LIGHT PAINTING A PURSE

We had a fun photography class this week on Tuesday at TRU where we learned to light paint! I wasn't quite sure what our professor was talking about even though she showed us a video on light painting but once we turned out the light, put our cameras on the tables to steady them (should have brought a tripod) and then turned the shutter speed way down, we had fun. The hardest part was trying to focus our cameras in the dark, we had to to focus quickly while the flashlight was on them and then hope the picture was in focus. One of our fellow students also showed where the "bulb" button was on our cameras ( I have a Canon EOS XS, yes I know pretty basic but it has taken some pretty sweet pictures for me over the years!) and so we were happily trying that. Have to admit, not many of mine turned out but the couple that did made me happy. Here's my favourite!!

BACK TO SCHOOL AT TRU....IN THE DAAD PROGRAM

I haven't been blogging lately because I headed back to school this fall after 20 years! I'm enrolled in the Digital Art and Design program (referred to as DAAD) and finding it overwhelming some days! I love what I'm learning and it really pushes my creativity. I'm also having to work on my time management skills as I have so many projects due every week and not enough time to work on them. I am learning to do homework every day so that I'm not waiting to the last minute to get something done...this really helps my stress load! I thought I would include a poster that I made for my typography class. We needed to combine type and an image and follow all the instructions to the letter...then we all show our projects to be critiqued (there are about 18 of us). It is definitely humbling to be with kids half your age who are creative geniuses but I am certainly learning a lot from them.

This project worked out well because it's been a page I've been wanting to do for a long time! It was a Visually Enhanced Quotation and I used a favourite picture that I took of my Mitchell playing soccer and added it to a quote. I happily worked on it in Photoshop (extracted it, copied it, layered the opacity and moved it behind layers several times) and then worked on the type in InDesign. It's the learning Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator that are the big learning curves for me....loving it and finding it frustrating all at the same time!

Here's my Mitchell:

RUNNING 5K

It was quite the experience to be in the Kamloops Marathon this morning! I decided to start with the 5K because I have been using the 5K Runner app on my iPhone. I thought it would be fun to have a goal and this run was perfect timing considering it was my last day of being 46!! I'm grateful for my two girlfriends Shauna and Paula who have been walking and running with me for years because it certainly helped me today. What I haven't been doing enough is hills and that made it harder today. There are a lot of hills around TRU and I was running them today! Have to admit, we still miss Boogie the Bridge but now that they hold it on Sunday, we haven't been running it!

I was especially grateful for my family who showed up to cheer me on, I'm hoping they will run with me next year...although I'm pretty sure my kids will leave me in the dust!! The pictures are thanks to Don who happily took over my camera as long as he could shoot in Sports Mode!! I'm thinking of doing our church sponsored 10K in September! There really is something exhilarating and fun in running with a crowd of others and having to cross a finish line that makes you work that little bit harder! Anyone want to join me in September? Let me know....