Sidewalk Spirits

Cassie did this one on the storm door; the strokes reminded me of ghostly figures, but after applying my usual filters the "ghosts" disappeared. My first experiment with the stylus (last post) turned out OK so I decided to have another go at it - what FUN!! The work is definitely changing (for the better?). There are hundreds of photos to recheck - no boredom here, for sure!

My partner is napping at the moment, recuperating from a weekend of deer-chasing, with a side order of bird watching! Buzzards drive her crazy - there was one wheeling low over the back yard yesterday, and Crackerdog was running and barking furiously, following the bird instead of watching where she was going! Fortunately she missed the fence posts and other obstacles - whew.

Back in Action!

Hot off the Wacom tablet! Cassie does so much "brushwork" that won't show up when I start filtering (not to mention claw marks and other refinements). I decided to try the stylus over a lightly filtered photo to capture the marks and scratches on this one, then filtered more, used one of my custom gradients, and finally used the stylus again to add color and more lines. It opens all sorts of new possibilities!

One of Cassie's favorite tricks, when she was a bit younger, was to bang on the window with her front paws for added emphasis. I expected the window to break on many occasions, but it never did. She has scratched the glass - guess there was grit under her claws that did it. Evidently from this photo, she can still do it when she gets sufficiently riled!

Something New

Since "PiCassieO" is not in an art-making mood at the moment, we've added a tribute to our inspiration, Pablo Picasso. Scroll all the way down and see a different masterpiece every day!

Getting Lazy

What can I say - at this point I'd gladly trade places with my dog. We've had three straight days of rain and gloom, which is two days past my limit, and all I want to do is curl up and sleep until it's over. One of Cassie's favorite tricks is to wait until I get out of bed, throw the covers over it, and head for the head in the morning: as soon as I'm out of sight, she jumps up and scrambles the covers and sacks out in my warm spot until she hears me coming. Usually she's sitting on the back of the couch looking out the window (and looking really innocent) by the time I get back, but this time I caught her in the act! She's entirely too cute to be fussed at, a fact of which I'm quite sure she's aware. Art later - sleep now.

Cassie's Nose Garden, Updated!

After a few days of extreme winter, it's suddenly spring again; we're talkin' tee shirts and flowers here! Cassie's Nose Garden has been here before, but I like it so much I decided to revise it a little and post it in honor of the season. Now I see more that I'd like to change, so it'll probably be back again.

The deer have been running all over our property and Cassie has been working hard at her "window painting." Lots of new material there - but the light this time of year is not cooperative for photographing it. At some point I'm going to be forced to clean the glass so we can see out!

"Snowy Day"

Yeah, I know this doesn't look like snow, but this is what resulted when I photographed Cassie's marks against the snowy trees in the afternoon. We had a really wild ride this weekend, weather-wise, with torrential rains and a flood watch on Sunday, followed by falling temps and about 6 inches of wet, heavy snow that night. Of course Cassie, in her all-weather coat, enjoyed it immensely - especially when she was playing snow-plow. That's when she runs with her mouth open, scooping up snow as she goes! My previous Airedale Daisy liked that too, except after a few mouthfuls of the ice - cold flakes, she would always barf. Cassie's tum is evidently made of stronger stuff.