Hamilton Youth Temple Trip

February 1st, 2014

 

Sunset Ward's Youth Temple Trip...4 Andersons got to go.  Duncan, Elizabeth, Gillian, and Talon are in there somewhere.  A huge thank you from us to the leaders for arranging this fun weekend.  What a great way to start out the school year.  Aren't they wonderful?

Elizabeth's Photoshop Art

This is my best friend. I met her when we moved here, and she's been a blessing to have around. She is always willing to provide me with stock photos of herself, and is thus the subject of many of my projects. In this picture, I played with the lighting and contrast, as well as enhance the color of her irises.

This is one of myself. Here, I found a few pictures of skull fragments and placed them on my face; I then recolored my eyes and the gave the entire photo a metallic coloring.

 This is me, last year. This is one of my first Photoshop endeavors. I just did a little retouching before brightening my eyes and applying one of my favorite filters and a cross sketch texture.

 This was the result of a rainy Auckland day. I experimented with a little bit of camera flare here, as well as a sepia photo filter.

This took about an hour of tutorial following, and I am quite pleased with the result. This model was a free stock photo, as was the flame I used. I employed the glowing edges feature that Photoshop has, a rarely used but exciting tool. I warped the flame picture (many copies of it) to match the model's hair and used a small scatter brush to create cinders.

I enjoy learning and experimenting in Photoshop, and am always accumulating new methods of achieving the same and often better results. Being able to create my own digital works of art is a gratifying skill, and is made easier by the employment of a Wacom graphics tablet, which I always keep near the computer. To any interested, I strongly advise picking this up as a fun and often useful hobby.

Elizabeth at 16

 Elizabeth has really found her inner Mad Scientist this year.  Her interests include Astrophysics, Chemistry, and cutting up dead things in the lab at school.  Then there's My Little Pony, computer programming, and messing around way too much in Photoshop...see below.

KiwiYo is the New Zealand version of Sweetie Peas.  Very tasty.

 This is a clean version of her room.  This is her "Someday I'm Going To Rule the World" pose, add maniacal laugh....maniacal laugh....maniacal laugh.

 Meet Twilight Sparkle, Liz wants to be her when she grows up.

This is what Elizabeth looks like when she's messing around making normal photos look freaky.

Rose Gardens and Gelato

 Saturday morning was great weather for a Parnell Rose Garden tour.  Ryan and I took our girls for a light stroll through the grounds.  Ryan enjoyed the fragrance in the air, but said, "Its not anywhere as nice as driving through the citrus groves in Phoenix." 

 Penelope started smelling every flower but soon grew light headed.

 It was everything she had not to pick at them all.

 This rose was my favorite for the pink fading into yellow.  Fire and ice roses are also among my favorites.

Ryan liked this dusky purple.  Afterwards we went to Casa del Gelato on Parnell Street.

Elizabeth = Fruity Summer
Gillian = Snickers
Penelope = Mint Chocolate Chip