~Autumn in Los Angeles~

Is almost as pretty as in New England....and the weather is wonderful too!

These gigantic leaves were everywhere at the Getty Center and in the gardens..

These gorgeous, spiky Japanese maple trees had leaves turning in layers of light gold, apple green and scarlet...

Even more brilliant than the maples back home!

And in the rain gutters the giant leaves floated away...:)

8 FREE textures :)...and some birds

  I recently came across some old photos that I reworked with texture and thought I would share them here. I also created a few new free textures....see below...

Northern Cardinal, my mother's driveway, East Greenwich, RI

Starlings on a telephone wire. Chatham, MA

And here are some free textures I created, feel free to download and use them in your photography or digital artwork! You can download them by clicking on them and opening in a new window below, or visiting my Flickr "textures" page here.  Textures are free and for use in your commercial or personal work...(no derivatives of my work, and not for sale as is...thanks!!)

November Leaves texture

Aqua Bubbles texture

Aqua Bubbles II texture

Coastal Bokeh texture

Make a Wish texture

80's Pink texture

I starting creating textures in Photoshop when I began using them from Flickr in a group that shares beautiful textures for use in digital creations...I always make sure to credit the original artist and have had countless hours of fun using these! I figured I could share them as well, and give back to this community that is so generous. My favorite Flickr textures group is Textures for Layers. I have also used various textures from Shana Rae of the wonderful Florabella brand. Her textures and actions are not free, but worth every penny! She is helpful and very talented! Her portraiture provides a lot of inspiration, and her blog is amazing. I highly recommend her actions, too- particularly the "Vintage" ones. They are my "go-to" actions for amazing, subtle effects!

Hope you like these....enjoy....and thanks so much for all your encouraging words...they really mean a lot! I know it's not easy these days to be able to find the time to visit/ comment on all the blogs we follow and enjoy reading...so those of you guys who read and leave me messages really make my day!  I do READ all of your blogs...I'm just lazy about commenting! lol. I am trying to be a better bloggy friend! Just learning now how to use my smart phone, so maybe that will help! :)   <3.... Mary

Cosmic Love...

I'm so in love with Florence Welch's voice. Isn't it beautiful? this is an acoustic version, but you can also find the original on youtube. I made the below piece inspired by their song....

Cosmic Love/Florence & the Machine

And I took this photo of the moon this evening...:)

And the beautiful luna moth. I have only seen one live in my life, but I have a preserved specimen of a female luna moth under glass. I used photoshop to extract a moon photo I took and place the moth on top.

And finally, this is an photo I took of hundreds of crows outside my living room window. The moon was added afterwards, in photoshop.

Hope you enjoyed. Let me know what you think of the music...You can find the original video here.

Happy Wednesday! xo~Mary

Autumn Country Drive...

Just a few random scenes from last weekend. .....and my "texture tuesday" submission (my first!) which used a lovely texture made by Kim...

Most of these were taken on the way to Putnam, Connecticut from RI. Putnam had a lovely little downtown festival going on last weekend. It's a great little place to find antiques, too.

I discovered this new coffee place in Plainfield, Baker's Dozen, that I am obsessed with. Above was their tempting Pumpkinchino ad, but I opted for the Iced Chai, which was the BEST iced chai I've ever had. Sweet, with skim milk and just the right amount of spices. YUM! I should have taken a pic of it.

Above, top, this deer was staring at me when I  was stopped at a traffic light. It was a rather long time, so I got out my camera and snapped a pic. Isn't he cute??  Center and bottom: maple leaves and cozy brown house; colorful lakeside leaves.

That's the great thing about New England..I am always finding new places to discover. RI is so small that "taking a drive" means you end up out of state at least twice a week. And the changes in nature, wildlife, foliage, and even people from just a few minutes of traveling in any direction makes it fun to explore.

We're having a snowstorm right now, (unheard of in October) so this may be the last time I had to take fall pics....(sniffle!)  :)  ~Mary

Light + Orange & Red Maple = Bliss

I had some time this weekend to do nothing but drive around looking for the most colorful trees I could find. It seems the further west I drive, the more colorful they get. We still think it is due to Hurricane Irene and the salt from the ocean that burned a lot of the trees in coastal New England. Here is a preview. Happy Monday!

True story: for the third photo above, I snuck into a deserted parking lot of a church. I figured it was empty and no one would mind. Right as I pulled out my camera, these HUGE dogs came running over to the chainlink fence that was there and began barking. I guess they were church guard dogs? I love dogs, but I swear these dogs were bigger than Saint Bernards and had fangs. As I took the photos I said out loud "Nice Doggy!" until finally I figured the barking would annoy the neighbors and left. But I got some nice shots..heheh!