It has been requested of me to share some more of my blackout art. So here it is, these got  a lot more arty than the first one I did. The umbrella design is one I found another place and copied the idea but what the picture says is of course of my own creation. 

Yes I have a bible that I rescued at the book fair from going to the tip and yes I do use it for craft, and yes I do feel terrible every time I cut a piece out of it and yes it was even worse cutting a page out it it, but also very effective!

I really like how you can add so much by taking away. It is so fun to change what the paper says into something completely different. 

These other pictures that contain people were first sketched from a photos of people I found online but I generally looked at a page and then knew just what picture I needed to find and put on it. 

 The wind idea also came off another persons blackout poetry art piece. I liked it, so I flicked through the pages of the falling apart poetry book I have used for some of these pieces until I found a page with the word 'wind' on it. It turned into this. 

This one was fun. My parents thought I might die from the smell of the permanent markers. It was quite different removing everything else and making the white/blank parts what was there. I also did not intend to make the lady quite so thin, but I forgot that the outline was more like an inline since not the outside of the line but the inside would become the outside. (Sorry if that confused you)

This last one is my favourite though. I saw the words "THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN" and some of the other words on the page that I have brought out in the image, and I knew instantly what I wanted it too look like. The problem was I couldn't find a photo of an old man with a stick in the position I imagined. Eventually I found one that I could flip and then sketch from. Resulting in this. 

 Do you sketch?
Do you like playing with words?

Have you ever tried any blackout poetry?

I saw this idea a while back but decided to finally do it the other day. It's quite simple all you need is a page or words a pencil and a black marker. I looked over the page finding interesting words and then beginning from the start I circled words to make sentences. The one of these I had seen before had only one sentence, but mine got a lot longer. It is hard sometimes but really fun to change a page of words completely and make it say something that does not even relate to what it originally did. 

Once I chose all my words I drew boxes around them with the marker, even as I did that I changed a few. I then began filling in all the other words leaving the little boxes.

It took a long time, and I changed my mind again a few times adding another word and drawing over a box I no longer wanted visible.

Eventually I got it all filled in and finished. Since I finished this one I have made a lot more, and most of them are way more arty, with less words and more pictures instead of just black. I may even get around to photographing them and sharing some photo later on.

What do you think? Want to try it?

Yesterday we broke the highest temperature on record for February in the place we live. It got up to 45℃ which google tell me is also (113℉). Needless to say we did out best to keep cool by staying inside. But I got all inspired, inspired enough to go get my tripod from the car, so I could get photos I needed to play around with. 

My sister was kind enough to let me photograph her eye, which took a while as we both kept falling onto the bed in giggles. Then I needed a person. Who was wiling to dress up in black, me. My other sister did what I told her to do with the camera, (she is really good at that) and We managed to get some photos I was happy with. I used both these shots and another of Jane's eye, so I had one focused on her lashes and one on her iris. 

 And finally it all came together with lots of photoshop layers, experimentation, and fun. I think it looks book cover-ish, or like some story inspiration. Anyway I was quite pleased with the final result. I have called it "Trapped in my Mind."

Retreat is actually the name of the farm my uncle owns. 

We went over there a week ago to celebrate my granny’s 80th, while wandering the farm I discovered a ladder leaning against the main shed. It did not actually occur to me to climb up there until my other uncle (not the one who owns the farm) suggested we could, he also offered to hold the ladder while I went up. It was slightly terrifying, but I got good photos, which is what matters right. There are a lot of chooks at the homestead too so of course I took a lot of pictures of them as well. So without further ado, here are a very few of the hundreds of photos I took at the farm. 

The chook pen is beside the Homestead but you have to go through this really cool gate and vine covered arch to get there. It makes me think of portals to other times and book covers, but it is terribly hard to get a photo of it that looks any good. This one turned out okay though, thanks to the chook. 

 The old homestead at Retreat has recently been done up and is a lovely place to stay, all our family actually fit, with rooms to spare! Which is just not possible anywhere else, because there are so many of us.

