do this technique.
An article at makeuseof.com explains how to color your pictures like famous paintings with FlauntR.

Pixel Magic

Greetings and Happy Cactus Monday!

I've been playing around with this simple Photoshop trick. A single line of pixels is selected and then pulled using Ctrl+T. This technique works vertically as well as horizontally. The stretched sections can be moved, and the canvas enlarged, if desired. These are some of my experiments:

Red Bird Of Paradise

There is something about viewing altered images that gets creative juices flowing. Hopefully I've included enough cactus examples to provide color and design inspiration for cactus lovers as well as art and nature enthusiasts.

Budding Barrel Cactus

Prickly Pear Fruit

House Finches in Red and Orange

March Ocotillos

Purple Prickly Pear

Cactus Wren

Azurite and Malachite

Creosote Seeds

Sunset

I learned about this process from an article by Evad at Colourlovers.com. Click here for some stunning examples of Single Pixel Color Inspiration from Photos.

Visit Teri's Painted Daisies to see more Cactus Monday posts.