Wednesday, August 01, 2012

For later...

Yesterday, the kids and I met up with some friends at Lake Katherine--a nature center and botanic gardens. It's one of my favorite places to go for inspiration, and a good place to let the kids get out and see what they can see. The hiking trail is a giant circle, so there's no worry about them running ahead and getting lost. 
I'll take my camera and have different ideas of what I'm looking for: contrast, shapes, color, birds, bugs, trees, water...
Yesterday, I just photographed what I found interesting. Later I'll sketch some of these in my sketchbook, and turn them into works on their own. 

A heart-shaped leaf caught in a spiderweb

Goldfinch dining on coneflower seeds

Monarch butterfly on a butterfly bush

Fat, fluffy sunflower

Ornamental cabbage

Hummingbird

Hibiscus

Birch trees

Rocks at the edge of the lake

Super friendly duck

Frog! (Look closely, he's camouflaged!)

Waterfall, stream, trees

Having your camera* allows you to quickly grab visual references--this is especially important when you are travelling with people who won't wait for you to sit down and sketch things out.

Take your camera and take a walk!

* For the record, I shot all of these with a Canon Powershot A540. It has 6 mega pixels. I got it second hand. You don't need a giant monster digital SLR with 12 megapixels to get decent images. However, if you HAVE  a giant monster digital SLR, I envy you.

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