Said ladder, that I was not going to climb.... because it was way too high.... but I did anyway.

 The photo below is probably  my favourite shots I took, well today anyway.

And from on the shed roof...

 I was very pleased with how this panorama worked out it is a 180 degree, shot from the corner of the roof.

 even solar panels make nice photos.

 The morning we left I walked out to the hay shed and got some photos there, before hurrying back for breakfast and to help pack up. 

Where have you gone for recent holidays?

Do you have a favourite photo?

My sisters and I have been waiting expectantly for the day Rogue One: A Star Wars Story released, of course we did not go during the middle of the night, we do kind of like sleep. But we went today. Naturally we decided that cosplay was necessary, Even my mum joined in, wearing my Jedi cloak that we made last year. 

Alice and I went full out though. 

I present to you Jyn and Rey. I was a bit disappointed that Jyn has such a boring hair style, but for once all my short fly away hair came in handy. The colours are off, but I thought I did pretty well.

Alice, AKA Rey had a much more interesting hair style I had not even noticed it much before I was wondering what to do with Alice's hair, but I watched a tutorial and then did it up for her.

 I could not find any finger less gloves, but I made some, it was quite hard.... to cut through that thick leather. They are not brown but the worked.

But onto the movie. I promise I won't spoil anything even though I kinda want to. Overall I loved it. I must say though that I was a bit disappointed that the movie did not begin with the scroll of words like every other Star Wars movie does, but I'll forgive that.  It also did not begin with Star Wars music. which was sad, just a big bang of sound and space, stars and a planet. 

I do think that this movie managed to add to the previous ones, mostly in how it gave a good reason for the Death Star, having the fault in it that could be exploited in a way to cause the whole thing to blow up. It made so much sense and was another whole new story.

K-2SO (the black droid) was actually funny, or at least more so, Then C-3PO, as much as I love C-3PO he is sometimes too stupid and too silly, like he is trying too hard to be the funny comic relief. K-2SO made some really good comments that were funny, and not forced, or added to what was going on in a good way. SO I really liked that.

There was lots of cool action, explosions, and fast moving things. My personal preference may have been to have a bit less of that, but it is Star WARS after all. The characters were pretty cool too and they were all quite different. Though there was one that did not seem to have much purpose other than in being there, and carrying a really big gun. Well he had purpose but he did not seem to have any goal other than to protect the blind dude, (who did not need much protecting) and to shoot things with his big gun.

The music did not quite have that same feel to it, because it was not the same composer, but it was still good, I don't actually remember thinking much about it while watching except for some parts missing the right music, like the very start and a Darth Vader scene.

But I enjoyed it quite a lot, and the cosplay made it even better.

Are you going to see Rogue One?

Have you even gone to a movie in cosplay?

 Recently I went on a photographic journey to capture some of the open cut coal mines around where I live. It is very hard to get photographs into the mines from the road. Of course you can't get permission to take photos in the mines I have to make do with what I can see. I got these first two shots by climbing a hill, in a place where the road cut through to top of a hill. From half way up I could see some of the mines on either side of the road. 

 I took most of the photos using a zoom lens because the machinery is often a long way of even if you can see it. That little yellow truck is actually gigantic.  I did stand next to one once and even just the wheels towered over me.

And then of course there is the dust, one thing our area is well known for. This shot rather proves it, as does the fact that a day after I have dusted the house there is a layer of dust again, and the dust is black.

Just a few days ago there was no hill of dirt dividing me from the mines, and you could see right down in. But by the time I got out there again while on my little trip they had built one of their barrier hills... probably to block sound and dust a tiny bit... maybe to stop photographers taking photos. It is notoriously hard to find a place to see in. There is almost always bound to be something in the way. 

So to get these shots I stood on the window sill of my car..... and also climbed a tree. There were some other better trees but the first branch was quite a way up, and I was alone so it was not the safest thing to do... so I very sensibly stopped with the low tree.

Anyway I hope you found my mine tour interesting. If you want to see any more photos from that day you can check them out on Austockphoto, there are heaps.